WINE HAS TYPICALLY been regarded in Japan as something for ‘foreign' consumption, even though it has a domestic wine industry that dates back well over a century. So, if you are eating French food, you will typically drink French wine; or if you are eating Italian food, you will drink Italian wine. 

The association between France and Italy and attractive new consumption experiences goes well beyond wine and food in the Japanese consciousness, because both of these European countries are renowned for perfumes, cosmetics, fashion products and the like. 

With Australia lacking an established reputation in any of these areas it has been an enormous challenge to win space in its consumers' mind for Australian wine. But convincing the Japanese that Australian wine is a natural partner for traditional Japanese cuisine has always appealed to me as a (perhaps ‘far out') way of gaining and keeping attention in this market.

Twenty five years ago, during the first ‘wine boom' in Japan, I was working there as Australia's senior trade commissioner and, accordingly, was responsible for promoting Australian wine in that market. To test this proposition, we invited around 200 Japanese chefs and restaurant managers to a tasting at Tokyo's Palace Hotel to show how that might work. We were supported by a panel of industry experts, which included Ms Fumiko Arisaka, the founder of Vinotheque magazine and one of Japan's wine ‘legends'.

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