Hokkaido’s Harvest Scenery: Autumn Edition
Hokkaido is known as Japan's food base, and is a treasure trove of a wide variety of foods, such as agricultural and livestock products, seafood, wine, sake and beer.
Autumn – from September to November – is the harvest season for fruits, potatoes and other root vegetables, rice, buckwheat and the like. It is also when marine products such as salmon and Pacific saury are landed.
We have gathered together some ‘taste of autumn’ harvest scenery, much anticipated by the people of Hokkaido.
Special feature
Specially selected Yamasachi grapes make high quality wine
The work of thinning-down the ‘Yamasachi’ vines – developed especially for wine-making – is reaching its peak in the vineyards of Chiyoda in the town of Ikeda in the Tokachi region of eastern Hokkaido.
The point of the work is to reduce the number of bunches of grapes, creating just one or two bunches of elite grapes can be used to produce high-quality wine.
There are three or four bunches containing dark blue grapes that grew this year, which are swiftly removed with scissors. These are the specially selected grapes indispensable for the production of the finest ‘Jewel of Tokachi’ wine.
According to Mr. Tamura, manager of the Production Division of the Ikeda Town Grape Wine Laboratory, “The good summer weather conditions this year have been good for the grapes. We can expect good quality.”
Yamasachi is a desirable grape that is registered as a variety by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV). Harvesting will take place in mid-October.
