Iwanohara Vineyard

Published: Aug 11, 2026

Updated: Aug 11, 2026

wineryMuscat Bailey AKawakami ZenbeiyukimuroJoetsu

Representative image — not a photograph of this location.

Kawakami Zenbei planted grapes here in 1890 and spent the rest of his life crossbreeding European vines with hardier stock to find something that would survive a Joetsu winter. He made more than 10,000 crosses. Muscat Bailey A, the variety he selected out of that work, is still the most widely planted red wine grape in Japan, which makes this hillside the origin point of Japanese wine grape growing rather than a picturesque adjunct to it.

Stone Cellar No. 1, dug in 1898, is the oldest surviving wine cellar in Japan and was the first structure in the country to be registered as a Tangible Cultural Property. Stone Cellar No. 2 is cooled by a yukimuro — a chamber packed with snow in winter that holds the cellar temperature through summer without power. Both are open to walk through, along with a room on Kawakami himself and the vineyard rows above.

Essential Information

Opening Hours

9:30 AM – 4:30 PM (tour and tasting reception until 4:00 PM)

Closed: Closed over the new year period, Sundays in January and February, and selected days in March

Entrance Fee

Free (cellar tour and Kawakami exhibition room) | Tasting and bottles sold separately in the shop

Best Season

May–October for the vineyard rows and reliable road access | September–October for harvest

Visit Duration

1–1.5 hours

Getting There

Access Information

Kitagata 1223, Joetsu City. About 20 minutes by car from Takada Station; no useful bus. Open 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM, with tour and tasting reception until 4:00 PM. Tour of the cellars and the Kawakami exhibition room is free. Closed over the new year period, Sundays in January and February, and selected days in March; otherwise open daily. Tasting and bottle sales in the shop.

Insider Guide

Premium

**Ask to see the yukimuro.** Snow is loaded into the chamber beside Stone Cellar No. 2 in winter and cools the wine through the following summer. It is the detail that explains why a winery is here at all rather than somewhere warmer. **Muscat Bailey A tastes unlike European reds.** Light, strongly aromatic, low tannin. Judging it against Bordeaux misses what Kawakami was solving for, which was a grape that ripens in a short cool season and survives four metres of snow. **Buy at the winery.** The single-vineyard bottlings from the estate rows sell here and largely nowhere else; the widely distributed labels are made from bought-in fruit. **Winter closes the Sundays.** January and February Sundays are shut and snow can close the road without notice. May to October is the straightforward window.

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