Iwamizawa, Hokkaido ¨C At first, Bruce Gutlove thought a friend was pulling his leg.
It was the late 1980s, and Gutlove was a Napa Valley wine consultant. On the phone, however, was a representative of , a fledgling operation in Japan ¡ª a country he had no connection to. They were asking him to fly over and teach them winemaking.
¡°I didn¡¯t even know they made wine in Japan,¡± Gutlove recalls. ¡°When I realized this was for real, I said, ¡®Wine ¡ª you mean from grapes?¡¯¡±
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