Japan Is Going Crazy for French Wine Baths

What does the island nation of Japan have in common with a totally bitchin’ rager hosted by the likes of Dionysus, Bacchus, and Liber?

If you answered anything besides frenzied wine baths, you clearly don’t have enough of a handle on either pantheism or Japan’s booming wine industry.

France may be the wine capital of the world, but Japan’s wine market is growing pretty damn explosively. Wine consumption in Japan increased 30 percent over the past five years, and red wine consumption increased by a whopping 34 percent over the same period. Japan is now the seventh largest consumer of wines worldwide.

So you best be sure that Japan’s famous hot spring spas are getting in on the wine-related action. The owners of one spa that bills itself as a “hot springs amusement park and spa resort,” Hakone Kowakien Yunessun, certainly don’t want to miss out on their share of the unbridled wine revelry. So this spa, located in the land of maid cafes and hamburger-themed girl groups, has wholeheartedly glommed onto France’s yearly harvest festival celebrating Beaujolais Nouveau and made it their own.


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