[HN Gopher] At Japan's first winery, the country's oldest grape ...
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At Japan's first winery, the country's oldest grape lives on
Author : karaokeyoga
Score : 100 points
Date : 2023-07-10 15:28 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.japantimes.co.jp)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.japantimes.co.jp)
| hospitalJail wrote:
| Japan's obsession with tradition gives me real Europe vibes.
|
| The people selling it praise it, the people nearby have pride.
|
| I eat it and after all the hype, am disappointed. If I try really
| really hard, I can trick my brain into thinking its worthwhile.
| (I did just spend a bunch of money, traveled across the world, I
| should be able to enjoy this more than something I grow in my
| garden.. right?)
|
| I'd love blind taste tests with children(or adults if you deem
| them better).
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> I eat it and after all the hype, am disappointed.
|
| "Fine" wine has almost nothing to do with taste. It is about
| culture. It is about history and travel. It is about wealth. It
| is about demonstrating one's ability and acceptance within a
| particular society. It is about pretending. The fact that an
| elite wine only available to a rarified few actually tastes
| horrible is very much beside the point.
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| I love it when HN galaxy brains talk about stuff they clearly
| know nothing about.
| randomcarbloke wrote:
| the taste-journey people undertake before arriving at specific
| and sought after examples is not something you can skip, you
| may be disappointed but probably you are just not looking for
| what you found.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| sometimes it's not just about the flavor but the tradition
| itself. You're participating in an act and culture that has
| stretched throughout time and creates a shared experience to
| those in the past and hopefully future
| rcme wrote:
| Children have horribly underdeveloped palates. Generally
| novices in anything, food or otherwise, have trouble
| appreciating the nuances that make something beautiful.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| They're also famously bad at tasting wine
| DropInIn wrote:
| They may be underdeveloped but they are also significantly
| more sensitive to various flavours than adults
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/ja.
| ..
| emptybits wrote:
| Novices don't appreciate nuance that trained experts focus on
| ... yes, that makes sense. But children do actually have more
| papillae (taste buds) than adults. As we age, we may gain
| skill in describing what we sense but we also lose taste buds
| which give us the raw sensory input to start with.
|
| Also on the plus side, children also lack bias and cultural
| filters and blindspots, which are hard to avoid in adulthood.
| Kids notice things adults do not and kids don't hold back
| from talking about details which adults have dulled
| themselves to or have been trained to not speak of for
| reasons of tradition or politeness. (Sometimes those things
| need to be said and we're all thinking them!)
|
| "Out of the mouths of babes."
| filoleg wrote:
| > But children do actually have more papillae (taste buds)
| than adults. As we age, we may gain skill in describing
| what we sense but we also lose taste buds which give us the
| raw sensory input to start with.
|
| Sure, but the point is that "nuanced" fancy food is
| optimized for the taste bud setup of adults, not children.
| So while theoretically, i guess, you can craft a food piece
| for children that would be the kind of mindblowing that
| adults can't experience anymore, that's not what expensive
| cuisine is optimizing for.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If children were in charge, they'd make everything taste like
| chicken nuggets. Kind of like the Matrix.
| GordonS wrote:
| Plus, everything would be beige.
| cubefox wrote:
| No that's the favorite color of old women.
| dylan604 wrote:
| i'm pretty sure that not once ever have i heard a kid say
| their favorite color is beige. from kid's, i'd expect
| everything to be bright colors.
| GordonS wrote:
| Given the comment I was replying to, I thought it would
| be obvious that my comment was in the context of food.
|
| At least IME, some kids will only eat beige food
| (fries/chips, battered/breaded meat/fish etc).
| dylan604 wrote:
| Popsicles are typically brightly colored. They also tend
| to like to eat fruits which are rather bright. Sounds
| like your grasping. Or I am
| rbreaves wrote:
| Could also just say different - children also have an
| unlimited tolerance for things that are sweet. Some adults I
| think never get past it much & have what I call super
| smellers too. But yea it's like they can also lack the
| tastebuds that'd help them appreciate bitter things later in
| life, like most adults do. Could just be natural that our
| tastebuds from when were kids change or die off sorta, which
| allows for the fuller palate.
|
| Tbh though I can't stand bitter & earwax level IPAs. Just
| gives me headaches.
| taeric wrote:
| Is it an irony that the very same nuance detection is often
| used in so many biases and other degenerate judgements?
|
| I have loved that my kids find basically everything
| beautiful. Beetles in the backyard? Amazing! Snakes? Cute!
| Coyotes? Leave the chickens alone, you adorable canine!
|
| Are they underdeveloped? I mean, yeah. I don't disagree with
| the assertion. I sometimes question the directions that we
| develop ourselves into, though.
| rcme wrote:
| I don't think calling this a degenerate judgement is fair.
| I too have a child and I too admire the gusto with which
| she experience the world. But when your child is amazed by
| a beetle in the backyard, your sense of amazement stems not
| from the beetle, but from the fact that your child can be
| amazed by a beetle. You're amazed specifically because your
| child sees the world in a way that you don't. And so I
| fully believe that a child believes basic staples taste
| better than the finest cuisine, but that doesn't make their
| taste a good proxy for adults.
| taeric wrote:
| Apologies, that isn't the degenerate judgement I was
| referring to. In that, I meant most other banal
| prejudices and such. The diversion to children was just
| exploring easy topics that show many fears/judgements are
| learned.
|
| Specifically, the beetle and such are ones that I know I
| somewhat imprinted on them. If I see beetles, I will
| shuffle them around so that they are safe from whatever
| work I'm doing. Such that my kids find them cute and like
| helping them, where they can. We've had other kids over
| that find them disgusting and can't believe we would
| touch them.
|
| Does this mean that some things can't taste better than
| others? I definitely don't think so. But I find a lot of
| the attempts at making that objective questionable, at
| best.
| CalRobert wrote:
| They have more healthy taste buds do they not? Perhaps they
| have the best taste of all.
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| I don't know, from 6 to 26, my tasting buds would be ruined
| by sugar and couldn't see difference between beef and lamb
| or veal vs pork.
|
| Now my daughter, that's another matter..
| bluepod4 wrote:
| > couldn't see difference between beef and lamb or veal
| vs pork
|
| From 6 to 26? What changed at 26 lol? Are you saying that
| you stopped eating sugar? I'm surprised by the beef vs
| lamb comparison. Lamb has so much iron in it that it
| tastes like blood to me.
|
| Maybe "sugar" isn't why you couldn't tell the difference.
| Especially if you're saying your daughter doesn't have
| that issue lol. I'm honestly perplexed by your comment.
|
| I read that too much sugar can dull the taste of
| sweetness, which makes sense. I can't see how it can dull
| the taste of blood though lol (unless you're a mosquito).
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| Basically from 10, I was drinking like 0.5L to 1L of soda
| a day.
|
| I was eating rarely meat, and my parents couldn't cook, I
| think at one stage, I was eating McDonald burgers 2 to 5
| times a week. So while I was practicing a good amount of
| sports to burn these calories, it couldn't be good.
|
| 26 was when I moved out, started preparing food myself,
| started really reducing my overall alcohol and soda
| intake and more exposed to good food.
|
| My daughter eats much more often meat, almost no
| processed food, high quality ingredients and cooking.
| bluepod4 wrote:
| Yeah, it seems like sugar wasn't the issue then. It seems
| like you're saying that you just weren't exposed to
| different foods.
|
| (Unless, you're saying that McDonalds has lamb burgers in
| whatever country you live in and you couldn't tell the
| difference between their beef and lamb burgers? Cause I
| can definitely see this. I just looked up that McDs in
| India used to have lamb burgers.)
| suction wrote:
| [dead]
| taeric wrote:
| I hate to push the idea of experience, but you can try that
| next time.
|
| That is, don't try and take in the taste individually. Look
| around and experience everything with you and try to imprint
| some of that into tasting it. Close your eyes and set the idea
| that it was all a part of it.
|
| Then, later, if you can get back to this specific taste, it can
| help remind you in very physical ways of being there and having
| that experience.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| You seem to be describing a way to lie to yourself about the
| taste.
| taeric wrote:
| I mean, sorta? This would be like claiming that folks that
| enjoy a long bike ride are finding a way to lie about
| difficult physical tasks. (Or marathon runners, or any
| other difficult thing.)
|
| That is, I'm pointing out that you can use unique tastes to
| imprint experiences. And if you do that, it is not
| surprising that you can grow to like the taste, as it is no
| longer an isolated thing, but a physical reminder of other
| things.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| If you work really hard at it, perhaps you can convince
| yourself of anything. But, notice I used the word work
| there. Those marathon runners are putting in an active
| effort to motivate themselves.
|
| No one wants to have to put effort into convincing
| themselves they're enjoying good wine with their
| experience.
| peeters wrote:
| That "taste" as popularly defined is already a multi-
| sensory experience probably isn't controversial to you.
| Most would agree that plugging your nose alters your
| tasting experience of a food. I fail to see why other
| sensory organs like ears and eyes are not fair game to
| include in the experience. Weak beer tastes better on a hot
| patio. Sipping brandy tastes better next to a crackling
| fire.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| I think of it more as paying closer attention to certain
| facets of the experience, and less to others. It's not a
| lie- those elements _are_ present, to greater or lesser
| degrees. Nothing is being spun from whole cloth.
| mason55 wrote:
| The brain isn't a perfect machine - you can't just isolate
| the chemical reaction that your tastebuds have and say that
| anything else is lying to yourself about taste.
|
| Breathing through your nose is lying to yourself about the
| taste too but if you hold your nose while you eat then you
| won't taste anything.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Taste itself is a deception. Studies have shown that if you
| dye a steak blue, it will taste subjectively worse to the
| eater than if it were a normal color, even though the taste
| should be chemically identical. With taste tests of
| identical foods, where one is mentioned to be a higher
| price than the other, the person eating it will prefer the
| "taste" of the more expensive one.
| malermeister wrote:
| There's no such thing as objective taste. There's only
| subjective perception of taste.
| dan_quixote wrote:
| I'd like to extrapolate this further.
|
| Don't make yourself independent from the experience. If
| you're already enjoying yourself, you will enjoy the taste
| (of whatever is in debate) even more. You will associate the
| taste with the story of its creation as well as your personal
| experience. Aim for the memorable experience with
| family/friends over consuming "the best" (sometimes it can be
| the same thing!) and you will enjoy it far more often. It
| took a long time to convince my ever-optimization-focused
| brain to choose this path.
|
| And a corollary to this argument is to never look down on
| someone for enjoying something you don't like - they simply
| found a way to experience joy where you didn't.
| ChatGTP wrote:
| Sounds like you're trying too hard to enjoy it and not just
| enjoying it.
|
| I traveled in Italy recently and it was fantastic, the food,
| tradition and the experience was amazing. I wasn't looking for
| tradition, I just saw tradition, I experienced it and loved it.
| immibis wrote:
| IMO it is not tradition, but variety that is amazing. A lot
| of variety comes from maintaining traditions, because
| otherwise we'd all just converge on the One True Way of doing
| things.
| suction wrote:
| I think US culture, which I suppose you're from, is on a very
| lonely path food-wise - people from all over the world enjoy
| trying and making other culture's dishes, not everything is for
| everyone, but this American-style "I can't get into anything,
| ever, which I am not used to" is so unique.
| klausa wrote:
| It's almost like things like food and drinks are incredibly
| subjective, and things that are highly praised by some won't be
| enjoyable for others.
|
| It's fine to admit to yourself you didn't like something that
| was hyped.
|
| But "worthwhile" can mean so many things! If you're going to
| place X to try "the best Y", with that as your only goal,
| you're almost always going to be disappointed. Did you try
| something _new_? Was it _interesting_ in some ways? Was the
| _experience_ around it nice? Did you learn something about your
| preferences for Y in the process?
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| Ignore whatever expectations people put into you, and go at
| something with a clear and unprejudiced (in either direction)
| mind. Take things on their own terms, that way you'll see far
| easier that a lot of well-known stuff is nothing special and
| that a great deal of common, overlooked stuff is actually a
| damn sight better than people give it credit. It's a net win.
| scandox wrote:
| If you can produce a passable wine in your garden I would
| certainly be impressed.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| Japan's MO seems to be extreme attention to detail on labor
| intensive high end luxury products. This translated into good
| transfer learning towards industrialization after WW2 but now has
| stagnated its potential by focusing on optimizing local maxima.
| It's aims fail to see the forest for the trees.
| jxramos wrote:
| They're probably zening out on these new forms of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko-ry%C5%AB in the tech space.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I'm curious if handcrafting artisans like this exist in North
| America/Europe at anywhere near the same scale (and we only see
| stories from Japan as we view it as something their culture does)
| or whether this is a uniquely Japanese thing to do.
|
| Perhaps we just value it less here in North America.
|
| All stories of extremely small batch but precisely crafted
| products seem to come out of Japan.
| nonagono wrote:
| My hypothesis is that Japanese people just appreciate high-
| quality products more. In the sense that even poor people,
| which of course exist in Japan, are willing to save up money
| and occasionally splurge on upscale items, vs poor people in
| USA who prefer to "average out" their spending and just buy the
| best that they can afford daily.
|
| Some evidence:
|
| 1) Japan has a higher percentage of iPhone users (65.88%)
| compared to USA (56.74%), while being poorer than USA on most
| metrics (GDP, median income, PPP-adjusted income etc.)
|
| 2) I don't have quantitative data, but just from experience
| Japan has so many more high-fashion stores, expensive pastry
| bakeries, expensive candy makers etc, when compared to USA. And
| if the stores are there, the customers must exist too.
| SenHeng wrote:
| And before people chime in about blue vs green, SMS is barely
| used here. Everyone uses LINE. Everyone.
|
| https://line.me/ja/
| randomcarbloke wrote:
| there are thousands of examples of this outside of Japan, there
| are small chateaux whose stock will never even see a market
| because it is promised to friends, family, a circle of trade
| customers, and some insiders, the venn diagram of which is
| probably not far off a wonky circle.
| julianeon wrote:
| "Old vine" wines are pretty close to this, and that's a large
| niche; walk into any large city's grocery store and you can
| probably find at least one. Similar idea: old vines,
| undisturbed land, small batches, artisan production.
| [deleted]
| hindsightbias wrote:
| There are many vinyards that have small batch varieties, they
| just don't invite the commoners.
|
| There was a story recently about Coppola. His property has
| something like ~70 soil type/grape combinations and he has more
| money than god, so he decided to buy fermenters for every
| combination and see what happens.
| bluepod4 wrote:
| > All stories of extremely small batch but precisely crafted
| products seem to come out of Japan.
|
| idk. Most of my YouTube recommendations are exactly that but
| from all around the world lol. I can't even say _most_ are from
| Japan. I would be lying if I did.
|
| As a very simple example, I just watched a video about some
| candy company in Massachusetts that has been hand-making hard
| candy the same way for more than a hundred years.
|
| (To stay honest, I do tend to subscribe to channels where the
| entire _purpose_ is to _showcase_ niche things from all around
| the world. Great Big Story, for example.)
| fsckboy wrote:
| japan is roughly 1.5% of the world population. where do they
| stack up in your video feed (maybe even leave out half the
| world's population, so call it 3%)?
| yeeetz wrote:
| NA and EU have plenty of local artisanal products. It just
| doesn't have the some appeal as Japan, which tends to occupy a
| hallowed spot in the minds of educated/nerdy guys on the
| internet.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Perhaps we just value it less here in North America._
|
| I can't speak for Canada or Mexico, but due to so many benefits
| being tied to full time employment in the US and a general lack
| of any kind of social safety net, you have to already be
| independently wealthy or willing to be a starving artist to do
| something like that - invest a lot of time into learning a
| craft that probably won't payoff for decades (if at all).
|
| _All stories of extremely small batch but precisely crafted
| products seem to come out of Japan._
|
| In general, I do think the west fetishizes this aspect of
| Japan's culture and thus overreports it. That said, many people
| around the world still do this. I suggest not relying on
| stories so much to understand the world around you.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| > due to so many benefits being tied to full time employment
| in the US and a general lack of any kind of social safety
| net, you have to already be independently wealthy or willing
| to be a starving artist to do something like that
|
| Something that is kind of wild about the USA is that for as
| much as the culture seems to value entrepeneurship, the
| political and economic system is designed to stifle it and
| discourage people from starting businesses.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| It's just dishonesty from politicians. You'll see
| legislation passed under the guise helping "family farms",
| but in reality, these subsidies help big ag and hurt the
| smaller operations: https://www.johnlocke.org/farming-
| subsidies-disproportionate...
|
| I'm sure it's similar across sectors. Tech startups are
| what they are thanks to private venture capital.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > Perhaps we just value it less here in North America.
|
| The reason we have less stuff like this in the USA is due to
| geography. We are a mostly flat country, rather than being
| mountainous or separated onto different small islands. Because
| of this, products produced via economies of scale can
| outcompete higher-quality artisanal products.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| > We are a mostly flat country
|
| Eh? The US is the opposite of "mostly flat". And large swaths
| of the mostly flat part have low population density. The
| country is also very regional with considerable local
| diversity in what is produced and available locally.
|
| The US produces a lot of very local artisanal products
| throughout the country that don't travel very far that are
| based on local tradition and history. That's been true
| everywhere I've lived in the US.
| gottorf wrote:
| > The US is the opposite of "mostly flat". And large swaths
| of the mostly flat part have low population density.
|
| Eh? Most of the population lives in the Atlantic coastal,
| Gulf coastal, and Midwest plains. Only a minority of
| Americans live in places that could be considered "mostly
| mountainous", methinks.
|
| Even Denver, the most populous city in (arguably) the most
| mountainous state, is actually a Great Plains city.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| The big flat areas have low population density BECAUSE of
| all economy of scale farming. Look at California: You've
| got 4 metropolitan areas, 2 of which (the Bay Area and Los
| Angeles) are in coastal areas that have geographically
| convenient access to the big flat area with farms, one (San
| Diego) in a big flat desert, and one on the river in the
| big flat area (Sacramento). Chicago's surrounding areas are
| flat farmland. Portland and Seattle likewise have river
| access to their state's big flat areas. What's between the
| Rockies and Appalachia? Big flat farms.
| swexbe wrote:
| Except, shipping by boat has been more cost effective since
| the beginning of history. The furthest you can get from the
| ocean in Japan is like a full days walk.
| gottorf wrote:
| > shipping by boat has been more cost effective since the
| beginning of history
|
| I've read that before the Transcontinental Railroad, it was
| cheaper and faster to get to San Francisco from a port in
| China than from St. Louis.
| badpun wrote:
| Similarly, people who wanted to join the 1849 San
| Francisco gold rush, but were on the East Coast, took
| boats which sailed all the way around South America to
| reach SF the fastest.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Well, unless it involved going around the horn. Time costs
| something too?
| bamboozled wrote:
| Japanese culture seems to emphasize the experience of "doing" a
| lot more than the west. This attitude surely stems from Zen
| Buddhist ideas.
|
| For example, in the west, there is a commonly shared fantasy
| that automating away work will lead to happiness, having the
| robots doing it all is Nirvana; However, e all know deep down
| inside we'd still need something to do, we'd have to create
| some purpose or some object for ourselves. I bet most people
| would be outside growing food and playing in the garden with
| their kids if they didn't have to work. Many people in Japan
| actually do this, there is a _LOT_ of small scale farming in
| Japan, they do not really share the same farming practices we
| do in the west. Step out side Tokyo and this is immediately
| obvious, almost everyone is growing something. It 's much more
| small scale and often has more human involvement. I think Japan
| is culturally more suited to accepting the fact that life can
| be toil and toil is good, it is what there is.
|
| I'm definitely not trying to say Japan is better, or all
| Japanese people are like this, just there is cultural roots
| which make some of these practices more suited to life in Japan
| than it would in other cultures.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It also helps that Japan generally lacks the flat land that
| makes ultra mechanized farming impossible, and high food
| import tariffs.
|
| That being said, I wouldn't say they're accepting of it;
| Japan's rapid depopulation is overwhelmingly happening in the
| countryside, because it is all toil for less pay.
| bamboozled wrote:
| It doesn't really lack large swathes of flat land. Sure it
| might not look like Texas, but if you're telling me there
| isn't enough room to be running combine harvesters over
| large areas of land you're wrong.
|
| Anyhow, the land influences culture, so my point still
| stands, if the reason for their attitude to farming
| practices is because there is mountains, it doesn't make
| much difference, people don't know any different and that's
| how they have operated for millennia.
|
| _Japan's rapid depopulation is overwhelmingly happening in
| the countryside, because it is all toil for less pay._
|
| Right, like as if working in Tokyo is no toil for more pay?
| Sorry but you don't sound very well informed to me. In
| general, Japanese don't get well at all, I view Japan as
| much more of a socialist system than people realize.
|
| Japan's aging population problem has nothing to do with
| whether you live in the countryside and grow your own
| veggies or not, it has to do with demographics and go visit
| any major city and you will find a lot of elderly people
| there too. Of course a small village is going to be more
| effected than Tokyo with 30+ million people when the
| population is shrinking. Either way, people from Tokyo eat
| sushi rice from rural areas.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It's not exactly ideal to run ultra wide harvesters on
| narrow terraced fields.
|
| Until the pandemic, the statistics show net population
| increase in Tokyo, Nagoya, Fukuoka, and Osaka and
| substantial declines in rural areas. The work's not any
| easier, but you get paid more.
|
| I'm not saying any of this is _good_ , but let's not get
| into weird exoticism and othering based on some idyllic
| vision of Japan.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| Not to take away from your point but this yet another
| dimension in which I see a huge parallel with Portugal. You'd
| see the exact same thing here, and anyone who grew up in the
| countryside will look to have a little plot somewhere even if
| they moved to the city 50 years ago.
| phemartin wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Can you please stop posting these links? You're crossing into
| spamming.
| phemartin wrote:
| Hi dang! This article is behind a soft paywall, so I thought
| it would be helpful to the HN community.
| SonicSoul wrote:
| original article has audio read by a human
| f6v wrote:
| > Carefully, the chief viticulture engineer of Iwanohara
| Vineyard, Japan's oldest operating winery, inspects each of the
| 5,500 grape vines that make up Iwanohara's six hectares in
| Kitagata, Niigata Prefecture.
|
| > So far, Wada has found three bugs after two hours of work. The
| midday sun beats down, and beads of sweat pool on his neck.
| Iwanohara focuses on using as few pesticides as possible, an
| approach that means Wada is using a handmade tool to dig out any
| insects he finds.
|
| Watching Drops of god on Apple TV I thought the way those wine
| nuts were portrayed was an exaggeration. Apparently, it wasn't.
| sva_ wrote:
| I recommend the documentary Sour Grapes
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5728684/
| asciimike wrote:
| Drops of God is fun and educational, as is Bartender
| (https://mangakakalot.com/read-in2uo158504890455). I also
| enjoyed Oishinbo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oishinbo),
| though admittedly the non-food part of the plot gets a bit
| stale/one-uppey.
| sithadmin wrote:
| If you like Oishinbo, try Souta no Houcho (Sota's Knife).
| Bambino! and Bambino! Secondo are also decent.
| karaokeyoga wrote:
| https://archive.ph/CNbav
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(page generated 2023-07-11 23:01 UTC)