kanji

The move to represent each vineyard site and wine may initially seem to be a departure, yet in actuality feels more like a homecoming. I am very grateful for Takahide Sugimoto, who is a passionate and dedicated wine and food colleague as well as a dear friend based in Tokyo and Kobe. My close relationship with Taka over the past fifteen years, coupled with his knowledge about our vineyards, served as an ideal rapport to interpret and articulate these special pieces of land in the most accurate and honest manner possible.

From that point, Taka’s wife Miyoko spent months repeating the most beautiful kanji brush strokes I could ever imagine over and over on rice paper at their home until she had reached an image that satisfactorily represented to her the concept and imagery that we had entrusted her to convey. She procured specific rice paper from a stationery store that she had last visited while still in high school. It was a location that she regularly frequented with her father who passed away twenty years ago. Taka has since poignantly expressed to me that she wrote the kanji on paper from this special store in her father’s memory. I am profoundly indebted to her for her patient and deliberate participation in this journey and for the emotion and artistry that she so humbly shared with me for this project.