At the end of the 20th century, Japan was in the midst of a red wine boom, and grapes were traded at incredibly high prices.
Manufacturers demanded that they "grow as many grapes as possible," prompting farmers to scale back on fruit cultivation and instead cultivate wine grapes from seedlings.
However, three years later, when the harvest was finally in full swing, the wine boom began to show signs of fading, leaving farmers with a huge amount of grapes.
No one in Japan was willing to take them.
Many farmers came to us, asking if we could somehow take their grapes.
Having increased our harvest in anticipation of a boom, we were already at saturation point.
After much deliberation, however, we finally decided to take them.
We gathered used sake tanks from all over Japan and worked tirelessly to brew.
It took three years to sell all the wine we'd brewed that year.
But we reaped a huge harvest, much larger than we'd ever imagined.
This incident prompted many farmers to offer to do business with us.
Our greatest crisis forged a strong bond.