Today, I visited a vineyard on the mountain to experience grape picking.
This time, I picked "Kagawa University R-1," a grape developed by Kagawa University specifically for winemaking and processing. It is bred from the wild grape "Ryukyu Ganev" found in Okinawa and Amami, combined with the high-quality greenhouse grape "Muscat of Alexandria." Although the grape berries weigh only about 1 gram, their skins are rich in polyphenols and anthocyanins.
I have previously picked grapes at tourist orchards, but this experience was completely different.
In tourist orchards, the grapes hang in clusters on the trellises, making them easy to pick, but the grapes for winemaking grow freely on the trellises, with branches and leaves intertwined, requiring some effort to find the clusters.
The entire vineyard is set on a slope, with drainage ditches below, so one must be careful with their steps while picking, as it is not the easy fruit-picking experience one might imagine.
After washing the picked grapes, they are sent to the factory to be juiced, beginning the journey of winemaking.
The wine made from R-1 grapes is named "Sauvageonne Savoureuse," featuring a rich color and less astringency, and is sold in the prefecture under the Kagawa University brand of wine.
Walking into the vineyard, I realized that behind a bottle of wine, there is not only the mountain scenery but also the culmination of varietal development and the hard work of farmers.
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