Koshu of Japan tasting at 67 Pall Mall
This wasn’t my first Koshu rodeo.
If you haven’t yet tried Koshu from Japan’s Yamanashi prefecture (and chances are you haven’t — we see very little in the UK and there’s nothing at everyday prices), here’s a quick briefing from the Koshu of Japan website:
The vineyards of Yamanashi lie at the foothills of Mount Fuji, the majestic mountain which is one of the magical symbols of Japan and also a World Heritage site. Approximately one thousand years ago, the Koshu grape travelled along the Silk Route and found its Japanese home in the Prefecture of Yamanashi.
Koshu berries form long distinctively pinkish grey clusters. They are thick-skinned making them fairly resistant to disease; the aromatics are delicate, with notes of Japanese citrus and savoury, minerally flavours.
Koshu is very pale in colour, with aromas of citrus and white peach. The combination of low alcohol and crisp acidity results in wines that are delicate and subtle, making them an obvious choice for subtly flavoured dishes.
They have a linear Zen-like quality which is all about balance.
This tasting showed the diversity of Koshu — yes, it’s inherently sleek, delicate and elegant, but it can also take on a lot of winemaking to turn it into something quite different.
There were orange wines, sparkling Koshu (both Charmat and Traditional Method), barrel fermented, lees-aged, part-barrel/part-stainless-steel, off-dry with residual sugar, different soil types and altitudes.
And amongst all this experimentation and innovation, there was also classic Koshu, where the grape is allowed to express its own personality more than that of the wine-maker.
Anyone who studies Japanese language and society will know that contemporary Japanese identity is something of an unresolved topic in the types of academic circles that like to debate these things: what is it and does it even exist? Is there an inherent Japanese-ness? If so, is it a spontaneous otaku-type phenomenon or an artifice in the way of Kūru Japan government propaganda? Does it exist on its own terms or only in reaction to a certain “westernness” against which it defines itself.
The same questions could be asked of Koshu, the grape being almost a microcosm for Japan itself.
For, while it has its own inherent nature, as this tasting showed, it can also choose to express itself in a more international style, affecting western appearance and habits.
Which, if either, is the real Koshu?
Should it, like the country’s former capital Kyoto, be forced to remain in its pure, supposedly-historic “Japanese” state, stuck in a timewarp forever for the entertainment of foreigners at the behest of propaganda ministries who demand that Japan be different because it’s well, … different?
Or should it, like the rest of the world, absorb, adopt and reflect international trends, developing over time dynamically?
In some ways, it’s a question that is both utterly irrelevant and entirely existential. Irrelevant because no-one owns, or can own, the nature of Koshu; winemakers will do what winemakers will do.
Yet existential, for if Koshu is to finds its place in the world beyond Japan’s borders (and indeed within them) it needs to establish what it is and what it offers, so that when one sees “Koshu” on a label, one knows what to expect.
Japan’s modern wine industry is barely a few decades old — dating back to just the the 1990s and a boom driven by research findings around the positive health properties of grape-skin polyphenols. And so it resembles a late-teenager, growing in confidence, and maturity, establishing its own identity and starting to discover what it can, and one day will, become, yet not fully resolved on which of the many possible paths it should follow.
Further reading:
Sarah Abbott’s masterclass on Japanese wines: Japanese Wine — A Masterclass With Swirl Group | by Tom Lewis | Medium
Drinks Business review: Barriers to entry: what is holding Japanese wine back? (thedrinksbusiness.com)
Paola Tich’s introduction to Koshu (from 2012): Koshu: Big In Japan | SipSwooshSpit
