Domaine MontBorn in Koga, Ibaraki, west of Tokyo, Atsuo Yamanaka’s family sold tea through a store that his grandfather founded. His journey towards becoming a winemaker began with a passion for snowboarding and a love of Hokkaido and its beautiful mountains, picturesque farms, and great produce. After university, he moved there and became a seasonal snowboarding instructor. In Hokkaido, this is a temporary job: during the winter, the snows in the mountains are too extreme for skiing or snowboarding and in those seasons, Atsuo became fascinated with Hokkaido and its culture of small independent farmers. In the same offseasons, working at a restaurant, he became interested in wine. That interest led to a sommelier certification.
Fascinated with farming and wine and passionate about Hokkaido, it is perhaps natural that he soon started working with Takahiko Soga of Domaine Takahiko in 2014. After two years at Domaine Takahiko, Atsuo Yamanaka struck out on his own and founded Domaine Mont in 2016. The name, Mont, is a play on words across languages: first, Mont means “mountain,” as does Yama in Atsuo’s surname Yamanaka; second, the Yamanaka family crest, which is on the label of the wines, means “Mon,” which sounds identical to Mont in Japanes. The crest also has a special meaning, depicting 3 tea berries in a circle, one red (representing the son), one blue (representing watering) and one green (representing the earth. Today, Atsuo farms a single vineyard planted entirely to Pinot Gris in the Nobori are of Yoichi, near Domaine Takahiko. He attributes the choice of Pinot Gris as his main grape variety to his background in Japanese teas: he enjoys the complex aroma, delicate flavor, umami character, and delicate tannins of the grape, and finds them comparable to great teas in its ability to complement Japanese foods. In the vineyard, Atsuo farms organically (the estate is certified organic by JAS) with an emphasis on biodiversity and limiting the environmental impact of farming. Heavy machinery, tractors, and tilling are avoided whenever possible, and chemical herbicides and pesticides are never used. The whole approach emphasizes a deep and careful connection to the vineyard and necessitates constant observation. Domaine Mont’s Pinot Gris wines are fermented whole cluster in neutral resin fermenters with roughly a month of skin maceration before pressing to neutral barrels. There are no additives in the cellar, and they try to avoid pumping or disturbing the wine during fermentation. The wines are never fined or filtered, and Atsuo does not add SO2 at any point. The Wines
Dom Gris is Atsuo Yamanaka's Pinot Gris from his organically farmed Dom Gris vineyard that was planted in 2013. The vineyard is on an east facing slope in Yoichi at 70 meters elevation. The soils are volcanic clay. The grapes are harvested by hand at the end of September or beginning of October, and ferment and macerate with the whole bunches in plastic tanks for a month, before aging in used 228L oak barrels. The wine is bottled without fining, filtering, or sulfur addition.
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Tech SheetsGalleryPhotos courtesy of Alice Feiring.
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