Japan
Alright, so as I was researching and putting together the Wine Not Find Out? quiz last week, I came across a few wine regions that completely blew me away.
Naturally, I started digging.
And I ended up in this wine hole.
Oblige me if you can. I promise there is a good wine bottle at the end of this journey.
If you took the quiz and love cold weather, there was probably no surprise when you landed on Hokkaido, Japan, and more specifically Yoichi.
Yoichi is a coastal town on Hokkaido, west of Sapporo. Long before people were giving up their last rites and testament for a bottle of Pinot Noir from there, the town was known for fruit, fishing and, eventually, Japanese whisky.
Apples were especially important.
And for a while, business was booming.
But in the 1970s, cheap imported apples sent prices crashing. Seven local farmers, who would later become known as the "Seven Samurai" of Yoichi wine, decided another plan was needed.
And in 1983, they agreed to convert some or all of their apple orchards to wine grapes.
Among the varieties they experimented with were Müller-Thurgau, Kerner, Zweigelt and a notoriously moody little grape called Pinot Noir.
And Pinot Noir was not exactly thrilled about Hokkaido, either, given its Burgundy roots.
One of those farming families, the Kimuras, planted Pinot Noir in 1985. For years, they struggled to get enough sugar and color in the grapes. Other growers eventually gave up on the variety.
The Kimuras didn't.
At the time, Yoichi was largely growing grapes for wineries elsewhere rather than making the wines that would eventually put its own name on the international wine map.
Then something changed.
Snow. A Whole Lot of It.
Hokkaido is famous for snow.
Which does not immediately make you think: Ah yes, perfect place for fine wine.
But in this case, snow actually helped the vines to survive.
During the winter, deep snow acts almost like a blanket, insulating dormant vines against dangerously low temperatures.
So the snow wasn't necessarily the problem.
The growing season was.
Pinot Noir needed enough warmth during the summer to ripen properly.
And slowly, Hokkaido started getting it.
Pinot Noir
In 2009, Takahiko Soga moved to Yoichi after becoming impressed by the quality of Pinot Noir being grown there. The following year he founded Domaine Takahiko in Yoichi's Nobori district.
He took over an old fruit orchard and planted Pinot Noir.
That vineyard became Nana Tsu Mori.
Soga farms organically and works with whole clusters, native yeasts and a low-intervention approach in the cellar. He didn't want to just copy Burgundy in Japan. He wanted to make wine that pairs well with Japanese food and its dashi and umami culture.
His Nana-Tsu-Mori Pinot Noir became one of the wines that helped draw international attention to Yoichi, including appearing on the wine list at Noma in Copenhagen.
Suddenly, this little place known for apples and whisky had another identity forming.
Wine.
But.
What if global warming helped create a wine region?
In 2017, researchers studying Hokkaido's changing climate published something amazing.
Historically, climatic conditions had made Pinot Noir difficult to grow successfully in places like Yoichi and Sorachi.
Then they looked at the weather data.
They found that a climate shift around 1998, particularly rising summer temperatures, had made Pinot Noir cultivation more viable.
Let me reiterate.
A grape that struggled to ripen there was suddenly getting something it hadn't reliably had before: warm enough summers.
Hot grape summer?
Climate change helped move the line, and this time for the better.
Yoichi's Pinot story wasn't simply farmers suddenly figuring out something everyone before them had missed. Climate change did some of the work for them.
And with that comes another strange story.
A Grape Graveyard?
Travel east from Yoichi into Hokkaido's Sorachi region and you will reach Utashinai.
Utashinai was once a coal-mining city. When Japan's coal industry collapsed, the city collapsed with it. Today it is known as Japan's smallest city by population.
In 1991, cultivation began on land associated with a former open-pit mining site. But the project struggled. Deer damage, severe weather and economics took a toll, and the vineyards were eventually abandoned.
The city tried again in 2016.
The vineyard was revived as Kamiuta Vineyard.
In 2021, it became privately operated.
Today Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and other varieties grow there.
Shaped by an industry buried underground, the land was being asked to grow something completely different above it.
From coal to grapes.
The Bottle as Promised
Vignes Chantantes Pinot Noir 2016
Miyamoto Vineyard, Mikasa, Sorachi.
The vines had been planted only five years before that vintage.
Yet the wine was already being noticed internationally.
Yoichi's farmers didn't start with a grand plan to become famous Pinot Noir growers. They were trying to survive an apple crisis.
I started with a wine quiz.
And along the way, I ended up in an abandoned vineyard in an old Japanese coal-mining town.