Wine, Beer, Sake, Whiskey Blog at MoIppai » Wineries

Kobe Wine Tunnel

MoIppai — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:50:34 +0000

Kobe Wine Tunnel - Photo Credit : Asahi Shinbun

There was an interesting article in the
Asahi Shinbun (Asahi Newspaper).
It’s obviously in Japanese so I’ve tried to translate the gist of it here.

It seems over 40 years ago Port Island in Kobe was being built and a huge tunnel was dug to move the sand and rock from the mountain down to the island.

This tunnel, which is 7km long and between 4-8m wide and 3-5m high, was first used in 1964 but was closed down in 2005.

This year, the converyor belt used to move the material through the tunnel was removed and as of 18th March, Kobe Winery are renting about 135m of the tunnel to store around 140,000 bottles of their wine.

Obviously tunnels, like cellars are ideal places to store wine due to their steady cool temperature, away from the Japanese summer humidity.

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L’Orient Winery, Katsunuma Japan

MoIppai — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:16:22 +0000

A pleasant 30 minute walk from our B&B led us to L’Orient Winery (also called Shirayuri Winery).

L'Orient Winery

We really struck gold with this one, as while we were wandering around the shop and tasting room the winery owner, Mr Takao Uchida, who was extremely friendly with everyone, started talking to us and was very interested that I was from England, as he and a some other winemakers in Katsunuma were heading to England to promote the regions wines in Britain.

He was also going to show a family around the vineyards and asked if we would like to tag along.
Of course we jumped at the chance!
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Read the rest of L’Orient Winery, Katsunuma Japan (548 words)

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Post tags: Japan, Japanese Wine, Japanese Wineries, Katsunuma, L'Orient Winery, Wineries, Yamanashi

Chateau Mercian Katsunuma Winery

MoIppai — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:28:05 +0000

One of the largest and most famous wineries in Japan is Chateau Mercian and the Mercian Katsunuma Winery.

Mercian Winery

This is the Japanese wine you usually find in supermarkets and convenience stores throughout Japan. They tend to cover all price ranges from the cheapest, table/cooking wine to expensive vintage wine. Grace Winery on the other hand for example seems to concentrate on the higher quality wines.

Mercian Winery

The Mercian Katsunuma Winery is just up the road from the Soryu, Domaine Chateraise and Chanmoris wineries and we visited twice, we were too late for the tour on the first day so came back the next for the guided tour round the winery, which unfortunately doesn’t take you out in to the vineyards but just around the winery buildings. It was still quite interesting and free, so worth the visit.
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Read the rest of Chateau Mercian Katsunuma Winery (346 words)

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Post tags: Chateau Mercian, Japanese Wine, Japanese Wineries, Katsunuma, Wineries, Yamanashi Prefecture

Japanese Koshu Wine Promoted In UK

MoIppai — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:42:15 +0000

I read today that the Yamanashi governor Shomei Yokouchi and a group of winery owners from Yamanashi Prefecture are currently promoting their Japanese Koshu white wines in Europe, starting off in London.

This reminded me of when my wife and I visited L’Orient Winery in Katsunuma, (the main city in Yamanashi prefecture) last summer and met Mr Takao Uchida the president of Shirayuri Winery Company. He told us about their plans for promoting the Katsunuma wine in the UK.

Takao Uchidasan President of Shirayuri Winery (and us)

A really friendly guy who gave us a tour of his vineyards and let us try the grapes off the vine!
He’s also appeared in a Japanese manga about food and wine,
called “Oishinbo” (美味しんぼ）　- it’s not often you get to meet a comic character in real life!
(Issue 80 if anyone’s interested – a special on Katsunuma wines and wineries).

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Read the rest of Japanese Koshu Wine Promoted In UK (212 words)

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Post tags: Domaine Chateraise, Japanese Wine, Japanese Wineries, Katsunuma, Manga, Shirayuri Winery, Wineries

Chanmoris Winery, Katsunuma Japan

MoIppai — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:21:54 +0000

The next winery on our tour of Katsunuma wineries in Japan was directly across the road from Domaine Chateraise, the Chanmoris Winery owned by the rather long named company Koshu Budou ShuHonPo.
Not sure what that translates as but Koshu Budou = Koshu Grapes, which are the only native grapes to Japan, and make up a lot of Japanese wines.

Chanmoris Winery, Japan

It was out of season to visit wineries (mid August), at least so it seemed as the place was deserted and we were the only visitors (there was a couple of other people in the tasting room but they were just leaving as we arrived).

First we had a wander around the short tour of the winery buildings, which meant you basically walked past some windows into the rooms where the machinery was all laying unused.
(...)
Read the rest of Chanmoris Winery, Katsunuma Japan (273 words)

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Post tags: Chanmoris Winery, Japanese Wine, Katsunuma, Wine Tasting, Wineries, Yamanashi