Kishu Takada Kaen

The Free Bacchus Story

In 1902 Sadagusu Takada turned a mulberry field in Minabe into an ume orchard of sixty saplings. One tree stood out, heavy with big fruit blushed red, and he raised it as a mother tree. In 1965 the variety grafted from it was registered as Nanko, and Minabe grows more of it than anywhere in Japan. The tree still flowers on the farm, now run by his grandson Satoshi Takada.

Umeshu is ume, the tart fruit of the tree often called the Japanese apricot, steeped in alcohol with sugar until the fruit gives up its flavour. Green ume make it fresh and bright, ripe ones mellow and fruity. The alcohol counts too: neutral spirit lets the fruit speak, brandy adds richness, and shochu, Japan’s own distilled spirit, tastes of the rice, barley or sweet potato it came from. Since 2015 the makers’ rules let only umeshu of ume, sugar and alcohol alone, with no added acid, colour or flavouring, call itself honkaku, or authentic. Takada Bio, the farm’s organic bottle, uses shochu distilled from organic rice and organic beet sugar.

Satoshi Takada farmed with reduced pesticides for years, until a man who grew roses organically became his teacher. Now the trees get homemade compost, with legumes sown between them to put nitrogen back into the soil. From mid-June the ripe fruit is gathered by hand once it has fallen and washed the same day, and each vintage uses only that year’s crop.

The Wakayama Organic Certification Association certifies both halves: the ume and shiso the farm grows (certificate 1104-01A, since 2011) and its processing, umeshu included (1104-01B, since 2012). By the farm’s count about 80 per cent of the orchard is organic; the rest is farmed with reduced pesticides. Takada Bio is the bottle sold as organic; the aged Takada and Sadagusu pair the same fruit with brandy and rock sugar not listed as organic.