Wine with me

Today, I would introduce you a original hybryd of grape for red or rose wines.
The name of this grape is ‘Muscat Bailey-A’, crossed by Mr. Zenbei Kawakami.

Mr. Kawakami was a first generation of wine making in Japan. About one hundred years ago, some Japanese tried to make wines and grapes for wines. Mr. Kawakami was also try to make grapes and original hybrids of grapes. Finally, he makes so many clones and hybrids in his vinyards in Niigata pref., northern central of Honshu island.

Muscat Bailey-A is one of his best hybrid. Because of its flavour, disease tolerance, grow up easy in Japan, that is popular in Japan. That is why Muscat Bailey-A use for eating, making juice or jams, and also makes wines for a long time. This is mosu popular source for foods and wines in Japan for a long time.

For a long time, Muscat Bailey-A usually introduced as a hybrid between ‘Muscat Humburg’ and ‘Bailey’. So, that is easy to imagine the style of the grapes: one by one of ‘Vitis Vinifera’ and ‘Vitis Labrusca’.
That is why the grape have a foxy flavour in its juice or wines, so it is hard to reccomend for other countries, especially for Europe. See the hybrid chart below.

Fig. Hybrid chart of Muscat Bailey-A
(Mr. Okuda make this chart that came from some papers written by Mr. Zenbei Kawakami.)
But some people, who believes its potentials and future, said it is hard to understand its roots of hybrid, because of its styles of leafs, sprouts, and flavours. Mr. Ikegawa, the man making for the special cuvee of Muscat Bailey-A, that I have previously introduced it in this blog, is one of them.

Now, the new hybrid tree of Muscat Bailey-A is came from German database. Mr. Okuda, a friend of Mr. Ikegawa, find out new data of its genetic roots. This information have a very big impact and feels very good potentials of its wines: ‘Vitis Vinifera’ is much more potentials of its gene, ‘Vitis Labrusca’ have lesser genetic potentials, and ‘Vitis Lincecumii Backley’ hopes some mysterious potential of its flavour. See the new hybrid chart below.

Fig. Hybrid chart of Muscat Bailey-A (New)
(Mr. Okuda wrote this chart that came from the informations of a database on the internet named “Vitis International Variety Catalogue” http://www.vivc.bafz.de/index.php )
Mr. Kawakami hopes to make some essences for the new hybrids. One is suitable for Japanese weather and lands. The other is strength of the tree. The last one is suitable for good flavour of wine. So his focus of these crossing is: Strengh come from ‘Vitis labrusca’, and make foxy falvour weaker by crossing ‘Vitis Lincecumii Backley’. You know some of ‘Seibel’ have some gene of ‘Vitis Lincecumii’. Then, the best hybrid of Mr. Kawakami’s , named Muscat Beilay-A, would have a mysterious unknown potentials for wine, Mr. Okuda says.

Nitta store is in the end of Katsunuma area. Not only a store of the local area, there are many wines.

Mr. Nitta, shop master of this store, is third generation of this store. He was born in Katsunuma. Once he worked in Tokyo, he came back to the hometown, and works as a shop master.

His store have many kind of wines all around Yamanashi pref. He have an adviser’s license of wines and Japanese sake. He have great relationships with wineries. He pick up good wines of ordinery lineups, and sometimes order a special lot of barrels as a special product. So some wine lovers in Japan call his store as a “select shop of wines in Yamanashi”.
The wine once I wrote is one of them.

http://aoshimak.vox.com/library/post/merlot-and-cabernet-sauvignon-2004-soryu-winery.html

Not only he sells them, he sometimes works as a coordinator between grape farmer and wineries. I have written many times in this blog that it is very hard to get brewery license in Japan. So, some grape farmer want to make his own wines, they sometimes need coordinator like him. In this way, Nitta store makes some original wines in this framework. Especially, the wine called “Katsunuma-bito no daichi” (that means “The earth of the Katsunuma”) is good at flavor, body and so on.

Last year, he got a wholesaler license of liquors. In Japan, there are no wholesaler who works as a “negotian” : produce special wines for wineries, stock all of them, and wholesale them. With this license, he can sell wines of all around Yamanashi pref. to the other liquore sellers in other cities. So he is a new type of negotian of wines made in Yamanashi pref.

“Michel vin Japonais” is a special wine bar in Osaka, Japan. The bar have a speciality in its lineups of wines. Only JAPANESE TOP END WINES are stocked in the walk-in cellar room built in the center of the bar.

The owner sommelier, Mr. Watanabe, previously worked at the French restaurant “Olivier le Francois” (http://www.olivierlefrancois.com/) as a sommelier. The name of this bar comes from his nickname at the restaurant when he worked.
He went to the wineries all over Japan, taste them, and pick up special ones he felt. About twenty wineries, one hundred kind of wines always stocks in the cellar.

And his younger brother, called “Alain”, cooperate this bar as a chef. He makes foods that matches well for wines.

Shop data:
Address: Osaka-shi Chuo-ku Tokiwa-cho 1-1-9 REV35 bldg. 1F
Telephone: 06-6941-3010
Open: Mon. to Sat. / 17:30 to 23:00 (Mon. to Fri.) / 14:00 to 23:00 (Sat.)
Close: Sun.
Access: Walk about 1 minutes from the 6th exit of “Tanimachi 4-chome” station, Chuo line and Tanimachi like of Osaka city subway (http://www.kotsu.city.osaka.jp/foreign/english/subway/index.html).
Go out 6th exit of “Tanimachi 4-chome” station, walk straight one block, and turn right, and go one block shortly, you can find “JOMO” gas station, then turn right again. So you can find the “Grape mark” signboard of this bar.