Agence France Presse

Tokyo, May 11:

Winemakers looking for a way to tap into the vast but largely untapped Japanese market have found a niche — women, who increasingly have cash to spend and want to order something different than their brothers’ beer. Wine remains a new entrant in hard-drinking Japan, giving winemakers a chance to mold the image of a suave, feminine drink to the growing number of women who are independent and are taking to the often male preserve of the bottle.

US winery Ernest and Julio Gallo held a tasting seminar in April in a bid to introduce its new Pinot Noir to a female audience that included female sommeliers, wine suppliers and connoisseurs. Gina Gallo, a winemaker and granddaughter of the firm’s co-founder Julio Gallo, said she saw a big chance for an acceptance of wine in the land of sake, particularly among women. “There is a very small volume that’s enjoyed here. But it seems like there is potential of people enjoying wine more as a lifestyle,” she said.

Japan saw a boom in wine-drinking in the 1990s and is Asia’s biggest wine consumer, last year overtaking the United States as the top importer of France’s Beaujolais Nouveau. But overall wine sales have been stable in recent years, signalling that customers’ choices of beverage are still not firmly set, said a spokesman for Suntory, a leading distiller which markets Beaujolais Nouveau in Japan.

“The shallow fad of wine drinking is over. Now we are seeing people developing a real taste for wine,” he said. Take, for example, Tokyo businesswoman Keiko Horiguchi, 38, who has taken to organising parties with friends to sample different bottles of wine. “I drink wine almost daily. I drink something that goes with meals,” she said, “it’s more fashionable for women to drink wine at bars and restaurants rather than ordering other drinks. It is easier for women to introduce themselves to the wine culture because of its elegant image.”

With women like Horiguchi in mind, major Japanese wine firm Mercian has launched a two-front approach to market Piat d’Or imported from France. It has sold bottles in ordinary supermarkets, within view of female customers who usually do the shopping in Japan, while running an advertising campaign showing wine as the drink that goes with hobbies considered sophisticated, such as listening to music and learning to arrange flowers.