Nagano Sake: How Do You Hold 80 Breweries Together?

Nagano Prefecture is home to roughly 80 sake breweries. According to figures from the Nagano Prefecture Sake Brewers Association, that makes it second in the country after Niigata.

That fact is also something of a headache when it comes to describing Nagano sake. More breweries means a wider spread of flavors. And Nagano stretches a long way from north to south, with enormous differences in elevation. The heavy-snow country of the north and the Ina Valley in the south have almost nothing in common climatically.

This is a prefecture where it is genuinely hard to say “Nagano sake tastes like this” in a single sentence. Nagano’s answer was not to unify the flavor, but to define standards of quality as a formal system.

Japan’s First Appellation of Origin Control System

On October 2, 2002, Nagano launched the Nagano Appellation Control (NAC), the Nagano Prefecture Origin Labeling Management System. It was established under the prefecture’s governor at the time, Tanaka Yasuo.

An appellation of origin works on much the same principle as AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) in the world of wine. To claim the place name, a product must meet conditions on where its ingredients come from and how it is made, and it must pass an evaluation. In Europe this kind of framework has a long history; in Japan, it was a single prefecture, rather than the national government, that acted first.

The system began with wine and expanded to sake, rice, shochu, and cider. Certification for sake started on April 15, 2003. To earn it, a sake must use ingredients grown in Nagano and pass a sensory evaluation. Rather than trading on a brand’s reputation, the contents of each entry are judged afresh every time.

It would be some years later that the national government rolled out its Geographical Indication (GI) system for alcoholic beverages across the country. Today Nagano operates with the GI framework and the prefecture’s own appellation system side by side. In a prefecture with 80 breweries lined up, how do you guarantee trust in the region as a whole? The answer was prepared more than twenty years ago.

Miyama Nishiki: A Rice Born of Radiation

One of Nagano’s contributions to brewing nationwide that cannot be overlooked is the sake rice Miyama Nishiki.

Miyama Nishiki was created in 1978 at Nagano Prefecture’s agricultural experiment station. Its origins are unusual: it was selected from a mutation induced by gamma-ray irradiation. This breeding technique induces mutations artificially and then screens for useful traits, reaching a target characteristic faster than waiting on chance crosses.

The rice’s great strength was cold tolerance. It grows in Nagano’s high-altitude fields and still has the quality needed for ginjo brewing — sake made with highly polished rice at low temperatures. As a result Miyama Nishiki spread well beyond Nagano and became one of the principal sake rices of cold regions, including Tohoku. If Yamada Nishiki is the rice that represents the warm lands of western Japan, Miyama Nishiki is the variety that dramatically widened the options for cold ones.

A clean, fine-drawn line and a light finish: the character of sake brewed with Miyama Nishiki overlaps closely with the general impression of Nagano sake as a whole.

The Brewery Where Yeast No. 7 Was Born

Nagano is also the place that produced one of sake’s standards.

In 1946, Dr. Yamada Shoichi (山田正一) of the National Research Institute of Brewing discovered a new yeast in the moromi — the fermenting mash of rice, koji, and water — at Miyasaka Brewing (Masumi) in Suwa. Distributed nationwide as Kyokai Yeast No. 7, it went on to make a major contribution to raising sake quality in the postwar years.

No. 7 produces attractive aromatics while fermenting vigorously, and it is easy to handle. It remains one of the most widely used yeasts today, and the ginjo of many breweries is built on this lineage. Miyasaka Brewing itself is an old house founded in 1662, but its name also survives for this single point at which it shaped postwar sake.

Four Regions, Four Sets of Conditions

The diversity of Nagano sake is easiest to grasp by tracing the geography within the prefecture.

Hokushin (Nagano City, Suzaka, Obuse, Iiyama) has deep snow and long winters. The low temperatures translate directly into a stable fermentation environment.

Toshin (Saku, Ueda, Karuizawa) has an inland climate, with little rain and wide swings between hot and cold. Breweries are scattered around Saku at elevations of roughly 700 meters, in one of the coldest stretches of the prefecture.

Chushin (Matsumoto, Azumino, Kiso) is blessed with underground streams from the Northern Alps. Azumino’s spring water is celebrated, and here the character of the water shows through directly in the sake.

Nanshin (Suwa, Ina, Iida) covers the area around Lake Suwa and the valleys along the Tenryu River. Breweries cluster densely in Suwa, while the Ina Valley opens southward into warmer land — conditions so different you would hardly think it was the same prefecture.

Another defining feature of Nagano is that many of its breweries sit above 500 meters in elevation. Air pressure and temperature are not what they are for breweries on the plains, and generations of brewing adapted to each location have accumulated.

Flavor Tendencies

Regional differences aside, Nagano sake does share a common direction. It tends to settle into an impression that is low in off-flavors, fine-lined, and clear.

Soft brewing water, low temperatures from the high elevation, and fine-lined rice such as Miyama Nishiki: when those three come together, the flavor naturally heads in a clean direction. That is why so many of these sakes are easy to keep drinking and sit well alongside food.

Some breweries push showy ginjo aromatics to the front; others build a thicker layer of umami. It is easier to approach this prefecture’s sake if you assume there is 80 breweries’ worth of range in it.

Breweries and Brands

Masumi from Miyasaka Brewing is the venerable house in Suwa, the brewery where Yeast No. 7 originated. Its standard-bearer, Junmai Ginjo Karakuchi Kiippon, has long been drunk as a reference point for Nagano sake. In recent years the brewery has also expanded into overseas markets under the name MIYASAKA.

Daishinshu from Daishinshu Shuzo comes from a Matsumoto brewery. Its brewing emphasizes hand-worked processes, and it has a solid reputation for clear aromatics and transparent flavor.

Saku no Hana from Saku no Hana Shuzo is a small brewery in Saku City. Fruity and easy to drink, it is a natural choice as an entry point to Nagano sake.

Yoake Mae from Ono Shuzoten comes from a brewery in Tatsuno Town. The brand name derives from a novel by Shimazaki Toson; the sake has umami while finishing lightly, which makes it easy to use at the table.

Meikyoshisui from Osawa Shuzo is a Saku City brewery. True to a name that means a clear, still water surface, it aims for a clean sake free of off-flavors.

Kawanakajima from Shusen Kurano is a Nagano City brewery, known for its Genbu series. Its handling of aroma is delicate, and its reputation has been rising in recent years.

Keiryu from Endo Shuzojo is a brewery in Suzaka City. Products built around freshness, such as Asa-shibori — bottled straight from the press — have found a strong following.

Pairing with Shinshu Food

The fine-lined sake of Nagano is easy to combine with mountain ingredients whose flavors are not too strong.

Shinshu soba is the classic. The aroma of the buckwheat itself is delicate, so you want a sake that does not assert itself either. Soba-mae — drinking sake before the noodles arrive — is a habit that has taken root naturally in Nagano’s soba shops.

For the acidity and salt of nozawana pickles, chilled junmai. Simple flour-based fare such as oyaki dumplings goes well with sake at room temperature.

Basashi, raw horse sashimi, is a Shinshu staple, and its lean, light flavor suits a sake with gentle aroma. For strongly flavored dishes such as sanzoku-yaki — chicken thigh marinated in garlic soy sauce and deep-fried, a specialty of Matsumoto and Shiojiri — it works well to meet it with something dry.

Chilled is the default serving temperature, but junmai changes character between room temperature and gentle warming. Winters are cold in high country, so warmed sake gets plenty of use.

If You Visit

Suwa is essential. Within Suwa City, five breweries known as the Suwa Gokura (Suwa Five Breweries) sit within walking distance of one another. This is the stretch most often cited as a success story for sake tourism, where you can compare each brewery’s flavor on foot.

Matsumoto retains the atmosphere of a castle town, with many establishments serving local sake around Nakamachi Street. Saku and Ueda have breweries scattered across them, and you can travel between sakes made in the cool climate of the east. The Obuse and Suzaka area in the north also combines easily with a walk around town.

Having sightseeing destinations close to the breweries is one of Nagano’s strengths: you can come for Matsumoto Castle or Suwa Taisha Shrine and encounter the sake while you are there.

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Nagano sake does not converge on a single flavor. With 80 breweries each brewing at their own elevation and climate, it could hardly be otherwise.

Rather than treating that diversity as a weakness, the prefecture used an appellation system to fix only the outline of quality — and that is where its thinking shows. If you come across an unfamiliar brand while traveling, try a glass. Nagano has that many of them.

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For information about Niigata sake, see Niigata Sake.

Tips for visiting breweries are covered in detail in our Sake Brewery Tour Guide.

References: Nagano Prefecture, “Nagano Prefecture Origin Labeling Management System / GI Nagano”; Nagano Prefecture Sake Brewers Association; publicly available information from Miyasaka Brewing; Go! NAGANO (the official Nagano Prefecture tourism site)