Japan’s Soft Side, Unfolding Ningxia and France’s Dry White Surprises: Weekly Tasting Report (Oct 4-10)

According to Takahiko Soga, the 51-year-old founder of the eponymous Domaine Takahiko in Hokkaido, Japan, "hard water does not allow for good dashi” –  the soup stock that is the backbone of many Japanese dishes. Because water is hard in much of Europe, California and Australia, he suggests, the wines from these places don’t pair readily with Japanese food because the tannins are hard, making dashi taste bitter. He thinks his own softer wines, however, pair wonderfully with the local cuisine, accentuating their appeal.

Domaine Takahiko was founded in 2010 in Yoichi, just west of Sapporo, with the 4.5 hectares of the estate planted mostly to pinot noir, with some zweigelt. Pinot can be very good here, and some of the wines sell for exorbitant sums on foreign websites. The climate is cool and wet with an average of 550mm of water annually – more than Burgundy. The soil, however, is very different. It is volcanic, alluvial and fecund, swept from high up into rivulets and onto valley floors. Bountiful soft water in a land of forested spruce and umami, the nourishing glutamates that bind the land to a culinary culture of dashi.

Yet while Yoichi’s climate may provide the soft water that Soga prizes, it is also a hothouse for omniscient botrytis. Although severely affected grapes are culled, the soft tannins in the wines are a legacy of the semi-carbonic effect of whole bunches, but also the fear that longer macerations will glean more volatility and an awkward tannic astringency, even from the better fruit. As a general synopsis, flavors in the pinot lean toward complex autumnal mulch, camphor, mushroom and sassafras, singed with volatility.

Botrytis is a bane, though, as much as a benefit. Takahiko’s Blanc de Noir 2020 is  crafted from 100 percent botrytized fruit and is superb! A lustrous iconoclast, it boasts aromas of salted Earl Grey brulee to chew on for ages.

Virtually every producer in Yoichi has worked at Takahiko, a place where conceptual kernels gestate as bigger ideas. Yet none that Ned met had worked overseas. Subsequently, a sense of regionality exists because so many wines are made in a similar fashion. Minuscule landholdings in Yoichi ,as in most of Japan, encourage a holistic approach: nothing a farmer can’t carry; nothing that detracts from a healthy life-cycle. Think small gravity-fed plastic block fermenters, whole-bunches, short macerations, minimal to zero adds and nine months to a year in used French oak.  

Domaine Takahiko is the apogee of the wineries in the Yoichi area, alongside the promising Yamadado, Domaine Mont and distinctly different Mongaku Valley Winery. A barrel sample of the Yamadado Pinot Noir Yoichi Hokkaido Rosé 2022 boasted a sinewy kit of tannin that Ned found pleasing, although winemaker Yuichiro Yamada found it “a bit hard.” The 2021 is also very good and the DNA clear.

A starkly different idiom from Hokkaido, at least in terms of purity of fruit, alpine aura and scintillating length, is the Nikki Hills Winery Kerner Hokkaido Hatsuyuki 2022. Check out all the tasting notes below to get the full flavor of Japan's evolving winescape.

UNFOLDING NINGXIA

Senior Editor Zekun Shuai began his annual tasting of Chinese wines in Ningxia, where he visited a few wineries near Yinchuan and Qingtongxia, including Silver Heights, Kanaan, Chateau Longyu, Domaine Charme, Mountain and Wave. He also got a closer look at some booming new projects, such as Stone & Moon, which is led by the veteran wine consultant Nicolas Billot-Grima, who helped bring the first marselan to China from France and has spent decades developing vineyards in China, from Shandong in the east to Huailai in the north and now in Ningxia, the modern hub of Chinese wines.

This week’s top-rated Chinese wines feature some of the exceptional cabernets from Kanaan Winery and Silver Heights. Despite China’s lofty ambition of turning marselan into the French crossbreed of cabernet sauvignon and grenache, we maintain that cabernet sauvignon continues to reign supreme in Ningxia and in China as a whole. However, the region now boasts a remarkable diversity of wines and grapes. Over the last few years of tasting in China, we have found excellent viognier, syrah, malbecs, and even pinot noir and sangiovese. But the Kanaan Winery Ningxia Crazy Fang 迦南美地魔方红葡萄酒 2021 and Silver Heights Ningxa Emma’s Reserve 爱玛私家收藏红葡萄酒 2020 exemplify how cabernet sauvignon continues to excel in the country.

It is also worth noting that after years of biodynamic viticulture and winemaking, Silver Heights, one of the leading producers in Ningxia’s Helan Mountain East Foothill region, recently received its demeter certification – the first to do so in China. Owner and head winemaker Emma Gao, known for her pioneering work in biodynamic practices, showcases visionary winemaking that puts her ahead of her peers in Ningxia.

Gao expressed her commitment to leading, rather than following, the market, which helps explain the drastic shift of Silver Height’s excellent pinot noir, Jiayuan, from the cloudy, whole-cluster-fermented 2019 version to the bright, limpid, whole-berry-fermented 2022. While weather conditions played a crucial role in the transformation, the choice to create two stylistically distinct wines was bold and forward-thinking.

In addition to pinot noir, marselan, chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon, Gao also makes a pet-nat fermented with rice and chardonnay, which she considers beneficial to her health in the wintertime. She has also successfully planted niche grapes such as gamay, grenache and barbera, with many of the resulting wines aged in buried amphoras. “I think gamay is very good,” she affirmed, even though Silver Heights appears to be the only producer in Ningxia with enough gamay to produce wines.

CHARDONNAYS IN CHABLIS CLOTHING

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott was in the Cote du Lot region of France, which lies to the east of Bordeaux and is most famous for the full-bodied and often quite rustic reds from the Cahors appellation. It’s not the kind of place you would expect to find excellent dry whites from the chardonnay grape, but that’s exactly what Stuart found when he visited Domaine Belmont in Gaoujounac.

You could easily mistake the Domaine Belmont Côtes du Lot Montaigne 2020 for a Chablis premier cru thanks to its forthright, chalky character, positive austerity and a cool elegance that’s remarkable for a wine from so far south. There are some good reasons for this character, the most important being that Domaine Belmont’s chardonnays grow on Kimmeridgian limestone, the same soil type found in Chablis.

The Domaine Belmont Côtes du Lot Dolmen 2020 is richer and creamier, with aromas of fresh honeycomb and melted butter and lots of licorice, pear and hazelnut. It is close to Cote de Beaune chardonnays, but the finish is intensely chalky. Both these wines spent 10 months on the lees in 400-liter oak barrels, a Burgundian style of vilification.

These wines, and the good reds described below in the tasting notes, add up to an impressive achievement for a domaine founded in 1993 with just 6.5 hectares of vineyards.

– Ned Goodwin MW, Zekun Shuai and Stuart Pigott contributed reporting.

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

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