Tasting Terre de Ciel, the Nagano Winery Everyone Is Talking About

"Right, what shall I do today? Is there anything wine-related happening nearby?"

That was the thought, and while I was looking at the LoveWine site I found a Terre de Ciel tasting — in Tokyo.

Virtus Jingumae — a tasting of nothing but Terre de Ciel (LoveWine event listing)

I'd been hearing about Terre de Ciel: a Nagano winery making very good things, popularity climbing fast. High on my list of places to visit.

Terre de Ciel — official site

I'd been waiting for a chance to drink them, and here was a tasting in Tokyo. Obviously I was going.

Decision made on the spot.

The venue

A wine shop called Virtus Jingumae. They deal mainly in natural wine, and apparently run a tasting of domestic wine like this about once a month.

Inside you can see the traces of all the wineries that have passed through. The staff are passionate about wine and good company, so if you're nearby, go.

It started at three; I arrived five minutes early and everyone was already there. Around ten of us, including me.

No producer present this time.

The format: hold out your glass, get served in turn, taste.

Two things to know:

・It's inside a wine shop, so it's a little cramped.

・One glass each. Which is fine — but twelve wines get poured in about twenty minutes to keep things moving, so it isn't the kind of session where you get to know any one wine slowly.

My own gripes: I was standing towards the back of the shop and struggled to hear the explanations. And when I asked a question of the kind you'd put to a producer, the answer came back odd.

The question was: "You seem to use fibreglass tanks and stainless tanks for different wines — why?" Which really only the maker can answer. My fault.

But it stayed with me, so I went and read up on what each tank does, and I think I now half-understand what the maker was trying to express in each variety.

A quick summary of the two tanks

1. Material and construction

2. Temperature control

• Fibreglass
  • Resin conducts heat poorly, so the contents feel the outside temperature
  • Hard to fit temperature control to, which suits spontaneous ferments and low-cost small-scale production
  • Holding the temperature down in summer, or during fermentation, takes some effort
• Inox
  • Metal conducts heat well, so cooling jackets and temperature sensors are easy to build in
  • Precise control is possible; excellent for managing fermentation

3. Oxygen permeability, and what it does to the wine

• Fibreglass
  • Slightly oxygen-permeable — nowhere near a wooden barrel, but not hermetic either
  • Tends to give a softer, rounder mouthfeel
  • Favoured for natural wine and for styles that want a little oxygen
• Inox
  • Essentially zero oxygen transfer
  • Ideal where you want the fruit straight and oxidation kept off — whites, rosés, aromatic varieties
  • Tends towards clean, fresh wine

4. Flavour and style

• Fibreglass
  • Adds the nuance of oxidative ageing without adding oak
  • Soft, settled texture
  • Common among small regional producers and natural winemakers
  • e.g. small wineries in southern France and South America, and some natural producers in Japan
• Inox
  • Keeps the pure varietal aromatics to the maximum
  • Crisp, clean, sharp
  • The mainstream choice for producers who prioritise temperature control
  • e.g. Alsace Riesling, New World Sauvignon Blanc

Now, the tasting. Twelve wines were laid on. Terre de Ciel splits its range into three tiers:

• Raisin series — made from bought-in fruit
• Maison series — made from fruit grown in Komoro City and Takayama village
• Domaine series — 100% estate fruit

It wasn't an environment for taking many photos, so forgive me.

Here are the ones that stayed with me.

The wines

Raisin Rosé 2024 (Maison series)

100% Merlot, and the first good Merlot I've had in a while. As you can see, the colour is pale, close to a rosé.

The nose is full of red berries and forceful young grape. The palate has a distinctive sweet-sourness, almost gummy-sweet, plus a grapefruit element.

This tasting ran in three sittings and I was in the last one, so there was probably some haze from the bottom of the bottle. There also seemed to be something like tartrate crystals, despite the wine's youth — though the same glass had been refilled many times, so it may have come from another wine.

Tartrates suggest plenty of matter in the wine, and in my experience those tend to be the ones I find delicious.

And true enough: pale as it looks, the nose and the mouth both had juiciness.

Syrah 2023 (Domaine series)

The firm deep red you want from Syrah. Acidity and spice fused in a way that recalls the northern Rhône, resolved elegantly. More acid-driven and a shade paler than the northern Rhône, but with plenty of tannin. Almost no residual sugar — properly dry — so it will taste better still with food.

Pinot Noir 2023 (Domaine)

No photo. Dark for a Pinot Noir. Already showing cigar and leaf-mould notes. It would be interesting with more age. Firm, in a good way. It'll show its potential some way down the road. Powerful and delicious.

Twelve wines in all. I wanted to enjoy each one more slowly. And the natural-wine character does run through the whole range.

I went back and forth with the Domaine Pinot Noir, but bought my favourite of the day — the Maison Rosé — and took it home.

Taking the Maison Rosé slowly at home

You only really know a wine after you've drunk a whole bottle of it.

Opened. Straight after pulling the cork there's a lot of SO2, and it's reductive, the nose not yet fully open. Fermentation must be finished, but it tasted drier than it had at the tasting.

To eat: octopus fishcake. The savouriness and sweetness of octopus and fish should sit well against a wine this delicate. Plus, for the season, bitter melon with vinegared miso.

As expected — an excellent match. I stopped before the bottle was done, hoping that on day two, with the SO2 blown off, the flavour and the aromatics would open out further.

Chances to taste like this don't come often, and I'm grateful for them. Grateful, too, that a wine shop thinks up its own ways to give its customers a good time. It raises your own level, and that feeds back into everything you go on to explore. A good afternoon.

This is the English edition of an article first written in Japanese. 日本語版はこちら.

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