Every year around the end of October Gambero Rosso, an Italian food and wine magazine and publishing group, holds an Italian wine tasting event in Tokyo. The ten times or so I have attended they have been at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Tokyo Midtown in Roppongi. My wife and I went to the latest event, which was held October 27.
The event is an opportunity for wine producers to look for Japanese importers, as well as a chance to show off their products to new customers. It is also a fun trip for the many people that come from Italy, Tokyo being the number one city for these events according to several people I spoke with.
It seemed like there were fewer participating wineries this year, although there was still plenty of wines to sample, including numerous sparkling wines and proseccos. And there didn’t seem to be any expensive wines as in prior years, expensive as in ¥15,000 a bottle and up (there were several priced around ¥10,000).
The room is set up with tables around the edges and in the center, each table with one, two or three wineries, most with at least three selections. A small card with the winery’s name and a map showing where the wine is produced is set in front of each participant. I got the impression that the Friuli Venezia Giulia in far northeast Italy and the Puglia region along the southeast coast were the dominant producing regions present this year. I particularly enjoyed some of the sparkling wines from Friuli, wines that mostly tended to be fairly dry. There were also a few good reds from Lombardy, but none, as far as I tasted anyway, from Tuscany.
Because not many Italians can speak Japanese, almost every booth had a Japanese person to assist. There are a surprisingly large number of Japanese that can speak Italian. Or maybe all of them were working the event. Maybe half of the Italians speak English, which kind of becomes the default language.
I joined in a conversation between a Japanese importer and a wine maker hoping to get into the Japanese market which is the second biggest for Italian wines in the world, the biggest being, of course, Italy. I learned a lot about marketing strategy from the Nakamura-san, the importer, including that setting the price too low is in many cases worse than being too expensive.
This year there was also a display from a fine crystal glass maker. Looks like Riedel may have some competition.!
I am already looking forward to next year’s event.