Making Inroads into Grape Production and Winemaking and Preservation of
4. Academic implications
Through the case study, we found that the newcomers had different backgrounds and entered the wine business through various ways. For instance, one entered the institution managed by Shinshu-Ueda farm and become a trainee first and another one worked at a pioneer winery as an intern or as a worker and then depended on the winery’s help to start a wine business after learning the adequate skills for running the business by oneself. These newcomers were willing to leas in and revival abandoned farmland that was under unfavorable conditions to obtain their own land for growing grapevines, except the trainee at the institution of Shinshu-Ueda farm, whose farmland was arranged by the institution. To reveal the farmland revival process, we show a revival mechanism in Figure 2. Farmland revival in this region took place basically because of historical and incidental events. In addition, five factors had contributed to the farmland revival process. First, the natural conditions of this region were suitable for winemaking and wine grape cultivation. Second, the newcomers had various backgrounds as well as winemaking and grape cultivation skills. Third, the requirements of the farmland leasing system were eased for wine districts. Fourth, the local government and the agricultural cooperative created a support system for newcomers. Finally, pioneer wineries supported newcomers by accepting them as interns or trainees and consigning winemaking. These support systems had enticed newcomers to this region for wine business and their settlement and winery had resulted in farmland revival.
The issue of farmland abandonment in Japan is difficult to resolve because farmland is distributed around a region in small sizes, and an adequate number of small-farm farmers are needed. Therefore, attracting a sufficient number of small-farm farmers who have unique characteristics and skills and distributing them around a region are
vital. The success of pioneer wineries in this region is due to not only their effort but also the unique attraction wine has as an agricultural product.
Furthermore, to preserve and inherit revived farmland, the wines had to attract consumers and be valued by them so that farmers could earn sufficient basic income from wine sales. In this regard, it was vital to have other business projects while attempting to sell wines at high prices. On the other hand, as most of the newcomers have just started their wine business, we need to look forward to their future management. In the case of pioneer wineries, using the characteristics of this region, which enable fruit tree cultivation, they made cider and sparkling wine using local apples and Kyoho grapes bought at low price from farmers around the region, because these products did not satisfy the requirements for sales in markets.
They were able to gain financial stability by deriving income from these side businesses.
5. Conclusion
In the target region that started with pioneer wineries, several wineries have been established and various kinds of wines have been made by them. By using the region as a model case for winemaking districts in Japan, revealing the development process gave us not only important insight into how the region that is suitable for wine grape cultivation can develop but also critical ideas to solve the problem of how to revive, preserve, and inherit agricultural resources such as farmland for passing on to the next generation, by cultivating other agricultural products.
We discuss three remaining problems faced by small wineries in Japan and give a rough sketch of solutions for them. First, it is difficult for small winery owners to learn professional skills for wine grape cultivation and winemaking techniques systematically
in Japan. Therefore, most of them rely on internship or training in pioneer wineries or institutions to learn those skills. In addition, the skills they learn mostly come from watching and imitation. On the other hand, famous winemaking regions around the world have colleges or professional schools for winemaking and those educational institutions have special classes or divisions for wine grape cultivation and winemaking.
As students in those classes or divisions learn professional knowledge and skills systematically, wineries in those regions hire them for maintaining and improving the quality of their wines. Second, the cost of wine grape cultivation in Japan is higher than that in other winemaking countries because the unfavorable weather conditions in Japan, including high temperature and humidity, heavy rainfall throughout the year, and high nighttime temperature, hinder the cultivation of high-quality wine grapes. To overcome these problems, wineries need to exert a lot of effort by introducing canopy cultivation and deep furrow cultivation.
Therefore, the price of wine made by small wineries is higher than that of imported wine, leading to loss of competitive power.
Indeed, small wineries face the challenge of competing with low-priced imported wines.
Third, because newcomers with various backgrounds enter the wine business and attempt to make their own brand by self-reliance, it is difficult for them to cooperate with other wineries.
Considering these facts, winery owners should understand that the fundamentals of winemaking are the science and they should
learn and apply new knowledge every day. However, because winery owners have limited access to new professional knowledge, we present three solutions to this problem. First, local colleges as well as government and private institutions should offer systematic support to small wineries so that they can learn professional skills, by introducing new professional knowledge and implementation methods to them. Moreover, it is desirable that winery owners attend international wine conferences, seminars, and extension lectures. Second, setting up a new marketing system that would enable local residents and supporters to support a specific winery is needed. Specifically, it is vital to establish a marketing system where a small winery is able to sell 10,000 bottles of wine at 3,000 yen per bottle. Third, winery owners throughout Japan should cooperate with each other and establish a cooperative institution so that they can compete in one area but cooperate in other areas, thereby gaining maximum benefit from cooperation.
For instance, they should, together with others, invest resources in order to send a representative to international wine conferences, seminars, and extension lectures, and have the representative share new professional knowledge.
Although we have placed high expectations on the development of small wineries in Japan, we are anxious about how it would turn out as well. We hope research on the development of small wineries and continuous outreach will offer clues to resolve the issues surrounding farmland revival, preservation, and inheritance.
Challenges in viticulture and oenology:
Wine Appellations, Authenticity and Innovation.
Session III. Authenticity
Abstract: The assessment of wine authenticity is of utmost importance in the current context of a growing market globalization. In the last years several studies were developed on the application of 87Sr/86Sr isotopic ratio for the evaluation of wine geographical origin, involving wine producing regions worldwide, evidencing its reliability as a provenance marker. Aspects such as 87Sr/86Sr relation with the vineyard substratum, analytical methodologies, and effect of technological processes have been addressed. Data has been obtained for different wine regions/PDO. Nevertheless, some important issues remain, such as the interpretation of the data from the soil (it is crucial to know the soil geochemistry), and the need for better understanding of the impacts of anthropogenic factors. Precise and accurate 87Sr/86Sr data is required for origin discrimination and analytical methods used should be officially recognized or validated in order to support comparison. Sr isotopic data can be used to build an authentic wine reference database (e.g. official or wine organization, PDO consortium), or to integrate a global database (e.g.
EU wine databank). 87Sr/86Sr data combined with other discriminating parameters, namely elemental composition, can provide increasingly robust results for the identification of wine provenance. This work reviews the main aspects of the topic and includes recent research results obtained by the author’s team.
Keywords: Wine, authenticity, geographic origin, 87Sr/86Sr isotopic ratio.