Grace Wine Kayagatake Koshu 2024
£17.95
The wine
Elegant aromas of green apple, grapefruit, chamomile and white pepper lead to a smooth, bone dry palate. This is a delicate yet tense white wine, with a lively acidity that gives beautiful structure through to a long, mouthwatering finish.
Koshu is unlike any other wine grape. Pink-skinned and with around a thousand years of history in Japan, DNA analysis has shown it to be roughly three-quarters Vitis vinifera with a wild Asian component, and it probably travelled the Silk Road before taking root in Yamanashi. It is naturally low in sugar and high in acidity, which is why Japanese Koshu is typically light in alcohol, bone dry and built on delicacy rather than power.
The producer
Grace Wine
View all Grace Wine winesGrace Wine was established in 1923 in Yamanashi Prefecture, the birthplace of the Japanese wine industry, in the shadow of Mount Fuji.
The estate has done more than any other to prove that Japan can make serious wine. Committed to the belief that quality is made in the vineyard, they were the first in the country to research and introduce European training and pruning methods, bringing in long cordon training and Vertical Shoot Positioning in 1990. Japanese viticulture had traditionally used overhead pergolas to cope with the humidity of the summer rainy season, and moving to vertical trellising was a genuine departure. Since 2016 the vineyards have been farmed organically.
Koshu is the grape, and it is unlike anything else. A pink-skinned variety with a thousand years of history in Japan, DNA analysis has shown it to be roughly three-quarters Vitis vinifera with a wild Asian component, and it probably arrived along the Silk Road. Winemaker Ayana Misawa trained in Bordeaux and has made Grace the reference for it.
