Kobe Wine

Given to me from the lovely men at Hitachi GTS, makers of hard disk drives of all sizes, I felt the need, the other evening, to enjoy this bottle of Japan grown and bottled wine with a friend. Phil, who is always one to help you in situations of this type, was kind enough to stop by and help me enjoy it. First a little information:

Japan, unlike many other wine producing countries, has neither the climate nor land area to produce grapes that are very suitable for wine production. Having said that, Japanese grapes are noted for their large size and high sweetness level, something which makes Japanese wine sweeter than its colleagues. The history of Japanese wine is long and interesting. This site explains in more detail about it and the interesting problems faced in making this wine.

The bottle I received resembled a blush, rather than the red I usually prefer. Our thoughts:

Phil: this wine is rather light and easy to drink. It has a touch more sweetness than I usually prefer but it complements the Yoshinoya gyudon I had for dinner nice so I have to recommend it to anyone in my situation.

Nick: lighter than I'm used to, but this wine does down smooth. A little too sweet as well. I actually found it tasted more like a flat grape soda than wine. I have to agree with Matsumura at Hitachi, Japan just isn't suited for wine production. I highly recommend the local rice wine (Nihonshu) instead.

Wisdom of the Day: Never look a gift horse in the mouth