I want to drink Japanese wine. I want to drink Japanese wine. Is there anything on this week?
That's roughly how I was thinking, poking around on impulse the way I always do, when I found a wine event on 20 September in a town called Komoro in Nagano, with the local wineries taking part.
Komoro — isn't that where Terre de Ciel is made? I'd tasted their wines not long before at a shop in Tokyo called Virtus.
The site said around twenty wineries would be there.
Terre de Ciel had been so good, and this was a chance to get to know Nagano, one of Japan's great growing regions. Decision made: going.
KOMORO WINE DAYS 2025, Autumn
Cloudy on the day, unfortunately, with occasional rain — but not too cold and not too hot. Fine weather for it, really.
Which winery, which wine? I stood there with the list, unable to decide.
Still deciding.
Still deciding.
And then, more or less at random, the first glass:
Hạnh Phúc Sparkling 2023 — Gio Hills Winery
Hạnh Phúc Sparkling 2023 released — Gio Hills Winery, Komoro, Nagano
I'd place it a tier below An Sinh Sparkling, the winery's flagship.
100% Chardonnay, barrel-fermented, second fermentation in bottle.
The nose is yeast and toast, very strong and very cleanly drawn.
The colour is a deep yellow for a sparkling wine. Given it's a 2023, that reads as oak rather than age.
Clear grapefruit, a touch of bitterness, faint sweet suggestions of marmalade and cherry. Bold, and it states its case.
Delicious. I may already have met the wine of the day.
Hạnh Phúc apparently means happiness — fortune, fate, the way things come together. A good omen to start on.
Curious about the rest of their range, I stayed at Gio Hills for a second glass.
Cám ơn Chardonnay 2024 — Gio Hills Winery
Cám ơn Chardonnay (2024) — Gio Hills online shop
Young, but a definite yellow. Barrel-fermented, barrel-aged.
A different impression from the sparkling.
There's the buttery character of malolactic fermentation, and a composure and weight that recall French Chardonnay. They ferment with wild yeast, so perhaps that's the yeast talking.
Also very good.
The earlier impression was still with me and I wanted more, so: Terre de Ciel.
Raisin en Rouge 2023 — Terre de Ciel
Three varieties: Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon.
A translucent red. Masses of red flowers on the nose.
Less fruit-flavoured than restrained in residual sugar.
It reads as a wine built for leaf mould, forest after rain, moss. The tartness of red fruit and the bitterness of chewing a flower stand out. It has real body, and there's a little herb on the finish.
The site itself
2023 marked fifty years of growing wine grapes in Komoro, apparently.
You take that history in while you're there; there are paintings hung around the site, and you can sit on the hill and drink slowly.
The big Tokyo events are fine, but I love this kind of thing — out of the city, an event the local people love — for how much calmer it feels.
Hungry, so out of the venue for a bit
On the way to KOMORO WINE DAYS I'd passed something I badly wanted to try.
Miso ramen, made with Yamabuki miso from Shinshu Miso Co.
Yamabuki Miso — official site of a Shinshu miso house with 350 years of history
Handsome building, too. Fermenting soybeans has something in common with wine. I'd like miso culture to travel the world as well. I should try making a miso snack to drink wine with. This is Suhisa Shoten's Komoro main shop, incidentally, and they sell limited editions — I only went as far as the ramen counter, but I wish I'd bought something to take home. Next time.
The ramen itself:
Topped with spicy mustard greens, served in a separate dish and generous enough that I started wanting rice with it.
The miso is less salty than I'd expected and feels refined. You can taste the soybean — the miso house's miso ramen, exactly as advertised. Light, and it doesn't sit on you afterwards. Nice.
Fed, and back for the second half
Back to the site, and on through some more.
M Chardonnay 2022 (orange) — Calaria Vineyard
Wine & Product — Calaria / Trust and Associates
NUKAJI ROSE 2024 — Nouhana
blanc 2022 — getta wines
Then back to Gio Hills for the last glass.
Phantom Rouge 2023 — Gio Hills Winery
Hương thơm Rouge 2023 — bronze medal, Japan Wine Competition — Gio Hills online shop
What's that? No tasting notes?
By the end I was drunk and drinking slowly for the pleasure of it. Being able to take 25ml and 50ml pours and try a lot of things was genuinely great.
I forgot to photograph the food, but I ate a black-pepper venison sausage made with Komoro venison by the Institute of Biological Resource Utilisation. Very juicy, well peppered, no gaminess, but with more flavour and more chew than a supermarket sausage. I'd eat it again.
I also had the prosciutto and cheese baguette from et cetera. No shortage of things to eat alongside the wine.
It runs twice a year, I gather — May and September? — and I'll be at the next one.
A thoroughly satisfying KOMORO WINE DAYS.
This is the English edition of an article first written in Japanese. 日本語版はこちら.