Authentic plum wine: 'Otters Umeshu' (720ml, on sale 1 March), made from polished 20% and 30% sake.
Asahi Shuzo of Iwakuni City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, will launch Ottersai Umeshu (720ml/¥12,960) on 1 March. It will be sold at Otters shops, Dassai Joel Robuchon (Paris, France) and Otters Bar (Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Shanghai, China), and at the National Umeshu Festival.
The product is an authentic plum wine made from suitably ripe Nanko-ume plums from Wakayama Prefecture and brewed with the company's Ottersai Junmai Daiginjo Jiwari Sanbu. It was developed in response to a proposal from a plum wine research group to produce plum wine, and a limited number of 800 bottles will be sold.
On 12 February, a press conference was held at the Miss Paris Ginza flagship shop in Chuo-ku, Tokyo, where Hiroshi Sakurai, chairman of Asahi Shuzo, which produced the product, and Tomohiro Meisei, representative director of the Umeshu Kenkyukai, which proposed the production of the product to the company, explained the background and details of the product's development.
Chairman Sakurai says: "We place great importance on pursuing the possibilities of sake to the limit for the happiness of our customers, and the decision to launch plum wine under the Otters brand is part of this. In addition, we were attracted to the personality and passion for plum wine of Meisei, the representative director of the Umeshu Kenkyukai, who proposed the launch, and decided to give it a try. In addition, sake is characterised by a delicate taste with less acidity than other alcoholic drinks from around the world. In this context, we decided to develop Ottersai because we thought it would be good to have a world with a little more acidity," he said.
As for future development, he says: "We are pursuing all possibilities, so at this stage we have not decided on a specific direction. As long as there are possibilities, we will always have to take on new challenges, otherwise we will lose our 'breadth'. However, this time we launched 800 units, which is a fairly small number. We have only been able to produce such a small number due to business operations, but we believe it is possible to actually produce two to three times as many, and we are planning to increase production".
After explaining the activities of the association, Representative Director Meisei said, "When I met Chairman Sakurai at an Italian restaurant in Ginza, he told me that it would be interesting to make ume (plum) wine using Otters' flagship Otters' sake, 'Shine and Beyond'. Later, three bottles of this product were sent to me with a letter saying that they were for use as raw materials for plum wine. After about three years of development, the product is now on the market. Usually, green plums are used to make ume wine, but this time, moderately ripe plums were used. This is why it is slightly pink in colour and can be served in a wine glass. It is also characterised by its juicy and beautifully acidic taste. Plum wine is often served before or after a meal, but it is also recommended as a mealtime drink. In terms of price, it is the most expensive plum wine in Japan, but considering the cost of ingredients and production, we don't consider profitability.