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Davis Barrager
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
May 11, 2000
Enjoying the best Austria has to offer
Ultimately wine appreciation is about the glorious moment when distinctive wine and discerning taste buds rapturously converge. Having visited over 150 wineries, I can assure you that this pleasure is possible at a winery wine tasting even after something as stressful, for example, as my rain-drenched...
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Apr 13, 2000
Labels: required reading for wine appreciation
When a standard 750-ml/75-cl bottle of wine looms before you in a wine shop, a supermarket or on a restaurant table, a story is about to unfold. The bottle shape usually provides at least a clue to the producing region and the labels should be able to fill in all the basic data and sometimes more. In...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 23, 2000
For those about to sip under spreading sakura
Welcome to Spring 2000, the first primavera of the new millennium. While I'll be visiting wineries in Austria, an always inviting wine country, and later Slovenia, its mighty-mite neighbor just over the Alps, you'll probably be indulging yourselves in hanami, that annual eternally poetic pastime. Be...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 9, 2000
Sometimes it's best to follow your toe
If it's possible to have a "green thumb," as some grape growers fortunately do, can one also possess a "golden toe" -- a knack for stumbling onto serendipitous discoveries? I've begun to think so. In fact, I'm keeping notes for what could be titled "The Little Book of Serendipitous Slip-Ups," "Glorious...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 24, 2000
Luxembourg's grape history: wine country since day one
Mother Nature used her wintry palette to redefine Luxembourg in mere minutes, lacing its naked boughs and barren lawns with soft, tufted snow. This, too, is wine country.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 10, 2000
Filling up an empty month with wine
Bring out the wine! It's National Foundation Day! (Well, tomorrow.) Are any of Japan's official nation-builders building reputations as wine connoisseurs? If so, I've yet to hear of it, but I did notice that on a state visit to Mexico a few years ago the then-Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu had no idea...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 27, 2000
Wineries to complement your travel plans
In the dead of winter, what's a wine lover to do? I'm almost tempted to say "Bring back the hot, spicy wine," the body-warming concoction quaffed at stalls in town center squares all over Europe toward year's end. It's a splendid custom, but actually what I had in mind is winery visits in California....
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 13, 2000
A winning resolution: wine tastings among friends
If you've already broken a few New Year's resolutions, welcome to the club: You belong to the majority. But don't worry; just put a positive new twist on the onerous matter of New Year resolutions. Resolve to make wine an even greater pleasure. Herewith, a few ideas:
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Dec 23, 1999
As millennium's end looms, go with the flow of timeless wine
In Japan eight is a lucky number. And in just eight days we'll be living the last day of the second millennium anno Domini.
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Dec 9, 1999
Could you be drinking a glass of freaky Frankenstein wine?
How about a glass or two of Frankenstein wine?
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Nov 11, 1999
Whatever the varietal, the grape has to be great
Had any good wine lately? I'm sure you have, but make a note of Baron de Ley Reserva 1995. It is aged in oak for 24 months and is a typical yet wonderful Rioja red that's characteristic of those made from the elusively flavorful tempranillo grape, an indigenous Spanish varietal noted for its plummy,...
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Oct 14, 1999
Heeding the siren call of Sopron's wine country
A Japanese friend I recently met amid the late-summer amalgam of humid heat, mucky air and urban frenzy suddenly assumed a rather wistful faraway look and expressed the desire to get away from the whole maddening throng and disappear into nature.
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Sep 23, 1999
Chill out with the right white
With Japan's summer still parching throats as it turns its muggy-hot head toward autumn, let's turn our thoughts, and our thirsts, to wines for refreshment as the heat lingers on.
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Sep 9, 1999
The healing power of the grape
What's your pleasure? Wine? Or Pepto-Bismol? Since returning two weeks ago from some fascinating times in sundry climes -- 60 days worth -- I've been particularly mindful of human health, not least my own. Travel can be tiring, and lower physical resistance. This airport, that airport. This station,...
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Aug 12, 1999
Virginia's wines gaining praise with a little help from Valhalla
The day after the Fourth of July, I had the pleasure of visiting two outstanding wineries in Virginia: Rockbridge Vineyard, founded in 1992 in Raphine, near Roanoke; and Valhalla Vineyards, started in 1993 on a mountain within the Roanoke city limits, and the city's first winery.
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Jul 8, 1999
Wines you'll still love the morning after
As far back as the 11th century, Norse explorers, in what was to become America, had already perceived the winemaking possibilities of this vast, verdant land. Seven centuries later the sagacious American statesman Thomas Jefferson began dabbling in grape-growing. One might assume, then, that by now...
COMMUNITY
Apr 13, 1999
Dancing to make the world keep turning
Excuse me, has anyone seen Steven A. Haynes today? No? That's funny, he seems to be everywhere: on TV, on posters, in the papers, and in plays, movies and discos -- even on cruise ships. He acts, sings and dances his way around Japan, as if he's afraid the world might suddenly stop turning.
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Apr 8, 1999
Sommeliers blowing smoke over corks
Years ago as a university student in Tokyo it was my good fortune to have a job with a famous design firm that had me in every week to critique their designs, write the English-language text for their creative work and occasionally translate and interpret for colleagues visiting from abroad.
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Mar 25, 1999
Cornucopia's savory memories
Spring is here, hard on the heels of Foodex '99, the food-and-beverage spectacular I mentioned two weeks ago during its four-day run at Makuhari Messe.
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Feb 25, 1999
If you must be snowbound, try a cozy winery in Europe
As winter wanes I'm reminded of its vinous pleasures in places along my latest wine route, such as Austria, Slovenia, Belgium, Luxembourg and, just before Christmas, Germany, where I visited Adolf Schmitt, an outstanding wine maker whose estate is one of those in the wine association Saar-Mosel-Winzersekt...
U.S. aircraft carrier returns to Japan carrying navy’s ‘most capable fighter’
U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Fred Kacher speaks to reporters shortly after the arrival of aircraft carrier USS George Washington at Yokosuka naval base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Friday.
After Shohei Ohtani bump, Iwate ironware maker sees brighter future
Kaito Kikuchi's decision to send superstar Shohei Ohtani one of his company's traditional ironware tea kettles has paid off with a surge of interest from general consumers.
Japan approves ¥21.9 trillion stimulus plan
The policy chiefs of the Democratic Party for the People, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito — Makoto Hamaguchi (left), Itsunori Onodera (center) and Mitsunari Okamoto — shake hands after reaching an agreement on an economic stimulus package on Wednesday.
Woman dies after train collides with car in Tochigi
A Moka Railway train car
Japan will spend ¥325 million in government funds on Princess Yuriko's funeral
Princess Yuriko waves during the New Year's public greeting at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in January 2019.
133-year-old Kyushu railway station remains to be partially preserved
The remains of the original Moji Station in Kitakyushu
After Shohei Ohtani bump, Iwate ironware maker sees brighter future
Kaito Kikuchi's decision to send superstar Shohei Ohtani one of his company's traditional ironware tea kettles has paid off with a surge of interest from general consumers.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

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