In June of 2021, wine made in Osaka was granted a geographical indication of its own. The permitted grape varieties are listed out, and there are thirty-six of them, including Delaware, Koshu, and Muscat Bailey A. There is a further condition attached: the fruit must reach a specified sugar level before it can be used at all.

Osaka has been making wine here for well over a century now. At its peak the prefecture had one of the larger planted areas anywhere in the country, which is not remotely what anyone expects to hear about Osaka.

What is happening in the vineyards now is partly a recovery. New vineyards are going in on farmland that had been abandoned, and producers are working the advantage of being a growing region sitting immediately next to an enormous city, with everything that implies for selling fresh and selling direct. Not many wine regions have that.

I found the whole thing quietly surprising. A wine named after a metropolis, one of the densest urban areas in Asia. The vines are on the hills at the back of it, in the south of the prefecture, close enough that you could go and look at them and be back in the city for dinner.