ZoomMuscat Bailey A2023
Domaine TettaNiimi, Okayama, Japan
About this wine
Muscat Bailey A is the workhorse Japanese black grape, but at Domaine Tetta it receives the full estate treatment. The vines — 7 hectares on a limestone karst plateau at 400 to 600 meters in Niimi, Okayama — trace back to 2009, when owner Ryuta Takahashi founded Tetta with the explicit goal of regenerating abandoned farmland through wine. The Domaine Tetta winery itself was completed in 2016. The winemaking follows the same philosophy: a gravity-flow cellar, native-yeast fermentation, no added sugar or acid, and aging in former limestone mining tunnels held year-round at 12 to 15°C and 80% humidity. Grapes are hand-picked, extraction is restrained, and the wine finishes at 12% alcohol. The result is a precise, place-driven take on a grape better known for cheap supermarket bottlings: elegant and red-fruited, with cinnamon and caramel notes from the oak, light-bodied and long on the finish.
Winemaking
Grapes are destemmed but not crushed. The firm-skinned berries create a semi-carbonic environment in the tank, starting intracellular fermentation, which continues with wild yeast in stainless steel with punch-downs (pigeage) three times a day. The wine is aged six months in used 225-liter French oak barrels, then lightly filtered through a coarse filter, with no fining.