Amid the lush greenery of Ayacho in Kyushu’s Miyazaki Prefecture, where a forest straddles a tropical-temperate zone inside the UNESCO-designated Aya Biosphere Reserve, a natural winemaker has quietly been rewriting the rules of wine production.
Katsuki Wines, opened in 2017 by Miyazaki City native Yoshitada Katsuki, was never expected to succeed. In a region of Japan that sees nearly 3,000 millimeters of annual rainfall — double or even triple the levels of Japan’s best-known wine-producing prefectures, such as Yamanashi and Hokkaido — Miyazaki’s moist climate and resulting abundance of critters seemed to make winemaking a futile craft.
Against all odds, however, Katsuki’s intensive efforts have paid off to create a thriving winery. Employing 100% natural production methods, he has created seven types of wine whose inventory regularly sells out via his online shop, despite a price tag of ¥7,000 to ¥10,000 per bottle — significantly higher than most domestic wines. His bottles also line the shelves of specialty shops nationwide, including Ginza Six in Tokyo.
Katsuki’s journey began in 2000 among the rolling fields of Marlborough, the largest wine-producing district in New Zealand. There, the then-25-year-old learned the trade while working for several years at local wineries — first, Te Whare Ra and then Omaka Springs Estates. Initially impressed by the peaceful atmosphere and work ethic, he says that everything changed following the massive global success of the region’s sauvignon blanc.
“We began running out of wine around 2006 to 2008 due to the high demand for exports, so investors started paying farmers to sell off their sheep and grow wine grapes instead,” Katsuki, 49, explains. “It was clear that this was causing a heavy environmental impact, but they just kept pushing local winemakers to increase their yields — and all in the name of maximizing profits. It was a very unpleasant experience.”
Driven to the edge of depression, Katsuki decided to seek a change of scenery by spending the off-season at Elmar Klein Rebenkultur, a family-run winery that a friend introduced him to in Molsheim, Germany. There, he found that the small scale of the production and relaxed pace of winemaking was exactly what he had been seeking.
“We worked from around 5 a.m. till dark, but we also had midmorning coffee breaks, huge lunches with wine and afternoon naps,” he recalls. “It was a wonderful life rhythm, and I had no desire to return to the mass production-focused winemaking I’d been involved with back in New Zealand.”
It was also around this time that Katsuki returned home to Miyazaki in late 2009 to visit his parents, and happened to learn that the city’s Tsuno Wine was earning awards in nationwide wine competitions.
“This was shocking to me because everyone knew that the local climate was completely inhospitable to winemaking,” Katsuki says. “Tsuno Wine was clearly doing something that had been written off as impossible, so it then occurred to me that I too might be able to take on the challenge of growing wine in Miyazaki while enjoying the type of lifestyle I’d had in Germany.”
With this realization, Katsuki decided to make the move back home. He returned to the winery in New Zealand for a final season and began a stint working at Tsuno Wine in 2010. After only a year and a half, however, he felt that it was not much different from what he had experienced in Marlborough.
“I respect Tsuno Wine greatly for their winemaking success, and I appreciate them immensely for helping inspire my winemaking journey — but I felt that their model was a bit too close to the type of mass production I had left behind,” Katsuki recalls.
His path then forked again as he decided to launch his own winery on two half-hectare fields where his parents grew vegetables and fruits — including grapes — in Ayacho, which is about a 30-minute drive from Miyazaki City. Another motivator to go solo in his home prefecture was its high rate of youth suicide — and his wish to bring hope to people through the pursuit of making wine.
“People think of Miyazaki as being all sun and beaches and good vibes, but the reality here is that joblessness is high, salaries are low and there are many single mothers and other people out there struggling,” Katsuki explains. “I wanted to help inspire people to pursue their own dreams by bringing back some of the excitement that I myself had experienced while living and winemaking overseas.”
Also inspired by Ayacho’s 1988 passage of Japan’s first local ordinance aimed at promoting organic farming — as well as the success story of Akinori Kimura’s entirely naturally-grown “miracle” apples in Aomori Prefecture — Katsuki set out to achieve his life dream of creating winemaking through a process of respecting the natural environment by utilizing no pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
Starting with traditional European-style varietals such as chardonnay, merlot and pinot gris, he began planting wine grapes in 2013 in the rich, black volcanic soil that blankets the Nishikibaru Plateau where his fields are located. Finding that they did not do well in the wet climate, he decided to experiment with Japanese table grapes such as Kyoho and Black Olympia, which were more suited to local conditions.
“Purists say that such grapes are not acceptable for winemaking, but in fact, their taste is lush and full; fruity and juicy,” Katsuki says. “This might not appeal to everyone, but since Japan’s wine culture is still young, we can create our own traditions.”
Echoing Kimura’s apples, Katsuki’s first crop — produced in 2017 and 2018 — were similarly referred to as “miracle wines.” Now growing around 40 different kinds of grapes, Katsuki’s signature style is mixing different types together to create blends that are reflective of the diversity he hopes to see in the world — as seen, for example, in the moniker of his Petite Planete, which combines Black Olympia with trace amounts of Niagara and Portland grapes.
His 2022 Aya Blanc combines 97% chardonnay grapes with 2% Aki Queen and 1% Shine Muscat to a refreshingly zingy effect, while the delightfully full-bodied 2021 Aya Rouge — crafted from 64% merlot, 17% Fujiminori, 16% Regent and 3% assorted other grape types — evokes rich blackberries accented with a subtle spiciness.
Katsuki consulted with local growers to learn methods for Japanese table grape cultivation, which he then applied to European wine grapes as well. Utilizing vinyl sheets to avoid rain and a vinegar solution to protect against fungal diseases such as powdery mildew, he also devised a system to prevent rotting by positioning his grapes high off the ground to allow wind to pass through. He promotes a healthy ecosystem by keeping wild grasses and herbs in his fields intact and planting soba flowers that attract bees and horseflies for pollination.
Katsuki creates fertilizer from grape branches and pomace, which are in turn fed upon by elephant beetles and other critters as the matter decays back into the soil. For pest control, he combines a system of nets; applies to vines a solution concocted from vinegar, sugar and local shōchū (Japan’s indigenous distilled spirit) that he jokes “lets bugs get drunk before dying”; and undertakes an intensely labor-intensive process of picking bugs off of leaves, one by one.
His vintage report, available for each item via his online shop, describes each season’s travails in detail — thereby allowing consumers to understand and appreciate the intense amount of effort and love that goes into each and every Katsuki Wines bottle.
Katsuki cites one singular motivator for his absolute reliance upon natural methods of cultivation: a profound love of nature. His ethos is also what attracted his assistant winemaker, Motoki Sugino (one of just four full-time staff members at Katsuki Wines), to Ayacho to learn about the trade.
“There are many wineries I could have chosen, but I was drawn to Katsuki’s philosophy, as well as his convictions toward protecting the environment,” says Sugino, 36, a former office worker from Osaka. “One good example of Katsuki’s character is when we were driving once and found a spider inside the car — and he brought it all the way back to the winery instead of leaving it to fend for itself in some unknown area.”
Under Katsuki’s tutelage, Sugino and the rest of his small team of winemakers-in-training work to help produce the winery’s annual yield of 6,000 bottles — a stark contrast to Tsuno Wines’ 27,000. And this deliberate approach is exactly the point. All processes are carried out entirely by hand, from harvesting and crushing grapes to pressing, racking and bottling. Healthy grapes are selected for a fermentation process utilizing only natural yeasts — “the wild yeast of the Aya forest,” as Katsuki describes it. He also eschews the use of sulfites and clarifies his wine using only gravity.
“I want people to experience the pure, unfiltered taste of my wines,” he says. “I view winemaking as an art, and I’m basically known within the business as ‘that crazy guy making wine.’ This has also worked to attract something of a cult following.”
Despite his devotion to natural winemaking, Katsuki is uninterested in obtaining biodynamic certification, which he dismisses as an expensive, exclusionary pursuit that is only available to the financially well-off. His energies instead are directed toward what drew him to launch his winery in the first place: creating and sustaining community, through what he refers to as sankagata, or a process of participation. Volunteers regularly find him via social media, and these chefs, doctors, nurses, university students and sommeliers trek to Miyazaki to work together on creating great wine. Katsuki also utilizes the working holiday program to send his interns to learn at the wineries in his international networks.
This communal spirit is additionally reflected in the Katsuki Wines logo: a circle encompassing an unbroken line that depicts the vineyard, a wine glass and a person enjoying a sip.
It’s a hint at the direct and indirect connections Katsuki believes comprise winemaking. Meanwhile, he continues focusing his energies on problem-solving to pave the way for the next generation of Ayacho vintners.
“If people want to become serious winemakers, they should head to dryer climes overseas,” Katsuki says. “But in the meantime, we will be here lifting up the local community through our winemaking while continuing to have a great time.”
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