Domaine Takahiko Nana-Tsu-Mori Blanc de Noir 2021 750ml

Noble rot is getting scarce in Yoichi, and since 2022 Takahiko Soga has released this wine only as a multi-vintage: 2021 is the last single-year bottling so far.

Nana-Tsu-Mori Blanc de Noir is a white wine from red grapes, made in an unusual way. Soga picks the estate's Pinot Noir berry by berry, keeping fruit touched by botrytis, and the back label of our bottle calls the result a dry, orange-coloured white from fully ripe, nobly rotten Pinot Noir. In years without noble rot the volume drops sharply, and in some years none is made. In 2021 the season was kind and there was almost no botrytis until just before picking; then it spread fast, and, as in 2020, the domaine made a comparatively large amount.

In earlier vintages Soga blended in juice from healthy grapes before fermentation so the wine would not finish sweet or very high in alcohol. From 2020 he let the must ferment as it was, aiming for a dry wine with volume. In 2021 the berries soaked cold through a harvest of about 14 days, were pressed on the final day, fermented with wild yeast and then rested for about a year in old barrels. By Soga's account Yoichi logged its highest heat summation to date that year, and the label reads 15.5% alcohol. 2,300 bottles were filled.

Soga set up Domaine Takahiko in Nobori in 2010, after ten years as farm manager at Coco Farm in Tochigi; a bottle from Pierre Overnoy in the Jura, with a savoury depth he likens to dashi, set his course. He grows almost only Pinot Noir, 13 strains, organically, on the Nana-Tsu-Mori vineyard, named for the orchard of seven fruit trees that stood there before. The domaine's own site calls this cuvée the hardest of its wines to obtain.

In the glass

Soga's 2021 note, reproduced by the Obihiro retailer Sakaya Adachi, runs through nuts, honey, fallen leaves, roasted chestnut, black tea and orange marmalade. He points to real acidity beside the high alcohol, a gentle texture with firm minerality, and a long finish.

When to open

The domaine asked that bottles stay closed until around April 2024 and considers four years or more of ageing ideal. With so few bottles made, Soga hopes they are opened among friends and shared by the glass.

At the table

Soga suggests cheese, chicken liver, shabu-shabu and tempura, and says it also suits Japanese and Western sweets.

Quick facts

Provenance

Sourced from a local distributor in Japan.

Sources: Domaine Takahiko (takahiko.co.jp estate page and wine list); back label of our bottle; Sakaya Adachi (retailer, reproducing the producer's 2021 note); PON wine blog