At Takahata Wine Harvest Festival next month the quality of booze will not be a problem — and neither will your conscience as you nurse a hangover the next day.
"We're fully-fledged members of the international and regional slow-food movement nonprofit organizations, Slow Food International and Slow Food Yamagata," Tetsuya Okuyama, president of Takahata Winery in Yamagata Prefecture, told The Japan Times in his spartanly decorated office, where the only accouterments are the certificates his wine has won in national competitions.
"Many people think that slow food is about trying to eat organically grown food. It isn't," he said. "The movement aims to interest people in eating and drinking things produced within their region or country rather than food and drink from halfway across the world.