French wine? bah!

[Ocean11 0]

I think it may equally be the younger u-turners or i-turners - I've met a few of them.

 

Also some of the yokels in Nagano are quite sophisticated and outwork-looking anyway, without needing city slickers to come and tell them what to drink.

 

I'm constantly amazed at how Japanese 'wine' makers manage to get so much of their product on the shelves. While you can usually get a drinkable foreign wine at less than 1,000 yen, that's the price Japanese wine starts at. And it usually tastes either like alcoholic grape juice, or the driest, most unpalatable of the coffin-cellared Bordeaux wines.

[enderzero 0]

What about sake? I realize it is technically a beer, but are there certain regions of Japan that are known for their sake production? Are there a lot of sake 'microbreweries'?

 

Anyone into sake?

[Ocean11 0]

Heavily into sake. The whole area north of Kansai is generally considered to have 'the best' sake, but while they have some beauties, so does Nagoya, Hiroshima, Shikoku and other places.

 

Sake in Japan is largely a matter of 'microbreweries' (sakagura). There are a few big brands that are available everywhere, but most shops stock lots of small brands from local areas and then maybe a few from far-flung regions.

 

There's nothing better than going to a kura to buy sake. They're usually very atmospheric, the staff quite eccentric, and they're keen for you try before you buy. There are also a lot of informal sake drinking clubs in Japan run by sake shops where you put a very modest sum in the kitty to drink some of the good stuff selected by the mastaa and eat some of his wife's cooking. Always pleased to meet foreigners in my experience.

 

BTW, I'm not averse to atsukan, but it seems a bit of a waste with good sake.