It’s only 10.30am, but Naoko, my guide from tour operator Remote Lands, and I have been sipping wine for the last 20 minutes in the Budo no Oka tasting cellar in Katsunuma – a viniculture region run by a cooperative of Yamanashi winemakers.

There are more than 200 bottles of wine – each bottle already open so we can pour as much as we want into the silver chalices hanging from our necks. It’s a clunky piece of jewellery, but a downright bargain for oenophiles – included with the 1,100 yen (HK$80) admission price to these showrooms of Yamanashi vintages. Naoko hiccups as she pours herself another cupful, this time a delightful Asaya Orange wine, and we both guffaw when I accidentally spill my chalice of Kyoho Pione rosé all over the barrel table and brick floor.

Japanese viticulture may seem new, but Japan’s cultivation of the Koshu grape has a long history that dates back to the Nara period (710-794 AD), when a monk named Gyoki first planted grape seeds in Yamanashi’s Koshu Valley. But Japan’s domestic wine production really got going during the Meiji restoration of the late 1800s when the country opened up to the world, lifting bans on meat like beef and pork and incorporating international exports like coffee and wine into Japanese culture.