Visit Yamazaki Winery in Japan. This whisky has a long history and a strong taste.

It is quite predestined with Yamazaki whisky.

Now I have met true love because of wine, so I have a soft spot for wine.

I stayed in Japan for 2 1 day, visited four wineries, and introduced three sake wineries in the article of WeChat official account.

The last one is very special, it is a winery that produces whisky. At first glance, people will think that whisky belongs to Europe and America. In fact, Yamazaki whisky has long been famous all over the world.

We didn't know until we called Yamazaki Winery that we needed to make an appointment in official website 15 days in advance to visit the winery. We don't have time to make an appointment, but we still want to take a chance.

Yamazaki Winery is located in Yamazaki Canyon at the foot of Tianwang Mountain in the southwest suburb of Kyoto. It is a concentrated place of Japanese traditional culture, surrounded by vast mountains and dense bamboo forests. Get off at Yamazaki Station, walk for about 10 minutes, and then cross a railway that looks like a Japanese drama.

We arrived at 13: 10. At the reception, we asked if we could visit the winery as a backup if the reserved person didn't arrive on time. The staff was very polite and told us that this kind of situation is generally rare and we can only take a chance.

In the process of waiting, I had to walk around and see the external environment of Yamazaki Winery.

Yamazaki Museum, the place to go in the future.

Bronze statues of Yamazaki Whisky founder Nojiro Niai and Suntory Chairman Saji Keizo.

The first distillation pot in Yamazaki Distillery has changed from copper color to bronze color after years of precipitation.

The location of the winery is very important. This is the intersection of Muchuan, Guichuan and Ujigawa rivers. The different water temperatures of the three rivers spew endless fog all the year round. The unique terrain between sandwiches and plains and basins, as well as the warm and humid climate, form the most suitable terroir environment for whisky brewing.

Behind the shrine is Tianwang Mountain, and the water source of Yamazaki Winery also comes from here. The water here is filtered by bamboo forests and the whole mountain. The water quality is clear and the taste is not just a little sweet.

After shopping around, we returned to the reception desk and were told that two people who had made an appointment at 13:30 didn't sign in on time. We were lucky enough to go in and visit. We really thank Dionysus for giving us such a good fate.

The ticket is per person/kloc-0.000 yen, and the beauty will give us each an interpreter with Chinese explanation.

The lobby on the first floor of the museum displays Suntory's projection propaganda film and the history of its founder.

In the middle of the projection, there is a wine bottle that will change constantly according to the video content. You can clearly hear the crisp sound of water drops falling to the bottom of the bottle.

On the other side of the exhibition hall is about the development history of Japanese whisky. Shinjiro, founder of Suntory Group, 1879 was born in Osaka, Japan. At that time, European and American cultures flooded into Japan. Nojiro Niai, who dropped out of school at the age of 13, started his apprenticeship in a drug wholesaler's shop. Because imported wines such as brandy and whisky were quite novel in Japanese society at that time and were often sold as a medicine, Shinjiro had many opportunities to contact foreign wines since he was a child.

After that, Nojiro Niai became an independent portal. He opposed the import and firmly believed that the East could brew world-class whisky, so he began to build Yamazaki Winery in 1923. The history of Japanese whisky began.

Entering the exhibition area on the second floor, the narrator began to introduce and visit the production process and tasting. From germination-grinding-fermentation-distillation-barrel-aging, the whole process will be led by winery staff.

The first step: germination. After germination, barley will produce amylase, which will convert the stored starch into sugar needed for growth. At this time, it must be dried immediately to prevent malt growth, otherwise the starch will be consumed.

Step 2: Saccharification. Crushing germinated grain seeds, adding hot water, and stirring into paste. In this state, amylase quickly converts starch into sugar, and the filtered sweet juice enters the next process.

Step 3: Fermentation. After the wort is cooled, it is poured into the fermentation barrel, and yeast is added to convert the sugar into alcohol.

Step 4: distillation. Alcohol and water have different boiling points. When the fermentation broth is heated to 80℃, alcohol will first turn into steam, which will be concentrated in the condenser to produce the original wine. After that, secondary distillation was carried out to further purify the original wine.

Step 5: aging. The new wine after the second distillation is stored in oak barrels, and the wine and oak barrels are alcoholized, and the impurities in the original wine are slowly removed.

Step 6: Bottle. Either put the same batch of malt liquor from the same winery into glass bottles and sell it as single malt whisky, or mix malt liquor with other grain wines in a certain proportion to make blended whisky and bottle it for sale.

As soon as we entered the distillation room with the staff, we smelled the sweet smell of apples as soon as we entered the door, which was the taste of malt added with water for 6 hours.

Different distillation pots produce different flavors of wine. The wine brewed in a straight barrel has a rich and mellow taste; The gourd shape has a refreshing taste due to convection.

Fortunately, I happened to see new wine with 70% alcohol content gushing out.

Come out of the distillation room and continue to visit the wine cellar.

Whisky needs to be aged in wooden barrels, which are like human lungs. Through them, the wine in the barrel will fully communicate with the outside world, and the surrounding natural environment and atmosphere will be brought into the wine.

The wine in the barrel will evaporate 2% every year. Scots believe that the wine in oak barrels is alive, but with the subtle and complicated evolution of time, the wine liquid disappears bit by bit. They think this is because angels can't help tasting this delicious wine, so they call it "an angel's share".

Different sizes, different materials and even different positions of barrels have great influence on the taste of wine.

Many people have such a misunderstanding that "the heavier the wine, the more fragrant it is", but this is not the case.

The longer the original wine is stored, the better the taste. Every wine has its own ripening peak. There are wines that can develop individuality in just a few years, and there are varieties that need to mature for a long time to bloom. The colorful original wine with rich taste and the wonderful ingenuity of the bartender make Yamazaki stand out in the annual international whisky competition.

Finally, we came to the stock solution exhibition area, where the stock solutions from whisky distilleries all over the world were displayed, and the amber liquid was as bright as gold.

This is a map of the world whisky, which introduces several major producing areas and representative works of whisky. Scotland, Ireland, Japan, the United States and Canada.

The products of Suntory in different periods are displayed here in chronological order.

There are all kinds of original wines that can make loud whisky. It is said that it is carefully selected from 6,543.8+0,000 barrels of whisky.

This wall is the flavor decomposition display of Yamazaki 12,18,25.

Let's take a look at the most familiar and famous Yamazaki 25 and Yamazaki 35.

Yamazaki's twenty-five years is an extremely rare and high-grade masterpiece listed to commemorate the anniversary of Suntory's founding 100. It selects Shirley barrels aged in Yamazaki Distillery for more than 25 years, matures into pure malt liquor, and carefully blends them to brew mellow single malt whisky. The output is extremely limited.

Yamazaki 35, a masterpiece of luxury goods, is limited to 200 bottles in the world, which is absolutely impossible to buy in the market.

The sky-high price on Taobao is really eye-opening.

Finally, the happiest part, began to taste Yamazaki's whisky!

The manufacturer offers four kinds of products for free tasting.

The staff served "old ice (all transparent)" and soda water.

There are three common ways to drink Japanese whisky:

Pure drink, as the name implies, does not add anything;

With ice, the English name is "on the rock". Don't say other wines with ice, only spirits;

With ice and soda water, it's called "golf" in English.

Many people are reluctant to leave and taste their favorite products in the self-funded area.

Since the annoying guests are here, try Yamazaki 25, which is extremely expensive.

Rich reddish brown, each bite has a different feeling, tomato sauce, rosemary, dark chocolate, cocoa almond. ...

I drank my face red, like Amber Yamazaki 25.

Guess how much this Yamazaki 25 is worth?