By CORIE BROWN

KOSHU, Japan - The Japanese have made wine for years, it is just that no one outside Japan wanted to drink it, particularly if it was sweet swill made from a native table grape called koshu. But Ernest Singer thinks koshu deserves a place among the world’s fine white-wine grapes.

Mr. Singer, a wine importer based in Tokyo, said koshu captured his imagination nearly a decade ago when he tasted an experimental dry white wine made from the grape. Light and crisp with subtle citrus flavors, it was a match for Japan’s cuisine, he said, and could become the first Asian wine to draw international recognition.

With grapes from local growers and expertise from France, he began making his own wine, seeking to help koshu reach its potential. Now he and a clutch of familyowned Japanese wineries working under the banner Koshu of Japan, are racing to be the first to produce koshu good enough to succeed in the world market.

“We have shown you can make real wine in Japan,” Mr. Singer said. The question remains, he said, whether established vintners will change their winemaking practices or “continue to sell their schlock.” Even his chief rival, Shigekazu Misawa, the owner of Grace Wine and a leader of Koshu of Japan, said that without Mr. Singer, it was unlikely anyone would think of exporting koshu.

“It was Ernie’s idea to raise quality to improve the position of koshu in the world market,” he said. “He knew that koshu could become a wine that represents Japan to the world.” Found almost exclusively in Yamanashi Prefecture at the base of Mount Fuji, koshu is a tart, gray grape.

Growers would dispose of damaged and rotten fruit by making wine with heavy doses of sugar. Mr. Misawa was one of the first Japanese vintners to reject the idea of sugary koshu. “Koshu is two-thirds of all of the wine we make,” he said.

“And we needed to make it better.” After his first taste of dry koshu, Mr. Singer gambled big on it, flying in Denis Dubourdieu, professor of enology at the University of Bordeaux, to work on his first four vintages (2004 to 2007), which were made at Mr. Misawa’s winery with grapes he helped provide.

Mr. Singer’s confidence in koshu is due in no small part to the wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr. The two men have worked together since 1998 when Mr. Parker hired Mr. Singer to be his representative in Asia. Mr. Parker tasted Mr. Singer’s 2004 koshu at the Grace winery in December 2004 and gave it a score of 87/88 on a scale of 100.

In setting up the winemaking protocol for Mr. Singer’s koshu, Mr. Dubourdieu eliminated what was once the only thing that made koshu drinkable: sugar. The wine is bone dry with a very low alcohol content. He accomplished this by getting rid of the grape’s bitter skin early in the process.

“I tried to extract nothing from the skin,” he said. “The bitterness of the koshu skin is extreme.” The Bordeaux producer Bernard Magrez is distributing a small amount of the Katsunuma Jyozo winery’s koshu in Europe and the United States. Bottles sell for $20 and up. But the executive director of the winery, Youki Hirayama, said that beyond that, his company is focusing on Asia .

“This is Asian wine for Asian food,” he said, noting that the subtle flavors do not overwhelm delicate dishes. Mr. Parker remains upbeat about koshu. “Up until this year, it was the best one I’ve tasted,” he wrote in an e-mail response to questions about Mr. Singer’s wine. “Now Bernard Magrez has one that is dry, crisp and very tasty, and much in the style of the Dubourdieu koshu. I think the wine, if made in these styles, has a quasi-Muscadet character ? light-bodied and very refreshing.”