This is where I start: getting the world to recognise Japanese wine.
And I want people here in Japan to see how good it is all over again.
If you feel the same way about what Japanese wine is worth, let's carry it out to the world together.
I'm nothing more than someone who loves wine. I love ordering a bottle at a bistro or a wine bar and drinking it casually with friends over a plate of chips. I love the formal restaurant too, where a sommelier pours carefully and the room is quiet and precise. And I love the wine bar where you sit alone with a glass and just look at it for a while.
The muscular Bordeaux and the delicate Burgundy and the seductive Champagne of France. Italy's brilliant Nebbiolo and its beloved everyday Montepulciano. The passionate Tempranillo of Spain, the endlessly varied Riesling of Germany, the Cabernet Sauvignon of America built like Superman, the big gentle Carménère of Chile. The world is overflowing with wines that pull people in.
I love all of them.
If I could, I'd drink wine every day.
The same wine tastes different depending on the day, on my own mood, on who I'm drinking it with.
That once-only quality β ichigo ichie, one meeting, one chance β is what I love about wine.
I live in Japan. I've drunk wine from all over the world here.
Have I drunk much of Japan's own wine?
No. Not yet.
I still don't know it. And I suspect that plenty of people outside Japan know Japanese culture without knowing that Japan makes wine at all.
That's what got me thinking.
So: let's send the good wine of this country out into the world from here.
And let's have people in Japan discover it too, and grow the number of fans.
I'm a small creature, about the size of a rat. Alone I can't do anything.
But if even a few more people come along and enjoy Japanese wine together, maybe that becomes a wave big enough to move the world.
Let's do it the way you'd play a game β enjoying ourselves β and get the culture of Japanese wine known.
You, reading this: something about Japanese wine must have caught you, or you wouldn't have found your way here.
Let's enjoy what comes next together.
25 February 2025
This is the English edition of an article first written in Japanese. ζ₯ζ¬θͺηγ―γγ‘γ.