Ringed by the outer Chichibu mountains and dotted with serene rice fields, the city of Ogawa in Saitama Prefecture is hardly referred to as wine nation. And but winemaker Yuzo Fukushima discovered himself drawn to the world’s pristine water sources and long-standing natural farming traditions.
At Musashi Vineyard, Fukushima and his group make use of a scrupulous coverage wherein no fertilizers, pesticides, chemical substances or components are used at any stage of the winemaking course of — an unconventional, difficult method given the tough local weather situations confronted by many Japanese winemakers.
One other initiative setting Musashi Vineyard aside from its friends is its maturation of wine in home barrels as an alternative of the standard French or American oak. Its signature purple wine, for instance, constructed from an indigenous hybrid grape selection referred to as shōkōshi, is aged in barrels crafted from timber native to Japan, together with sugi (cedar), hinoki (Japanese cypress) and mizunara (Japanese oak). In Japan, such barrels are sometimes used to age whisky, not wine.
