It’s not exactly Napa Valley, but a vineyard in Japan is working hard to come close.
Château Mercian Mariko Winery, located in alpinesque Nagano prefecture, opened for business in 2019 with the goal of raising the profile of domestic wine. It’s owned and operated by Kirin Holdings Co., better known for its beer and beverages.
Visitors can harvest grapes, followed by lunch made with local ingredients on a terrace overlooking varietals for Merlot, Chardonnay, Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc. Only at-the-vineyard wines are available for sale at the shop.
Just a few hours by bullet train from Tokyo, Nagano offers a climate (depending on the altitude and landscape) similar to the warm sunny days and cool nights seen in California’s wine-producing regions. That’s made the area famous for good rice, sake and soba — as well as grapes. The other, more well-established wine enclave in Japan is in Yamanashi prefecture.
Aya Jindo, 49, came up with the idea to offer a deeper customer experience at the winery, seeking out local restaurants and nearby lodging facilities to partner with the winery.
Jindo got the chance to pitch the idea of a new type of winery to top management at a career advancement training program. On a business trip as a young employee, she saw a winery that offered a comprehensive experience that included a golf course, restaurants, and a spa.
“The idea was to earn money by inviting customers to the winery as a profit center, selling the value of the experience and increasing the value of the winery,” said Jindo, who is a general manager at Kirin’s Mercian wine division. When pitching the idea, she told people she “wanted to make it like Napa Valley, and they all said, ‘Oh, yes, that's what we want!’”
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Her efforts paid off. The winery’s sales climbed 1.5-fold from 2019 to 2022, with the average customer spend about 10 times that of a conventional winery. Although the pandemic hit right after it opened, Mercian Mariko Winery is on a path to profitability, according to Jindo. Even better: it’s the only winery from Japan to be included on the top-100 list of the “World’s Best Vineyards” by William Reed.
Although Japanese winemaking dates back more than 140 years, before the first whisky distilleries were built, the country’s wines have been eclipsed by Yamazaki, Hibiki and other whiskies that enjoy high demand — and high prices — among global consumers.
“Japan is still a developing wine-producing country,” said Kenichi Ohashi, wine connoisseur and holder of 1 of only 415 “Master of Wine” titles in the world. The emergence of an award-winning winery will help make the global “wine industry around the world aware of Japan’s status as a wine-producing country.”
The yen’s recent weakness has also made Japanese wines much more affordable to outside the country. Wine exports increased 98% in 2021 and were at similar levels in 2022.
Kirin’s competitors have also joined in. Suntory Holdings Ltd. invested about 500 million yen in 2021 to renovate its “Suntory Tomi no Oka” winery.
Sales from Kirin’s wine division increased by 4.5% year-on-year to ¥60.5 billion ($420 million) for the business year through December, and the brewer forecasts another 8.2% and a return to profitability in the current fiscal period. Even so, wines make up just a small part of Kirin’s total revenue, just 3%.
Kirin’s wines are “like a Japanese garden, with delicate but detailed work,” Jindo said, helping to garner recognition outside the country. Starting this month, the vineyard will begin offering winery tours in English, in anticipation of a recovery in tourists from abroad.
(Corrects job title in seventh paragraph, business year in second last paragraph.)
