Seeking the Water of Life

Mr Takayama Muneharu - Japan's Senkensuke magazine.

October 2025.

The 8th: BIDJA Australia Chardonnay, King Valley, Victoria State 

Chardonnay is perhaps the most famous of all white wine grape varieties, yet it remains a mysterious one. It can present as a simple, clean expression highlighting pure fruit, or it can take on complexity when aged in oak, layering aromas of toasted nuts. In cool climates it shows classical and elegance, while the shining sun of the New World transforms it into a rich, tropical-fruit-laden wine of remarkable concentration. In its youth it’s fresh and lively, yet among white grapes it is also unusually capable of long aging. And through all these incarnations, an unmistakable “Chardonnay-ness” always runs through it. 

It’s almost like a talented actress. One who can embody a stunning model, a beguiling femme fatale, a reliable proprietress, a bronzed glamour beauty, or even a shrewd old woman—and make every role utterly convincing. What allows for such transformations, perhaps, is the unshakable core of grace and delicacy that lies within. 

Just the other day, I encountered another remarkable Chardonnay. This one came from the King Valley in Victoria, Australia, crafted by the winery BIDJA. 

Chardonnay is often associated with a grapefruit-like nuance. Conventionally, Old World expressions lean toward fresh fruit, while New World ones are thought to resemble jelly candy or candied fruit. But this New World Chardonnay was different: it opened with the just-cut grapefruit, moved through freshly sliced honeydew melon, and on to peeled yellow peaches, bursting with the juiciness of biting into fresh fruit. The secret lay in its finely etched acidity—so pure, so precise—that gave the wine extraordinary freshness. 

I thought to myself, “It must have come from an especially cool vineyard.” 

The wine’s pedigree was obvious. And when I learned the story of the winery, it all made sense. 

BIDJA is a wine label created by Australia aborigines. The name itself comes from the Ngiyambaa language, meaning “friend.” Its label design incorporates the colour palette of the Jiga Jiga Paint project—a collaboration between Indigenous Australians and Haymes Paint—balancing a clean, modern aesthetic with respect for cultural tradition. 

At first, one might not imagine a natural connection between Indigenous peoples and the European tradition of winemaking. Yet in truth, it is precisely such fusions that determine whether a cultural practice truly takes root in a new land. 

Consider Japan’s Yayoi period. A few decades ago, the prevailing theory was that the Yayoi people migrated from the continent, spreading rice cultivation across the lands while pushing the earlier Jomon people north and east. But current scholarship suggests a more complex picture: that around the 4th century BCE, migrants from the continent intermingled with the indigenous Jomon, and the Yayoi people was born from this fusion. 

The Jomon was not foraging, hunting and gathering; they practiced early forms of agriculture, cultivating plants such as walnuts and chestnuts, which made them receptive to the introduction of rice. And while 

Stone Age peoples worldwide typically led nomadic lives hunting prey, the Jomon were distinctive: they had established obsidian trade routes and settled permanently along them—a remarkably advanced lifestyle for their time. This is why rice agriculture spread as far as the Tohoku region within about a century, by the 3rd century BCE. It is not hard to imagine that Jomon knowledge of water sources and suitable flat land played a key role in that expansion. 

The tasting notes for BIDJA’s Chardonnay mention its origins in “a combination of altitude, pure air, rich soils, and a cool climate.” To me, this epitomizes the happy marriage of an imported cultural tradition with the deep-rooted wisdom of Indigenous people who know the land best. 

History researcher, historiographer, Columnist, 

Takayama Muneharu 

Born in Gunma in 1971.