Ōse Winery Helping Fukushima Rebuild Its Brand

Set amid beautiful natural surroundings, the Fukushima Ōse Winery building houses state-of-the-art equipment, a shop, and a seminar room. (Courtesy Fukushima Ōse Winery)

The winery’s fleet of fermentation tanks have a combined capacity of 50,000 liters.

The shop includes a wine-tasting corner and also serves nonalcohol drinks made with Fukushima-grown fruits.

Made-in-Fukushima Cidre 2018, winner of the Fuji Cidre Challenge 2020, sold out its production run.

Visitors get a close-up view of grapevines in a trial plot on the winery’s grounds. (Courtesy Agriculture and Forestry Department, Kōriyama)

Winemaker Sasaki Hiroshi explains how the German-made still for producing brandy and other spirits works.

Bottles of Vin de Ollage are flanked on the right by Muscat Bailey A & Steuben Rosé 2020, a sparkling wine made from grapes grown in the Fukushima city of Aizu-Wakamatsu, and Cidre 2017 on the left.

Nakao Hideaki, proprietor of Kōriyama Nakao Grape Farm, in one of his fields. The farm had been growing other varieties of grapes for 45 years, but switched to wine grapes in 2016. (Courtesy Agriculture and Forestry Department, Kōriyama)

Nakao says he is happy that the grapes he grows are being used to make wine. (Courtesy Agriculture and Forestry Department, Kōriyama)

Kawauchi Kōki, left, and Sasaki Hiroshi pose with bottles of Vin de Ollage 2019.

The quality of the wine grapes grown at the Nakao Grape Farm is improving every year. (Courtesy Agriculture and Forestry Department, Kōriyama)