Sep 19 We went to Katsunuma, the famous wine country in Japan, as a company-staff-training-tour.

First, we went to Katsunuma-Jozo winery, a well known "Domaine" winery in Japan. Mr. Aruga, owner of the winery, showed us the winery very kindly.

We saw vineyards and cellars.

Then we had a professional tasting at the winery.

We tasted a lot of bottles.

Aruga Blanca, bland new wine series of Katsunuma winery, were really nice !

Then we went to vineyard again named "Mizuwake" located at elevation 500m.

We saw beautiful view from the vineyard.

Then we went to Restaurant Kaze, was owned by Katsunuma-Jozo, and had a really nice big lunch.

We enjoyed really nice cuisine and wines very much.

Especially, Roast Beef, a feature of the restaurant, made a very good harmony with Koshu-Katsunuma-Taruhakkou.

This white wine will also change its name to Aruga Blanca. All of us admired Mr.Aruga's outstanding professionalism and superb passion for wine making. Thank you so much ! Then we went to Mercian Katsunuma winery.

I was surprised that there were a lot of visitors due to consecutive holidays today. Mr.Katsuno, a young wine maker, showed the winery for us even though he was very busy to make wine in the day.

We were interested to see Merlot was fermenting in the barrel.

We tried " Punching down", the method of wine fermentation.

Thanks a lot for Mr.Katsuno. Then we stayed "Isawa Onsen" the next town of Katsunuma.

We had a Enkai, a traditional style Japanese party, as usual. I drank too much as usual. The mysterious bottles was really nice.