Daizenji: Grape Temple In Japan

Mother Nature is giving us a day off today by sending us some rain. We took this time to relax and watch NHK World this morning and a program called Seasoning the Season featured a Grape Temple named Daizenji in Japan. This resonated with me in so many ways. First of all, my mother is a Buddhist minister so I thought of sending her this information and since we grow grapes it was very interesting to me. I looked on line and found a link on The Sun Daily that showed a picture of the Buddha with a bunch of grapes:

Legend has it that in 718 AD, during the Nara Period (710-784 CE), a famous Japanese Buddhist monk and traveller called Gyoki was visiting the Koshu Valley. During this visit, Gyoki was said to have a dream in which he met the Buddha of medicine, aka Yakushi Nyorai, who held a bunch of grapes in one hand and a bottle of medicine in the other hand.
This dream inspired Gyoki to found Daizenji in the Koshu valley, located in the Yamanashi region, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Tokyo, which is famous as the home of Mount Fuji.

Gyoki also began cultivating the koshu grape for medicinal purposes. He taught the Yamanshi residents how to make wine, proclaiming the fruit’s health benefits. Gyoki had the farmers collect and ferment damaged grapes, mixing it with copious amounts of sugar, creating Koshu wine.
To honor the Buddha of his dream, Gyoki carved a 85.5-centimeter-tall statue of Yakushi from a single block of cherry wood. Currently, this statue can be seen and worshipped when it is unveiled once every five years.
Today, the temple’s head monk, Tesshu Inoue, is also the lead vintner. He has made koshu wine for 40 years and holds tastings for visitors. The winery at the heart of Daizenji temple, produces 9,000 bottles of wine annually. Currently, the koshu wine is one of the few Japanese wines that has garnered international attention.

Although I could not find any information on when the Koshu grapes become ripe, it has me wondering if it is harvest time at Daizenji Temple.
References:
1. The Sun Daily
2. KCp International
3. Koshu Valley
4. Wooden statue of Bhaisajyaguru（Yakushi Nyorai