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Vino Della Gatta is a cat-obsessed winery and restaurant, owned by\u00a0Atsuko Narusawa (centre, in picture below). The winery here is new \u2013 it was established last year. In the past the wines were made at two custom crush facilities. There are seven vineyard blocks, totalling 3 hectares, and each is named after a cat.<\/p>\n
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The winemaker here is Kaori Mitake-Howard (left, above)\u00a0\u2013 she’s just returned from 12 years working with Benziger in the Sonoma Valley, California. Coming back to a tiny winery in Nagano must be quite a culture shock. ‘It’s a hard place to make wine here,’ she says. ‘It rains for weeks and then a typhoon hits you. Last year the grapes got stuck at 19 Brix and then moved just 1 degree in a month.’<\/p>\n
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Vino della Gatta Sakaki Kyoho Wine 2018 Nagano, Japan<\/strong> Vino della Gatta Sauvignon Blanc 2018 Nagano, Japan<\/strong> Vino della Gatta Cabernet Sauvignon\/Merlot 2018 Nagano, Japan<\/strong> Vino della Gatta Shine Muscat 2018 Nagano, Japan<\/strong> Find these wines with wine-searcher.com<\/a><\/p>\n Nagano Wine Region (2019)<\/strong><\/p>\n Nagano Wine Region (2018)<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vino Della Gatta is a cat-obsessed winery and restaurant, owned by\u00a0Atsuko Narusawa (centre, in picture below). The winery here is new \u2013 it was established last year. In the past…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[405],"class_list":["post-22983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan","tag-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22983"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23578,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22983\/revisions\/23578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThis is made from a black table grape (Kyoho), which is a labrusca. It was immediately taken off the skins to make a white wine, but as tartrates have begun to drop it has turned a delicate pink. Fruity, aromatic nose. Fruity and jellyish with nice bright citrus fruit and some tangerine and almond hints. Juicy finish. 85\/100<\/p>\n
\nTank sample. Exuberantly fruity with some tank fermentation esters. Fresh citrus fruits with a hint of tropical richness. 87-88\/100<\/p>\n
\nBarrel sample. Supple and ripe with nice precision. Midweight with juicy cherry and berry fruits. Fine, expressive and made in a bright style, but with some substance. 88-90\/100<\/p>\n
\nShine Muscat is a very expensive table grape that normally sells for 1500 Yen a kilo, and a good bunch might set you back 5000 Yen. There was a large yield this year so they were able to get some at a good price to make a wine with. This wine has beautiful aromatics: it is grapey and rich. The palate is vivid and just off dry with amazing precision and focus. Muscatty but with freshness and purity. 90\/100<\/p>\n\n
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