Japan: Industry organization

Initially they had focused on investment in modern winemaking equipment and on training their winemakers in the methods used in the major wine-producing nations (Suntory even went so far as to buy the st-julien classed growth Ch Lagrange, and the 1980s saw several substantial Japanese investments in the German, California, and Australian wine industries). They had hoped that this, along with various practices in the winery aimed at extracting more flavour and body from the flimsy local fruit base, would be sufficient to match the competition from the foreign producers whose attention to the Japanese market had been attracted by its rapid growth, by the potential associated with 128 million affluent people, by favourable exchange rates, and by the relaxation of import barriers.