Of Grapes and Grain

Family-run drinks makers from Noto bring their unique products to the Nihonbashi Club.

On New Year’s Day 2024, the most powerful earthquake to hit Japan since 2011 struck the Noto Peninsula, leaving hundreds dead and more than 1,300 injured.

In Ishikawa Prefecture alone there was nearly $9 billion in damages. Of the small businesses that are continuing to rebuild, two craft drinks makers from Noto will bring their flavorful wares to the Nihonbashi Club this month to share the region’s unique tastes.

Heidee Winery is a small vineyard in Wajima on the west coast of the peninsula. As a youth, Masaki Takasaku traveled through Europe, enjoying the food and wine—especially that of Switzerland and the winemaking village of Maienfeld, famed as the setting for Johanna Spyri’s 1880s classic novel Heidi. Inspired to create great wine in Japan, Takasaku found land in Noto, established Heidee Winery in 2011 and began cultivating the fields the following year with Sauvignon Blanc grapes.

The windswept peninsula is relatively cool and dry, gets little snow because of the warm Tsushima Current and sees little rainfall from spring to autumn—conditions ideal for growing grapes. Its soil is a clay-gravel mix on sedimentary rocks, yielding terroirs comparable to those of Bordeaux. The white wine grape Albariño, originally from the Iberian Peninsula, takes up the largest portion of Takasaku’s acreage, but he has also planted Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay and Sémillon.

“Even though Noto has great conditions for winemaking, people had only grown grapes as food here,” says Takasaku. “We rely on microbial farming techniques to improve growth and basically do not need anything to be added.”

Takasaku ships about 30,000 bottles annually and sells his Senri, Sojo and other wines in Ishikawa, Osaka and Tokyo. In the January earthquake, a restaurant and wine shop at Heidee were destroyed, some winemaking equipment was damaged and many of his bottles were scuffed. Fortunately, friends and supporters on social media stepped up to buy them. Despite those setbacks, the winery has continued to produce whites, reds, rosés and grape juice, and Takasaku is eager to share the fruits of his labor with Club Members at the January event.

“Heidee wines are especially suited for pairing with seafood, including crab, sweet shrimp, octopus and sazae sea snails,” Takasaku explains. “After the heavy impact of the disaster on our business, we have renewed our focus on winemaking and welcome the opportunity to have Club Members drink and enjoy our wines.”

The other maker being featured in Nihonbashi is Nihon Hakko Kasei, a distillery producing mugijochu, or shochu made from barley. Shochu production is centered in the southern areas of Kyushu and Okinawa, where the warm climate speeds fermentation.

Distilling it on a peninsula that’s farther north than the snowy prefecture of Nagano is unusual. In fact, Noto Shochu, as the distillery is commonly called, has the distinction of being Ishikawa’s only shochu maker.

Noto Shochu was established in 1947 in Suzu City, near the tip of Noto. Over the eight decades since, it has placed great importance on high-quality barley, water and koji mold to produce premium shochu. Its Noto Chongaribushi and Tora no Namida brands are known for their unique, mellow flavor resulting from the long aging process in tanks that are exposed to snow, other elements and large swings in temperature.

“Our shochu is aged for more than three years in the cooler climate of Noto,” says Hirofumi Fujino, the third-generation head of the business. “Traditionally, colder areas of Japan have been associated with sake, and we have incorporated some sake-making techniques. When people drink our product sight unseen, they’re surprised to learn it’s from Noto.”

Last year’s quake disrupted production just as the company was beginning to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and another major temblor that rocked Suzu in May 2023. It was set to install new distilling equipment, but the January shock scotched those plans. With a magnitude of 7.5 and an epicenter only 6 kilometers from Suzu, it left giant metal tanks askew or toppled and large cracks in the distillery grounds. The company cannot distill new product and has been selling existing stock over the past 12 months through its website and distributors in Ishikawa.

To help its recovery, Noto Shochu has launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Corezo website and has raised ¥7.2 million—exceeding its goal of ¥5 million. A stretch goal of ¥8 million aims to accelerate the rebuilding of the business and the recovery of Suzu.

The Nihonbashi Club tasting will be an opportunity to increase the maker’s exposure outside Ishikawa and share the unique taste of cold-climate shochu.

“We’re a small company, little known even among Japanese people,” admits Fujino, “but perhaps the quake can become an opportunity for people to learn about us making shochu in Noto.”