Phenomenal success of Račian wines in Japan
The Villa Vino Rača winery has experienced one of its most successful periods in the past year. Rača wines have been crowned with medals and champion titles at domestic competitions, as well as abroad. With a sense of satisfaction, we did not even expect that something could surprise us. At a time when the carousel of regional exhibitions and tastings is just getting started in Slovakia, we received heartwarming news from half a world away. The wines produced by Villa Vino Rača once again enchanted the expert jury, this time at the Sakura competition, in faraway Japan.
The official name of the event – Sakura Japan Women`s Wine Awards – immediately evokes two basic pieces of information. The competition takes place in Japan and is a strictly women's affair. The wine is judged by women – wine experts. The competition itself is very significantly supported by marketing and is also linked to several events. These days, the competition is being presented at the Supermarket Trade Show near Tokyo. At the same time, the results of the last year of the Sakura Japan Women`s Wine Awards were ceremonially announced at this event.
More than 4,000 wine samples from almost 30 countries around the world participated in the 11th edition of the competition. Competition president Yumi Tanabe particularly highlighted the significant representation of samples from less traditional countries in Eastern Europe. She also emphasized that the main objective of the competition is to make wine consumption in Japan more attractive and, at the same time, increase its consumption in this country. An effective tool to achieve this goal should be to educate the public through the competition. At Sakura, not only the wine itself is already evaluated, but also its pairing with food. In the future, they would like to focus even more on "eno-gastronomy" - that is, the connection of gastronomy with wine. The marketing support of the competition is not only the labels on the bottles, but also the "medals" known to us. The competition regularly publishes several materials in which it informs not only about the awards, but especially about the aforementioned pairing with food. At the last edition, the ladies paired wines with nine types of food, some of which are specifically traditional Japanese dishes – sushi, tempura, sukiyaki, yakitori, teppan-yaki, pot-au-feu, and three general Asian dishes – Chinese, Korean, and Thai cuisine.
The evaluation itself, under the strict supervision of the president of the competition, took place at the end of January this year, we had to wait until "Valentine's Day" for the ceremonial announcement of the results, and the "Grand Tasting" of the awarded samples will be held on April 24 in Tokyo. The Slovak participation in the Sakura competition was clearly the most successful for the Villa Vino Rača winery, which won the most awards. In the basic evaluation, the Rača winery was awarded one "Diamond Trophy" for the Exclusive Dunaj víběr z hrozna 2019. The "Diamond Trophy" is the highest medal award at Sakura, even higher than the big gold medal.
Four gold medals were awarded to the wines Grand Vin Devín grape selection 2021, Exclusive Rizling Italian late harvest 2022, Exclusive Račianska frankovka 2019 and Palugyay Cabernet Sauvignon late harvest 2018. In the food pairing category, the Villa Vino Rača winery achieved phenomenal success. It won the Grand Prix award and a big gold medal for the wine Exclusive Dunaj grape selection 2019. According to Japanese tasters, this is the right wine to wash down Thai food with. It is definitely worth trying. In addition to this success, they awarded the Exclusive Rizling Italian late harvest 2022 with a gold medal – it is a suitable choice for pairing with Japanese tempura – which is a traditional Japanese dish, fried seafood or vegetables coated in batter.
Two red wines produced by Villa Vino Rača also received a special award in the category of lesser-known varieties on the Japanese market. Exclusive Račianska frankovka 2019 won a gold medal and Exclusive Dunaj 2019 even a large gold medal and Grand Prix, i.e. the title of champion. It only remains to congratulate the successful Slovak wines and wish that interest in Slovak wine in distant Japan continues to grow. It would be our success if Slovaks could also share this admiration for exceptional Slovak wines.
