On June 10, the announcement and awards ceremony for the 7th Japan Winery Award 2024 was held at Tokyo Kaikan.
This year the event was divided into Part 1, the awards ceremony, and Part 2, which included a tasting event. General wine enthusiasts also joined the second part, making it a major gathering of around 180 people in total.
Part 1: The awards ceremony
Part 1 began with remarks from Risaburo Endo, representative director of the Japan Winery Award Council, the event organizer, followed by a guest address from Yusaku Hirakata, Director-General of the Crop Production Bureau at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
Mr. Hirakata is himself a Japanese wine enthusiast and commented that “the award may become one of the opportunities that encourages more people to take an interest in wine.”
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has also revised the Basic Act on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas for the first time in several years. He noted that smart agriculture, exports, and environmental considerations such as organic farming all have connections to wine-grape cultivation, and conveyed the ministry's intention to continue moving forward in step with the wine sector.
Other greetings were delivered by Susumu Kato, Deputy Commissioner of the Japan Tourism Agency, and Hironobu Kitagawa, Executive Officer of the Japan Food Product Overseas Promotion Center (JFOODO).
This year, Naruto Katsunori, stablemaster of Naruto-beya and former sumo wrestler Kotooshu, also joined as a special judge and announced a special award!
(See below for the award results.)
Certificates were then presented to each recipient on the stage, and finally a representative of the award-winning wineries, Mr. Matsumiya of Manns Wines, delivered remarks.
Part 2: The commemorative party
Part 2 was also attended by around 150 general wine enthusiasts.
Representative wines from five-star wineries were lined up for tasting, and guests enjoyed trying the wines while speaking directly with producers.
A talk session was also held featuring Taichi Yamazaki of Yamazaki Winery, Yukari Tsuchiya of Kizan Winery, and Ippei Sakai of Sakai Winery. Wine lovers listened with great interest, glasses in hand.
2024 award results and judging details
For the award results and detailed information on the judging, please visit the official website of the Japan Winery Award Association below.