Domaine Takahiko Nana-Tsu-Mori Pinot Noir 2018 750ml

Rain at flowering cut the 2018 crop to nearly half, and Takahiko Soga says the loose, shot-berry bunches that survived gave Nana-Tsu-Mori the strawberry density he had been chasing.

Hokkaido has no rainy season, yet Soga’s release note for 2018 records a long run of sunless rain in July that fell exactly over flowering. The vines lost their balance, coulure was severe, and the harvest came in at close to half of a normal year. The weather then turned. The bunches set as loose millerandage clusters, and he picked fruit that had ripened berry by berry with almost no rot and unusually dense aroma and flavour. He writes that this brought the wine nearer to what he wants from Nana-Tsu-Mori: strawberry-scented fruit with more weight in the mouth, the stem spice held back a little, and fruit, umami and tannin thicker than in any earlier vintage.

At this release Nana-Tsu-Mori was a 4.6-hectare parcel of organically farmed Pinot Noir owned by the domaine, which is why the label reads Domaine Takahiko Soga over the address 1395 Yoichi-Nobori; the name recalls the orchard of seven fruit trees that once stood there. The 2018 fermented 95% whole cluster with wild yeast, a 5% destemmed lot included, and the cuvaison was stretched beyond 40 days. No sulphur went in during fermentation or at bottling, apart from one lot of 100 bottles; the wine then rested 12 months in barrel, 95% used and 5% new. 5,000 bottles were filled. Wine Shop Fujii, a contract retailer, adds that the topping-up wine had received sulphur, so the back label still lists sulphites.

Soga trained in fermentation science in Tokyo and ran the farm at Coco Farm & Winery for ten years before setting up in Yoichi in 2010. His 13 strains of Pinot Noir sit on a hill 60 metres up in Nobori, on volcanic clay over andesite, under more than a metre of powder snow each winter. The wine he says he is after is thin yet deep, wide and long, closer to a good dashi than to a dense red.

In the glass

Soga’s own list for the 2018 runs beetroot, cinnamon, strawberry, mint, matsutake, shimeji, cherry, blackcurrant, violet and clove, the forest register he aims for in every Nana-Tsu-Mori. He describes the acidity as a little higher than usual, the tannin still firm, and the finish very long, with the wine already beginning to open because no sulphur was added.

When to open

The producer asked that the 2018 stay closed until December 2020 and named four years or more of bottle age as the ideal, a point now passed. Serving cool, around 14–16°C, is our suggestion.

At the table

Our suggestion: mushroom dishes, dashi-based cooking, duck breast or lightly seared wagyu.

Quick facts

Provenance

Sourced from a local distributor in Japan.

Sources: Domaine Takahiko (takahiko.co.jp wine list, June 2020 archive, and estate page); front label; Isego (retailer); Wine Shop Fujii (retailer)