Waarom winnen de wijnen uit Japans bekendste wijndistrict Yamanashi de laatste jaren geen prijzen meer? Omdat de buurregio Katsumana meer een kwaliteitsbewaking doet? Nee, het heeft te maken met de klimaatveranderingen die ook in Japan merkbaar zijn. Yamanashi kent nu in grote delen van het district te hoge temperaturen om daar klasse-wijnen te kunnen produceren. Daarom schuiven steeds meer wijngaarden op naar het noorden. Zo’n 400 meter boven zee lag voorheen de grens voor wat nog aan wijnproductie mogelijk was. De ‘topwijn’ komt nu van liefst 800 meter boven de zeespiegel en ligt bovendien op een berghelling. Niemand had daar ooit wijnproductie voor mogelijk gehouden. Maar Toshiaki Hagine gelooft er heilig in. Collega Louis Templado schreef:

Yamanashi grower goes to new highs to produce the right vintage

Toshiaki Hagino will reach high to produce Japan's top wine: up to 800 meters above sea level to be precise.
To those in the know about grapes, that should sound a warning bell, since wisdom has it that the fruit grows best around the 400-meter mark, and certainly not on the side of a mountain.
But these are not normal times in Yamanashi Prefecture, long regarded as Japan's top wine region.
Hagino manages vineyards of Merlot, Cabernet, Chardonnay, Riesling and other varieties on broken fallow ground just two springs ago.
"There is good reason for coming up to this altitude," says Hagino, who has been in the wine-making business for three decades.
"Temperatures have gotten warmer, which means we have to move northward or upward to find the best locales for growing."
Japan's wine-making world is also having to adapt. Hagino's employer, aptly called Vintage Resort, is actually a country club known for its golf greens. Until recently, it was unversed in grapes.
Located in the prefecture's Hokuto city area, the company set up its offshoot Vintage Farm in June 2010 after winning permission from prefectural authorities to manage nearby land abandoned by farmers.
The idea behind the venture is to bring activity back to the countryside, and presents--in miniature, since the vineyard is 200 hectares--a presage of the central government's plans for allowing farms to be enlarged and managed by big businesses.
"This area is experiencing the same problems as every rural district," says Morio Yamada, president of the resort. "The farmers are getting old and no longer want to work distant fields, or they have no one who wants to take over for them. What happens is that the fields get overrun with monkeys and wild boar."
One of the first notable features of the vineyard is an electrified barrier to keep out the marauders.
For the firm, grape-growing is a way to diversify its holdings and turn a visit to the golf resort--traditionally considered a business ritual among men--into a family affair.
It has already gathered 800 so-called owners who will be allowed to gather the fruit of the vine, starting this month. The resort also plans to build its own winery to bottle those owners' investment into award-winning vintages.
It's a goal, says field manager Hagino that's high but within reach. "Yamanashi wine no longer wins prizes at national wine judgings," says Hagino, explaining that the crown has been wrestled from the nearby region of Katsunuma by wineries in cooler, higher Nagano Prefecture, where it is possible to grow European varieties.
Yamanashi wineries have been working with grapes bred from American varieties, which are hardier and thicker skinned.
"Coming up to this altitude, we're now able to grow European strains as well. All the right conditions are here--even in the humid season, the air here is dry."
The vineyard got off to a rocky start, literally. After clearing the field of fist-sized stones and laying new topsoil, Hagino realized the stones actually improved drainage.
Good wine might now be in the offing, so long as the monkeys don't figure out how to breach the barrier.