Japan : It has breathtaking lifelike stunner , futuristic cities steeped in custom , and even a tiny islandoverrun with rabbits . What more could you ask for ? Well , if you lived in the 17th century and you happen to be a feudal lord by the name of Tadatoshi Hosokawa , your personally manufacture wine and opium , developed using revolutionary techniques .

According to fresh canvas prescribed documentation dating back to his sovereignty , thisdaimyo , a knock-down ruler based in Kumamoto at the time , was quite keen on said indulgence , but he trust on importee originally .

Winemaking had appear in trade document in Japan dating back to the 15th century , thanks mostly to its intro by traders and Christian missionary from Western Europe , mainly Portugal . They made landfall on the westerly large island of Kyushu , where the Hosokawa ’s resided .

Until 2016 - 17 , it was thought that great - graduated table wine-colored brewing in Japan itself did n’t commence until the 1870s , when the Industrial RevolutiontransformedJapan from a feudal country into an Imperial , capitalist world power under Emperor Meiji .

However , research by theEisei Bunko Research CenterofKumamoto Universityrecently revealed that wine was being produced by the Hosokawa family in Japan ’s Kokura regionas early as 1627 , perhaps even earlier . Documents sent back and forth between thedaimyoand his subjects revealed he had quest wine be made from wild grapes , and the products were to be sent to Edo – Japan ’s majuscule metropolis at the time , which would in the end become Tokyo .

take that wine was sent to Edo for several years around that fourth dimension , we can be indisputable that they were very confident in their winemaking abilities . Clearly , there was a demand for it too .

Taroemon Ueda , the main winemaker at the time , and a pioneer in feudal Japan by all accounts , take in a pregnant furtherance for his efforts . It appears that he used black soya bean to promote fermenting , as opposed to another vulgar proficiency of winemaking that regard soaking wild grapes in alcoholic drink . He ’d already been making rice beer ( rice wine-colored ) , but using grapeshot in this way was groundbreaking stuff .

New certification regain by the squad of researchers has now revealed that it was n’t just wine-coloured that Hosokawa requested be made – opium was a high precedence too , concord to a newpress firing . It seems that , back then , opium was being imported from Nagasaki ( also on Kyushu ) for medicinal purposes , but Ueda was regularize in 1629 to make his own opium product too .

“ I am dissatisfied with the opium say ( from Nagasaki ) so it shall be take back , ” a newly strike 1628 notation from Hosokawa pronounce . Ueda set to work ,   producing just over a kg of opium by the following autumn .

The documents also contain some other curious tidbits of information . During the 1637 - 38 Shimabara Rebellion – an in the end abortive Catholic rising , supported by masterless samurai namedrōnin – Hosokawa , on the side of the central government , was sending his premium wine to the battlefield for medicative purpose .

deplorably , though , his winemaking days were n’t to last . The failure of the rebels contribute to over two centuries of Japanese isolationism and the outlawing of Catholicism . As wine was associated with conversion rituals to Christianity , it was also prohibit .