Country: Japan
Region: Yamanashi
Grapes: Koshu
Vinification: Grapes are destemmed and crushed then split into three cuvee's, the 1st spends 4 weeks on skins in stainless steel, 2nd spends two weeks in wooden vat and the 3rd has two hours of themo maceration and cooling down overnight. The three are blended and aged in oak barrels for 8 months.
Reddish orange hue. Apricot, rose, vanilla and plenty of deep complexity on the palate.
Château Mercian is the oldest established winery in Japan, starting out in 1870 having sent two young men to France to understand wine making in the European tradition. Indeed the descendants of these two men are still growing Koshu for Mercian today. Koshu, like many things Japanese, is all about subtlety of flavour, texture and the wine being part of a greater organoleptic experience than the wine itself, so imagine drinking this with a slurpy bowl of hot yum from a chilly noodle shop in the hills. It's part of the whole, not the whole, therefore the fruit is not overt, it's more about texture, acidity and finish rather than outright fruit flavour.