The Chemist Turned King of Natural Wines

When asked why his grapes are sorted one by one, wine-grower Hirotake Ooka has a tendency to respond by saying, as he did in the Revue du vin de France: ‘You can’t make a good mash with rotten potatoes‘.

Ooka confesses that he only ever drank beer in Japan before arriving in France in 1997 because he considered wine to be ‘snobbish’, but saw his tastes and career path change when a Pyrenean cellar master let him taste a 1982 Bordeaux vintage. Having received a masters in chemistry while in Japan, he changed direction and took an HND in viticulture/oenology in Bordeaux before setting off to conquer the world of natural wine.

Hirotake Ooka then cut his teeth with wine-lovers such as Thierry Allemand (who also worked with Kenjiro Kagami, another of the Japanese giants of natural wine), then a decade later he moved to the Domaine de la Grande Colline, where he cultivated the land with patience, serenity and passion.

Now considered as one of the leaders in the world of French natural wine, Ooka is thinking about creating a vineyard in his native Japan. No one is a prophet in their own country, but if anyone can rewrite the proverb, it’s Hirotake Ooka.

This journey recalls that of Kenjiro Kagami, a Japanese winemaker who is also a French wine enthusiast, settled in the Jura.