Yamanashi
山梨県 甲州市
Shirayuri Jozō is a winery founded in 1938 (Showa 13). L'Orient (L’ORIENT) is a French word meaning "the Orient," and was named with the aim of crafting high-standard wine that rivals Europe. From grape cultivation to winemaking, we pursue our craft with passion. Bringing L'Orient wine that rivals Europe to the world.
Japanese wine.jp Editorial Department
L'ORIENT is French for “the Orient.” The name was chosen to express the winery's ambition to make wines at a standard equal to those of Europe. The winery considers “locality” to be the first condition of winemaking. Valuing the local area is the foundation of making delicious wine, and the team approaches everything from growing the grapes to making the wine with passion.
Because winemaking is fundamentally simple, the quality of the grapes is especially important. Shirayuri Winery owns vineyards in Katsunuma, Yamanashi Prefecture, where both climate and geology are well suited to grape growing, and it continually pursues consistency in its wines. We invite you to enjoy L'ORIENT wines, born from techniques cultivated through more than 50 years of tradition.
To make wines that can stand on the world stage — better wines — the winery grows grapes suited to the local terroir in Katsunuma in the Kofu Basin, an area ideal for viticulture.
Cultivation is carried out with techniques closer to those used for table grapes, especially the use of individual rain covers over bunches, to a degree rarely practiced by other wineries.
The winery grows small amounts of many European varieties in order to identify which grapes are best suited to the local climate and conditions.
Good grapes are essential to making good wine.
The winery deliberately keeps clusters small by selecting bunches carefully and trimming the shoulders.
Grapes ripened under the abundant Katsunuma sun become exceptionally sweet and concentrated.
The vineyards grow Yamanashi's representative varieties, Koshu and Muscat Bailey A, as well as European grape varieties.
Within Katsunuma's climate and terroir, the team carefully considers which varieties suit each site and how best to cultivate them, tending the grapes with great care.
If we think about the ancient and fundamental process of winemaking — pressing locally grown grapes and fermenting the juice — the first requirement is that the land itself can produce good grapes.
The same is true for every famous wine brand in the world, and perhaps that is precisely why wine is both delicious and so endlessly deep.
Just as grape growing is agriculture, we feel that winemaking itself is also agriculture.
As in the past and into the future, we will continue to love Katsunuma and strive to make the best possible wines from grapes grown here.
PHOTO — NIHONWINE.JP editorial
RELATED
Continue to CRAFT NIHON WINE to explore this producer bottle by bottle.
SOURCE — NIHONWINE.JP editorial
