Aruga Branca Clareza, Arugano Bosque, Aruga Branca Brilhante—that's not Japanglish, but some of the wines produced by Katsunuma Winery, and a peek into owner Yuji Aruga's clever and playful aesthetics. Aruga decided to give his wines these faux-Portuguese monikers after noticing that his last name sounded Portuguese, overlaid with the theory that the Portuguese first brought European wine to Japan.
Katsunuma Winery dates back to 1937 and have dedicated themselves to Koshu wines; in fact, every one of their white wines are made with Koshu grapes. They could be called the Koshu Whisperer: they really know how to work with Koshu grapes. Their single-minded passion for Koshu wines have attracted national and international acclaim and market, and today, their Koshu wines shine a beacon light on the future of Japanese Koshu wines. In fact, they are arguably the reason Koshu wines even have a global market today—in the 2000's, their Aruga Branca Pipa won multiple medals in the French competition Vinalies Internationales hosted by the French Brewer's Association, resulting in a collaboration with Bernard Magrez of Château Pape Clément, one of the oldest, most eminent wine estates in Bordeaux. This led to the creation of Magrez Aruga Koshu Isehara, the first Japanese wine ever to be exported to the EU.
The winery was already at the top of their game: their Brilhante was served at the G7 Ise-Shima Summit, they've been name-dropped in pop culture (in the manga Drops of God, a series about the son of a wine critic who must identify 12 wines in order to claim an inheritance), all thanks to the acumen and dynamism of President Aruga. With the return of his son Hirotaka from a wine-making stint at Simon Bize et Fils in Beaune, things are brewing in even more interesting ways at Katsunuma Winery. With a mind towards wine-making that brings out the terroir of Yamanashi, they're experimenting with natural yeasts, cutting out of the chaptalization (adding of sugar during fermentation), and making skin-contact wine made in qvevri, or Georgian clay concrete egg fermenters. (More interesting, useful, and helpful to this world than Gwyneth Paltrow's jade eggs, believe me.)
