A Bordeaux Grand Cru Winery Makes Authentic Japanese Soy Sauce

A 400-year-old Grand Cru winery in Bordeaux is making traditional Japanese soy sauce.

This is not a joke.

Château Coutet in Saint Emilion, France started soy sauce production in 2023. Its products turned out to be so outstanding that when they were released in May 2024, the entire batch of 9,000 bottles was sold out within 3 months. Top French chefs have been using the soy sauce in their kitchens like ONOR by Thierry Marx in Paris, Michelin-starred Maison Nouvelle and Restaurant LALIQUE, both in Bordeaux.

The story began when the David Beaulieu family of Château Coutet started to notice the impact of climate change in its surrounding areas. While the wine quality remained unaffected, heavy rains over the past three years lowered the production level. A section of its vineyards was particularly impacted by the unusual weather patterns and had no harvest. The family had to come up with some solutions to cope with the uncertainty of the future.

Meanwhile, Toshio Shinko, the fifth-generation owner of Marushin Honke, the 144-year-old traditional Japanese fermented product maker in Wakayama, Japan, visited Bordeaux to attend the award ceremony of the prestigious Monde Selection. He was curious about wine-making and spoke to local winery owners. “I realized that soy sauce and wine production have so much in common. I instantly started thinking about making soy sauce in Bordeaux.”

Shared Mindset Of Craftsmen

To Shinko, making soy sauce in a world-class wine region is not an outrageous idea at all. He is known for being a groundbreaker. When he joined the family business at 20, he decided to revive the declining soy sauce business of his hometown Yuasa, the birthplace of Japanese soy sauce. In 2002, he established a separate company Yusasa Shoyu to focus on producing premium soy sauce with time and labor-consuming cedar barrels, which others thought was financially insane. Now his products have won numerous awards both in Japan and abroad. Also, he came up with the idea of soy sauce factory tours, which no one offered back then, now attract over 100,000 visitors a year.

“If people go to the right, I go to the left because there is no one to stop me,” he laughs.

In 2020, a mutual friend connected Shinko and the Château Coutet family. Adrien David Beaulieu, winemaker and Madina Querre, his partner, and Shinko exchanged ideas and they immediately hit it off. Luckily, the Japanese government granted them a subsidy to promote Japanese products in France, which facilitated the project to come to life.

But how do they make Japanese soy sauce at a traditional winery in France?

“Right from the beginning, the only thing I brought from Japan was koji mold. We managed to get everything else at the winery. For example, instead of a Japanese cedar barrel, we use a 2,500-litter oak wine barrel from Chateau Coutet. To ferment koji, we altered wooden wine boxes to substitute classic cedar boxes in Japan. Our soybeans and wheat are organically grown locally and salt is mineral-rich fleur de sel from Île de Ré,” says Shinko.

The makeshift setup sounds a little precarious for producing premium soy sauce but Shinko was actually well-prepared. “Before I went to France, I imported wine barrels from Bordeaux and aged soy sauce in them. The results far exceeded my expectations. They added a beautiful red color and an elegant floral scent. The oak seems to have a property to bring out the flavors of ingredients naturally with new dimensions,” he says.

The team produces two types of organic soy sauce.

One is Shinko Noire and the other is Shinko Blanche. Noire is the most common style of dark-colored soy sauce called Koikuchi. Aged for 12 months in the wine oak barrel, its color is clear and deep amber. The taste is highly rich in umami with subtle sweetness and a light finish.

Shinko Blanche is the Shiro-shoyu style, which is often used at Kaiseki restaurants for its much lighter shade to showcase the colors of ingredients.

“Both go perfectly well with French food. I recommend pairing Noire-flavored dishes with red wine and Blanche with white wine,” says Shinko.

The ambitious French-Japanese project seems to be quite successful so far. What was the biggest challenge for the team to get there?

Querre says, “When we started, understanding the production process was extremely difficult because of the language barrier. It took time for us to communicate, reflect, observe, listen and repeat—and get to know each other. But Mr. Shinko was always remarkably patient.”

Shinko says, “We never argued. Since we share the same mindset of creating something from scratch through the natural process of fermentation, we have unspoken mutual understanding and respect.”

The soy sauce project has already made a positive financial impact on Château Coutet.

“The most negatively affected vineyard by the climate change was Notre Sainte Terre where we now make soy sauce. Soy sauce production is way more resistant to climatic fluctuations than wine-making and has become a key part of our business,” says Querre.

The soy sauce is distributed not only in France but various other countries all over the world, including Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Malta and soon in Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Singapore.

Shinko says, “Having heard about this project, people from all over the world have sent me inquiries about soy sauce production in their countries, including the U.S., Spain, Canada, Turkey, Russia and China. This is truly an exciting time for Japanese soy sauce.”