Please Help Japan

Kurate 2009

This is an interesting Japanese white wine made with Wakazumi Kyoho grapes. Kyoho is a type of grape popular in Japan, Tawian and Korea but also grown in California and Chile.

Kyoho means "Giant Mountain", so Kyoho grapes are Giant Mountain Grapes. The Wakazumi at the beginning of the grapes name in this wine means "picked young".

The Japanese winery making this wine, who I spoke to, (I actually got this wine as a sample when I met the salesman at a gift show in Osaka, they were looking for distributors), said it's an unusual wine as it's high in prophenol which is good for the skin I believe, so they were targetting it mainly to women.Also due to it's lower alcohol % (it's only 10%), it might appeal more to women.

They pick the grapes early which means they have 3 times as many prophenols as they would if picked at the usual time.

So is the wine any good?

Well, it has a light golden colour with a strong smell of apples and alcohol.

Quite an unusual taste, lots of tannins, or at least if feels a bit rough or tart. It reminded me of cooked, stewed apple or pear juice.

A little bit sour on the aftertaste and it's very dry. It really dried my mouth out.

I would say it's ok for one glass, but a bit too sour and stewed juice like for me, but that's obviously just my taste.
I would suggest trying it out if you can find it (I'm not sure if they've found any distributors yet), as it's an unusual wine and not a common grape variety for wine.

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