The Miracle Of Napa Valley

Capcom CEO, Mr. Kenzo Tsujimoto, ventures into the winery business in Napa Valley with a firm stamp of Japanese excellence.

“With the great success of Capcom’s games, I was concerned that the company would make many users indoor-orientated. In 1990, we intended to counter this by developing an equestrian theme park in Napa Valley, but then I decided to buy the property privately.
Soon after, I realised this plot had wonderful conditions for wine making. So in 1998, we began clearing land and planting grapevine trees. Of course, there were some initial challenges – we managed to reap a decent first harvest three years later, but the grapes were not up to par with the best of Napa Valley’s wines. Our Japanese pursuit for excellence in manufacturing pushed us to do better. So, we had to remove 14,000 trees in order to improve soil conditions for a more superior yield. In 2005, Kenzo Estate reaped its first harvest that surpassed our stringent quality control, and released its first vintage in Winter 2008.

Elegance In Every Bottle

Although the Kenzo Estate wine is made in the U.S., it is grounded in the Japanese philosophy of elegance and excellence. Under the consultation of our top viticulturist, we take meticulous care of each grapevine, resulting in yields that are bursting with concentrated flavours and gorgeous aromas. With their pristinely neat rows, you won’t be blamed for mistaking our vineyard for a Japanese tea field!
In fact, since 2009, Kenzo Estate has controlled 100% of the wine making process within our facilities. So each step of production – from the vine and fermentation to bottling – is finely controlled to give you a wine of silky textures that coats your palate with rich flavours.
Even with a relatively short span of 5 – 6 years, our grapevines were able to produce wine of such refined quality, when it normally takes 10 – 20 years to crop the same standard. Wine appreciators even praised the immense potential our wines had upon further maturation and called our achievement ‘the miracle of Napa Valley’.

Nurturing A Wine Consuming Culture

In my opinion, sales matter most when customers actually consume the product. Hence, it is essential to build a brand strategy that encourages wine consumption rather than wine collection. No matter how premium your wine is, it will be difficult to overturn a demand slump if customers merely collect bottles.
Currently, Kenzo Estate has produced around 250,000 bottles, and plans to cap our production capacity at 400,000 for quality control. While we are not able to extensively distribute our wines across the whole of Asia, you can still enjoy Kenzo Estate wines in several F&B outlets in Singapore.
Looking forward, my sincere hope is for Asian customers as well as those in Japan and the U.S., to love our wines in the years ahead.”

(TEXT  Matthew Fam )