Asaya Winery, Katsunuma, Japan

We were heading to Grace Winery, one of the larger and I guess more renowned Japanese wineries when we spotted a sign on the other side of the road for Asaya Winery.

So we decided to nip in there for a quick tasting first and we were very glad we did!

Asaya Winery Tasting Room

We were taken upstairs to the tasting room (it wasn’t very busy, there was one other couple waiting downstairs by the reception office for the lady to open up the room when we arrived) and a gorgeous room it was too.

It was all nicely laid out with sets of tables, some comfortable chairs, wines on display down the side wall and a bar near the entrance.

Big Wine Bottles

While we were waiting for the other couple to buy some wines we had a look at their selection of wines along the wall and were suprised to see huge 1.8 litre (sake bottle size) bottles of their red wines.

First time I’d seen this size of bottle which is exclusive to Katsunuma apparently (I saw them later at an off license around the town, and took a video of them, it can be seen at this bog post – Big Wine Bottles from Japan).

The other odd thing about these bottles is the style of closure they use. They don’t use cork or screw-cap but a kind of plastic covering.

Unusual Wine Closure

We also discovered here that this winery and probably most of them in Katsunuma will ship the wines back home for you (admittedly our home is in Japan so I’m not sure about international shipping).

Asaya Winery Tasting

So we bought a couple of bottles, obviously including one of the huge L’Espoir wines (it’s one of their most popular sellers apparently) and headed ovder the road to Grace Winery.

If you do visit Katsunuma, I do recommend you visit this winery. Although there’s no tour or anything but they’re very friendly and the wine is good.