Making Wine From Viburnum Berries

I went to a "Eco-tourism" event in Hanno, up near where the hills become mountains and there are rivers and lakes.


We took a long walk in the morning, with the guide helping everyone identifying edible plants and berries, such as gamazumi, that we picked. We then got the entire, full-monty lecture and started clean the matatabi, yamaboushi, sarunashi and gumi. Adding alcohol, we were told to wait for 3 years to get the special flavour... Our guide had plenty of bottles, all properly labelled, some dating back 20 years or so. The older the better ;)

Gamazumi is a plant we actually have in Sweden too, it is called olvon. The Latin name is Viburnum dilatatum.

Making sake from rice of course happens in late fall, after the harvest. Around here, and in the far western part of Tokyo, and into Yamanashi, there are lots of wineries and sake breweries. Many of them are having events and guided tours.

With my UK friend visiting, I had an opportunity to go to Mercian, the large winery in Yamanashi prefecture. Their wine-making tradition dates back to 1877. We also went to a sake brewery called Matsudaya, that boasts the largest taiko drum in the world! Of course Tom and Kouji had to go ahead and play.

Really, there were these huge, heavy drum sticks waiting in a box: all you had to do was take of your shoes and hit the skin. Apparently it is in the Guinness Book of Records.