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

Wine Clubs Specialize in the Unique

MoIppai — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 07:38:04 +0000

Today’s post is a Guest Post brought to you by Celebration Wine Club.

Unique Wines Provide Special Value to Wine Clubs Members

Celebrations Wine Club prides itself on offering unique wines through all of its wine clubs packages. Starting with a dedication to small, family-run wineries, Celebrations Wine Club then selects only the most unique wines from each winery. The high-quality wines pressed at smaller wineries are often only found in wine clubs like Celebrations Wine Club. Mass-produced wines cannot offer the same quality, taste and depth as these smaller-production wines. This is one reason wine clubs are so popular with wine connoisseurs.

Variety and Value Comprise Wine Clubs

Wine lovers from all walks of life and with all types of experience with wines can enjoy wine clubs. The variety of wines available as well as the value that wine clubs offer will appeal to many wine lovers. Celebrations Wine Club, for instance, offers wine club packages that highlight wines from both California and Italy. Members of these wine clubs will enjoy small batches of high quantity wines that likely can’t be found elsewhere. Just as importantly, these wine clubs end up supporting small, local and family-run wineries. Never the same products from month to month, Celebrations Wine Club provides access to new and upcoming wines as well as the more traditional wines.

The Hill of Grapes, Katsunuma (ぶどうの丘）

MoIppai — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 03:40:44 +0000

On a hill overlooking Katsunuma is an onsen (spa) and wine tasting tourist centre called
Budou no oka – ぶどうの丘 or The Hill of Grapes in English, which we visited on our last day before heading home, and in hindsight perhaps it would have been better to go there first.

The View from the Hill of Grapes

We skipped the onsen, and after a quick lunch (and a local beer, the Katsunuma Kai Draft) to line the stomach we headed down to the tasting area in the cellar.
You pay about ￥1100 ($11) and as well as free reign in the cellar you also get a “tastevin” which is a small, silver saucer you wear round your neck to taste wines with, and which you can take home as a souvenir.
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Read the rest of The Hill of Grapes, Katsunuma (ぶどうの丘） (262 words)

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

Grace Winery, Katsunuma, Japan

MoIppai — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:56:28 +0000

Grace Winery is one of the larger, more well-known and perhaps even more prestigious Japanese wineries with some of their wines included in the JAL First Class Wine list, so it was one our list of wineries to check out while we were touring Katsunuma.

Grace Winery, Katsunuma

The tasting room is on the first floor of an old(ish), ivy covered building just opposite the Asaya Winery with a nice view overlooking Katsunuma and the Grace Vineyards.

Grace Vineyards

Of all the wineries we visited this was probably the largest tasting room with a bar covering one entire wall and it was also the busiest – although at the time we visited that only meant about 20 people.
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Read the rest of Grace Winery, Katsunuma, Japan (320 words)

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Post tags: Grace Winery, Japanese Wineries, Katsunuma, Yamanashi Prefecture

Asaya Winery, Katsunuma, Japan

MoIppai — Sun, 23 May 2010 05:33:04 +0000

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.
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Read the rest of Asaya Winery, Katsunuma, Japan (249 words)

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

Sake Tasting at the Kobe Sheraton Hotel 2009

MoIppai — Sun, 16 May 2010 05:08:29 +0000

Back in November of last year I went to my first proper Sake Tasting which was held in the Kobe Sheraton Hotel on Rokko Island (a man-made island just off the coast of Kobe).

Nihonshu Festival 2009

I’ve been to informal tastings at sake breweries but I was intersted to see how a sake tasting differed from a wine one (not that I’ve been to many wine tastings though!).

The first thing that struck me was how crowded and noisy it was. The hall wasn’t that big, a few hundred capacity with tables all around the edge, 2 rows of tables in the middle creating a circuit and a stage with live Jazz and Rakugo (more of that later – and a clip is in the video later).

Sake Tasting

Breweries from all over Japan

The middle section was taken up nearly completely by local breweries from Hyogo prefecture (which is the prefecture Kobe is in, so that makes sense). Hyogo also has something like 60% of the total number of Sake breweries in Japan.
Then around the edge of the hall were breweries from the rest of Japan.
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Read the rest of Sake Tasting at the Kobe Sheraton Hotel 2009 (422 words)

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Post tags: Nihonshu, Sake, Sake Tasting