For twenty years, Shin Kibayashi and Yuko Kibayashi wrote about wine with a reverence so deep their words moved markets.
Now they have a wine of their own.
Enquire about allocation: inquiry@dropsofterroir.jp
THE CREATORS
Shin and Yuko Kibayashi, writing as Tadashi Agi, created Drops of God, the manga credited with raising wine sales in Japan by over 20% and changing how a continent drinks. Forbes called it legendary.
Shin and Yuko found Saffron Vineyard on Mt. Veeder, fell in love with it, and made the wine they always imagined. Born of the rare terroir of Mt. Veeder Napa.
Only 600 bottles exist. No second vintage is guaranteed.
Drops of Terroir — Prologue. The story behind the wine.
Technical Note
Drops of Terroir carries an aromatic depth rare among California wines — the gift of vigorous native yeasts thriving at Saffron Vineyard, where forest canopy and mountain streams shape the microbial life of the site.
On the palate: ripe plum, cassis, dark chocolate, clove, rose, leather, and the faintest trace of mint.
Full-bodied yet without heaviness, the finish extends long and unhurried. The surface gleams in the glass; held to the light, it reveals a luminous gradient from core to rim.
A singular transparency runs through the wine. The texture is silken, and the pleasure does not diminish — glass after glass.
Wine Imagery Evocative of Drops of God
This wine contains several distinct worlds. It carries passionate, tropical aromas—and, simultaneously, a transparency as clear as the moon on a quiet night.
The moment Drops of Terroir is tasted, one is drawn into a curious, visionary world woven from contradiction: passion and composure, a wild beast and a woman clothed in brilliant color.
It is nothing less than Henri Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy itself. In a dry desert a woman sleeps, mandolin beside her. A lone, wandering lion appears before her; a strange coexistence is depicted. Only the pale, translucent moon suspended in the void may be witness to this vision.
On tasting once more, I was struck by the beautiful coexistence of heat and coolness—the quietness that reflects the terroir's nature, coexisting with the wine's strength even as the two seem to contradict each other.
The painstaking devotion to even one percent of the assemblage comes down to this: the determination to express that balance.
And the nature of Saffron Vineyard is unmistakably expressed in the wine—abundant native yeast drawing minerality from the fruit.
"When we first set eyes on Saffron Vineyard, the recognition was instant: this was the place where the wine we had dreamed of would come into being. It was never merely a vineyard in Napa Valley. It was a place carrying a story within it."
— Shin Kibayashi & Yuko Kibayashi
“Legendary among global wine aficionados.”
— Forbes
Once the registry closes, it closes.
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