Domaine Mont Hase-Don 2024 750ml

Riesling was said never to ripen in Yoichi; Atsuo Yamanaka picks it while the acid is still high and lets a second wild-yeast fermentation in bottle do the rest.

Hase-Don is Domaine Mont's lightly sparkling Riesling, made from fruit grown by Hasegawa Vineyard in the Nobori district of Yoichi. Yamanaka writes that Riesling was long thought unable to ripen fully in Yoichi; warming has changed that, but at picking the acidity is still high, so rather than force a still wine he finishes it as a pétillant. The bunches are pressed whole, both the first fermentation and the second in bottle run on wild yeast, and the wine goes out unfined, unfiltered and without added sulphites under a green crown cap. Hase-Don itself is Yamanaka's nickname for Hiroki Hasegawa, the grower, per the back-label text reproduced by Wine Shop Fujii.

Hasegawa Vineyard is a family farm on the western side of Nobori. Hiroki Hasegawa trained two years under Jun Nakai of Nakai Kanko Nouen, took on 5.2 ha in April 2016 and grows grapes only. The west-facing slope, once orchard, gave up stones from every planting hole. Riesling went in during 2019 and 2020, so the 2024 crop came from vines in their fourth and fifth leaf. Speaking to Madame Figaro Japon at his own harvest in October 2024, Yamanaka said the season had been cooler than 2023, that he had delayed picking by about a week, and that sugar and acid had come in well balanced.

Domaine Mont dates from spring 2016, when Yamanaka left Domaine Takahiko after two years with Takahiko Soga and cleared an abandoned plot in Nobori: about 3 ha at around 50 m, planted only to Pinot Gris, so every other cuvée, Hase-Don included, comes from neighbours' grapes. The domaine cites a growing-season heat summation for Yoichi of 1,227 °C, on a par with northern Burgundy, Alsace and the Rheingau.

In the glass

Absent any critic note for the 2024, we keep to the producer: Yamanaka calls Hase-Don a pétillant built on the high acidity Yoichi Riesling keeps at harvest, with a faint bitterness and a layer of extract behind it that he describes as habit-forming. The back-label text quoted by Wine Shop Fujii adds that the carbon dioxide comes from fermentation alone and that, being unfiltered, the bottle carries grape-derived sediment.

When to open

Our suggestion, since the producer gives no window: an unsulphured pétillant is best within two to three years of the vintage, served well chilled and stood upright beforehand so the lees settle.

At the table

Our suggestion: Hokkaido oysters, white-fish sashimi, or a tempura of mountain vegetables, where the bitterness and the acidity both have a role.

Quick facts

Provenance

Sourced from a local distributor in Japan.

Sources: Domaine Mont (producer website and label); Hasegawa Vineyard (grower website); Wine Shop Fujii (Japanese retailer, back-label text); Madame Figaro Japon (Oct 2024)