Koshu, manga and halves

The Japanese wine market is evolving steadily with more education and global awareness, but Japan remains a modest wine-consuming country.

Although Japan has already experienced some significant “wine booms” in the past decades, propelling itself to the forefront of the Asian market, wine consumption is currently a meagre 2.4 litres per capita. I was told that 50 per cent of the population does not drink wine at all; 30 per cent drinks only once a year and it’s Beaujolais Nouveau (in fact, Japan is the number one market for Beaujolais after France, and Duboeuf has 70 per cent of the...