Japan's trendy wine boom ended a few years ago. Still, interest in wine did not plummet; instead, it normalized. In groceries stores, elderly ladies and hip twentysomethings alike scrutinize the wine shelves. At many Tokyo izakaya pubs, diners can opt for a glass of house wine with their sashimi, odenor okonomiyaki. Wine remains a special beverage here, but it is gradually entering everyday life. Its consumption has become less self-conscious, less inhibited and less encumbered. Wine is moving toward the status that it deserves: simply a delight for the palette.

That process has not been limited to Tokyo's urbane dining scene. For example, on a recent trip to Hirosaki, deep in the Tohoku region, we savored a long teppanyaki feast, downed with glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon. Increasingly, wine is not limited to the exotic domain of foreign restaurants; it also accompanies Japanese meals in creative and inspiring ways.

Some places (such as our own neighborhood mom-and-pop izakaya, a perfectly ordinary, perfectly wonderful place) are just getting their feet wet, as it were. They offer a token quarter-bottle of sweet, generic white wine of no discernable vintage or provenance (but with poetic Japlish on the label). That is how wine starts to take hold.