Kōshū

Kōshū is the grape that gives Japan a wine of its own. It grows in Yamanashi prefecture, west of Tokyo under Mount Fuji, and it has been there for something like a thousand years. Genetic work has shown it to be mostly Vitis vinifera with a minority of wild East Asian vine in its ancestry, which explains how it survives a climate that European vines find hostile.

That climate is the point. Yamanashi has a wet, humid summer and a rainy season that arrives before harvest, and fungal disease follows humidity. Kōshū has unusually thick skins and a natural resistance that lets it hang on. Vines are trained overhead on a pergola system so the air moves under the canopy and the fruit stays dry. The berries ripen to a pale pink, though the wine is white.

The wine is quiet by design: low in alcohol, high in acidity, faintly citrus and mineral, with a gentle bitterness on the finish. It is built for Japanese food rather than for a tasting bench, and it does that job better than any imported white. Recognition by the OIV in 2010 let producers export it to Europe under the variety name.