The grape no one outside this Japanese prefecture has ever heard of

At a Japanese External Trade Organisation (JETRO) panel discussion featuring wine from Hokkaido held during Restaurant Bar Hong Kong (RBHK) 2025, sommelier Abe Masahisa introduced the merits of a 2022 vintage of Yamasachi wine produced by Tokachi Wine.

Situated in Ikeda Town in eastern Hokkaido, Tokachi is a boutique winery and one of just 10 out of the northern Japanese island’s 73 wine producers cultivating Yamasachi, a local grape.

Yamasachi came about when Japan first began exploring cultivation of hybrid Old World grapes on its own turf. Ikeda Town was earmarked for viticulture experimentation as it boasted one of the few government-operated wineries in Japan.

After the commercial failure of French hybrid Kiyomi due to the intense labour necessary to manually tend to its vines, Ikeda Town began developing its own varietals that could withstand the extreme climatic conditions of northern Japan. Several decades and more than 20,000 crossbreeds, cultivation experiments and vinification tests later, Yamasachi emerged as the standout grape in 1978.

“It can withstand temperatures as low as -35°C, and offers excellent colour and aroma,” noted Tadashi Furuhata, chief of JETRO’s Hokkaido office. In 2006, it was officially registered as a grape variety by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture. The grape was only officially recognised by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) in 2020.

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