Château Mercian Winery Guide

Before the Showa period, which started in 1925, wine was fermented in huge sake vats made from Japanese Cedar. Now, stainless steel and French oak dominate. Interestingly, cedar vats identical to these are still used in the fermentation of Japanese sake, soy sauce and miso!

This artwork by Eita Shinohara is a 1970s representation of the process of wine making from the vineyards to shipping the finished product. The art captures two periods of history, the Meiji period of Japanese industrialization and the retro-chic of the 1970s.

Daikokuten, one of Japan’s seven lucky gods, is shown holding a wine barrel. He is usually depicted standing on two large bales of rice, holding a magic wishing mallet in his right hand, and a treasure sack over his left shoulder. The treasure sack becomes the wine! The name Daikoku, written in Japanese logograms, which was the trademark of the winery in the early days, can also be seen on wooden crates by the belt-driven grape crusher.

In order to promote his wine throughout Japan, Kotaro Miyazaki invited liquor shop owners to tour local vineyards and try his wines. He promoted wine as a tonic for good health. In fact, during the Meiji period from 1868 to 1912, associations of sake produces made efforts to keep wine and beer out of liquor shops. Thus, Miyazaki and other early wine producers began to promote their wines at drug stores. You can still find alcohol in Japanese drug stores today.

In one of the large barrels displayed on the upper floor, you’ll see 4 wine bottles. The red wine on the far left was filled in 1879 by Masanari Takano, one of the founding fathers of Japanese wine. This bottle is the oldest bottle of Japanese wine that still has its original Burgundy pitch (spruce resin) seal. The white wine beside it is sealed with wax. The two bottles on the far right are from France.

In 1919, this new processing and storage annex was added to the winery to help meet increasing demand for wine. This type of water wheel, known technically as a breastshot wheel, was suited to a large volume of flow falling from a moderate height. Such water wheels were once the most common type in the US and are said to have powered its industrial revolution. You can still hear the water flowing by the antique, belt-driven grape crusher. On the left as you exit the building, you will be able to see the narrow canal which carries the water that once powered this wheel.

In the early 1980s, dry Kōshū white wines started to be produced at Château Mercian using the Sur Lie method of allowing the wine to have longer contact with the lees (sediment of dead yeast), thereby imparting greater depth and complexity of flavor to the wine. After 6 or 7 years, Château Mercian decided to share the know how of Sur Lie with the surrounding wineries in order to create a more renowned wine region. In the late 1990s, wine advisors such as Paul Pontallier of Château Margaux in the Médoc region of western France, visited Château Mercian to help ascertain the best way to improve Japanese wines. Instead of competing in the crowded full-body sector, it was decided to focus on delicate wines to accompany Japanese and other lighter cuisines. Much like Muscadet, which is also aged on the lees, Koshu began to be promoted as a wine to accompany seafood, particularly oysters. Like Muscadet, the moderate alcohol level of Koshu allows it to complement dishes without overwhelming them.

Pergola (overhead trellises) can support huge trunks and high volumes of large grapes which is ideal for the growers of Japan’s legendary table grapes. Table grapes can fetch as much as ten times the price of wine grapes. However, vertical shoot positioning is a much better training system for the production of wine grapes because it allows you to plant trunks closer together, and it is easier to reduce yields in order to get sweeter, more flavorful fruits with 22 to 23% sugar content. These days, Château Mercian is taking greater control of its grape production in order to increase the quality of its harvested grapes.

This poster of grapevines catching hold of an American fighter plane is an interesting use of propaganda to help galvanize public support for the war effort. The poster encourages farmers to grow great quantities of grapes. Crystalline potassium sodium tartrate from tartaric acid, a byproduct of winemaking, was used as an integral material for sonar detection systems deployed to hunt US submarines during World War Two. The sonar systems used the Piezoelectric Effect where crystals display a visible electrical reaction generated via sound waves. These days we think of these crystals as wine diamonds or wine stars, but they were viewed as essential to conducting the war in the Pacific in the early 1940s. The propagandists clearly thought a picture of a fighter plane would be more of a motivator to land-locked farmers than a picture of a submarine.

In the late 19th Century, wine was shipped down the Fuefuki River to the Fuji River where it would be transferred on to Shizuoka, and finally on to Tokyo by train. It took more than a full day to make the trip to Tokyo, and the wine bottles had to be handled many times during transfers from boat to boat and then to train. In 1903, the train line made its way through the mountains to Kofu, Yamanashi’s capital city, thus reducing the time it took to transport wine to Tokyo to just 6 or 7 hours!