A Comic Book Hero Propels Calera Wines to Cult Status in Japan; He's Not Captain Marvel But a Marvelous Wine Captain.

HOLLISTER, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 26, 1999--

After most wine tastings, some people gather around the wine maker to ask a few obscure questions or give some words of passing praise.

At the end of one unusual set of tastings, long lines of would-be connoisseurs formed in front of the wine maker. Each person was holding an empty wine bottle, waiting for the winemaker to autograph the label. That done, they went off into the night, cradling the bottles in their arms, cherished relics which would soon hold a place of honor in their homes.

These tastings were held in Japan -- three in Tokyo and two in Osaka. The wine maker was Josh Jensen, founder of Calera Winery, primarily noted for fine Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Jensen, whose wines are highly regarded in top wine circles, still was not prepared for this degree of adulation. In fact, Calera has become the ultimate "cult" wine in Japan and much of it has to do with an adult comic book, called a manga, where the hero isn't Captain Marvel, but a famous sommelier -- a Captain Marvel wine maven.

Mangas are very popular comic-book books that flourish in Japan. The topics are varied and so the books appeal to a wide coterie of adult readers. One of the mangas is about wine, starring a hero-sommelier that not only knows about premier crus and obscure appellations, but on the side, he solves crimes and always gets the girl.

In one such manga, the hero announces that he was at a tasting where he was given two wines to taste blind. One was the legendary Domaine Romainee-Conti the other was the Calera "Jensen." They tried to trick him; he described the wines and then concluded that the better one was the DRC -- but at the last minute he realized that there was only one wine similar to the DRC and that was the Calera, which he deemed the winner and saved "face."

Faster than one could swirl wine in a glass, there were long lines, up to 100 persons, standing outside well-known Japanese wine shops, hoping to buy at least one bottle of Calera Pinot Noir.

Ray Kaufman, Calera's distributor for Japan, credits this manga for Calera-mania, but noted that many recent developments among wine drinkers in Japan helped set the stage for this particular Pinot phenomenon.

Kaufman related, "Japan has developed into a very sophisticated wine market, notably among young people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Some years ago, fine wine, whether from France or California, was terribly expensive and usually given as special V.I.P. gifts, such as prized melons costing hundreds of dollars. A few years ago, discounters come into the Japanese market, lowering the price of wines and making good California wines much more accessible.

"So wine began to enter the popular culture and several factors were in favor of Calera: the idea of high quality, scarcity, 'hand made,' and the concept of the California western dream. At the same time, Japanese sommeliers were becoming very knowledgeable about fine California wines. Many top sommeliers were coming to California to add to their wine knowledge first hand.

"At the same time," Kaufman notes, "the 'French paradox' hit Japan in a big way. Almost overnight Japanese wine drinkers shifted colors -- from 75 percent white wine to 80 percent red wine. By 1997, all the pro-wine elements had come together, greatly advancing the popularity of premium California red wines."

Even though Calera wines were already popular in Japan, the wine manga flipped the switch. Calera-mania has not subsided; Calera sells 5,000 cases of wine in Japan, but the winery could sell a lot more, according to Kaufman: "This week, one of our Japanese importer sold out his Calera allocation in two weeks. He called me up to say he would take as much as we could give him."

Calera Winery is located near Mt. Harlan outside Hollister, Calif., in San Benito County. The winery's four single vineyard Pinot Noirs are: Jensen, Selleck, Reed and Mills. Two Mt. Harlan white wines are Chardonnay and

Viognier.