Delica

We find ourselves in the land of the rising sun and a little challenged when trying to keep things up-to-date. Not only because the technology has been limited to a mobile phone, but also because wine does not feature highly in the dining rooms of Japan. It is available but it felt wrong, even to an enthusiast such as yours truly, to diverge from the local dining practices.

One evening, however, over the card table rather than the dining table we did find a compromise:

Week D (2019) Delica, Vin de France, ¥640.

This is a basic French wine that can be bought in one of many, many convenience stores which are open 24 hours a day for the approximate equivalent price of £4.35. It is a compromise because you may just be able to read the name 'Suntory' towards the bottom of the label, revealing that this wine has been produced and bottled in France at the behest of one of the largest drinks companies in Japan. So not Japanese wine in the sense that it comes from that country, but Japanese by ownership. The actual makers are Castel Freres who produce 640 million bottles of wine in a good year, over half of which never leaves the country.

Being labelled 'Vin de France' means that it has not been produced under particularly demanding or stringently enforced rules, but has been made with grapes grown anywhere in France. In this case the fruit all comes from the South-Western part of the country, otherwise known as Languedoc.

The varieties could be any but are in fact Grenache and Carignan which are stalwarts of this and many other regions.

The wine was surprisingly enjoyable for the price; easy-drinking and the ideal accompaniment to a game of Bolivia. Do try.

Not much more to write home about expect that this reminded me of times not long past when £4.35 would buy something drinkable in the UK. Not so now, as with UK duties and VAT even if all of other elements of the cost were unchanged, this would be priced at around £7 at home and that would make it less of a bargain.

It's ok and I am glad we found something with a Japanese connection, but it is little more than a means to keep my game on the rails.