Tokyo: Akiruno Vineyard Tama Guided Experience & Wine Tasting

The vineyard owners, Takafumi-san and Tamiko-san, were exceptional hosts. Both were friendly, engaging and hospitable, enthusiastically showing us their grape varieties, explaining cultivation, touring us around their factory and sharing their winemaking knowledge. Unfortunately, our guide, Tim, was a major letdown. As we don't speak Japanese, we expected him to help translate, but he made NO effort to assist. Despite mentioning that he speaks Japanese, lives in Japan and regularly works as a guide, he mostly repeated a few words and nodded along. We even questioned whether he understood the owners himself. His responses to their questions were often limited to one or two words. His lack of involvement was so noticeable that we thought he was another participant rather than our guide. Our own basic Japanese seemed almost as useful as his contribution. The owners made this a wonderful experience, but Tim added no value. Honestly, we would have been better off without a guide.