Nebbiolo Vermouth White Rhone Blend Japan Nara Prefecture 750ml

The Nebbiolo grape varietal is widely understood to be the fruit responsible for Italy's finest aged wines. However, its popularity and reliability as a grape which gives out outstanding flavors and aromas has led it to be planted in many countries around the world, with much success. These purple grapes are distinguishable by the fact that they take on a milky dust as they begin to reach maturity, leading many to claim that this is the reason for their unusual name, which means 'fog' in Italian. Nebbiolo grapes produce wines which have a wide range of beautiful and fascinating flavors, the most common of which are rich, dark and complex, such as violet, truffle, tobacco and prunes. They are generally aged for many years to balance out their characteristics, as their natural tannin levels tend to be very high.

The Rhone region of France has been producing superb quality white blended wines for centuries, and is a region highly respected and esteemed around the world, with plenty of New World countries keen to emulate the styles and techniques displayed by the historic wineries and skilled vintners of the area. The secret to the Rhone's success when it comes to blended white wines is the careful and expert selection of certain grape varietals, which each lend special features to the blended wine and bring balance and harmony to the bottle. Most commonly, blended white Rhone wines feature no more than two grapes of either the Viognier, Rousanne, Marsanne or Grenache Blanc varietals, and are renowned for their exceptional flavors and highly aromatic, floral character.

All over Japan, farmers and wine producers take the production of alcoholic beverages including plum wine and sake very seriously. It is an industry which dates back well over a thousand years, and is held in high esteem in this far east country, where plum wines and sake often accompany meals and are used for ceremonial purposes. Whilst plum wine is produced in a relatively similar way to grape based wines, sake requires a complex process more akin to the brewing of beer, except using a rice mash instead of other grains. The rising popularity of both of these drinks in the west has seen the drinks industry in Japan increase dramatically over recent years, and both quality and quantity has risen alongside demand, and is expected to rise further.