Tada Orange Chardonnay, A Japanese Gem

Introducing the Patron Saint Edit, a weekly curated offer on bottles we can’t stop thinking about, difficult to source cuvées, and unusual gems that belong in your cellar.

Last month, we received our first drop of Japanese wine from Disco Liquids, Louisiana’s first and only natural wine distributor. This included two thinky reds from Fattoria al Fiore, an electrifying rosé from Domaine Tetta, and a cache of skin contact chardonnay from Tada Winery. The latter comes from a farm in Hokkaido, a northern island with a wild climate that makes winemaking a major feat and celebratory matter; winter growing conditions can go below 22 degrees Fahrenheit with cool summers that lengthen ripening into a game with meditative patience.

Tada Farm was founded in 1901 with polyculture and was planted with vines in 2007, but years aren’t so much a matter for vigneron Shigeo Tada who believes that growing and making wine isn’t simply a present endeavor, but one that is meant to take its own path, with time as simply one factor in a kaleidoscope of energies. Beneath the surface of its soils is a tens-of-thousands of years-old layer of volcanic ash and peat, as well as underground waterways that transport the minerals of the mountains and the spirits of the extinct volcano Mt. Tokachi from millennia ago. What are we to make of the present moment when compared with such ancient forces?

Tada’s Orange Chardonnay is a prism with which to see this course of time and terroir. The grapes, which come from young vines planted on alluvial soils, were harvested and de-stemmed by hand, and gently pressed with their skins, left to macerate for 20 days, which provides its deep tangerine hue. The juice was aged in French oak (also providing texture and color) and stainless steel for nine months. The resulting wine is reminiscent of autumn tea—ginger, dried apricot, dehydrated apple, and sandalwood. Like receiving a precious bit of fruit or excavating a glittering stone from the earth’s depths, it feels like a gift to experience something from halfway around the world that could exist and grow only there. —Leslie Pariseau