The EC and recently the US have begun pressuring Japan to open its markets to foreign wines by reducing the very high level of tariffs on imported wine. At the same time, the double standard shown by the Japanese government in its handling of a wine scandal shows clearly the protectionists attitude of the government towards foreign products. Thus tariff rates on imported bottled wine average around 166 to 280 yen per liter. At the same time the tariff rate on bulk wine is only 80 yen per liter.
Bulk wine is a major raw material for Japanese bottled wine.
At the same time, the EC in particular is incensed that the lack of Japanese labeling laws has served to effectively protect the Japanese industry by permitting the Japanese industry to put almost anything on their labels, even without basis in fact. There is no law regulating the labeling of wine in Japan. Many have been shocked to learn that very expensive wines advertised as fancy dessert wines, were hardly more than bulk wine from Bulgaria or Yugoslavia. The scandalous level of misinformation in Japan became clear with the discovery of the use of an antifreeze this year in Austrian and German wines. This of course alarmed wine drinkers world wide.