About Wine

Grapevines were never supposed to thrive this far north, under this much snow. A handful of growers in Akita took on the challenge anyway — and found that the region's harsh winters and short summers concentrate flavor in ways warmer climates can't. Akita is still an unfamiliar name in wine. That's exactly what makes it worth discovering.

Three small producers make up our wine range, each with a different answer to the same question. A landscaping company turned a stretch of coastal farmland into a vineyard growing ten grape varieties. A tiny mountain winery works almost entirely by hand with wild-grape hybrids found nowhere else. A brand-new farm, funded by its own future customers through crowdfunding, has only just released its first bottle. None of them are chasing a house style — together, they're closer to a series of experiments in what cool-climate Japanese wine can become.