{"title":"Miyagi, Japan","description":"\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003eMiyagi is not a name you'll find in most wine guides, and that's partly the point. This prefecture on Japan's Pacific coast, centred around the city of Sendai, is known for rice, oysters, and one of the most celebrated scenic views in Japan — the pine-covered islands of Matsushima. Wine is a recent arrival, and a deliberate one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003eMiyagi sits in the Tohoku region of northern Honshu, and like much of Tohoku it has historically had among the lowest fruit production in the area. There were essentially no commercial wineries here before 2011. What changed was the Great East Japan Earthquake — the devastating tsunami and disaster that reshaped the region's coastline and communities that year. In the years that followed, establishing wineries became part of a broader effort to rebuild local agricultural identity and bring economic energy back to the prefecture. The first winery opened in 2015, in the Akiu hot spring town outside Sendai, and a small cluster of five producers has since taken root across the prefecture, most farming their own vineyards and handling everything from cultivation to bottling themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\"\u003eThe climate here is cooler and more demanding than Japan's established wine regions. Miyagi sits at a similar latitude to parts of Nagano, with cold winters, moderate summers, and the kind of seasonal variation that makes grape growing a genuine challenge — particularly in a country where summer humidity and typhoon season already work against vine health. That difficulty has pushed the region's producers toward cold-hardy and disease-resistant varieties that can actually thrive here, alongside careful canopy management and small-scale, hands-on viticulture that simply wouldn't be viable at larger scale\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"fattoria-al-fiore-hana","title":"Fattoria Al Fiore Hana 2025","description":"\u003ch1\u003eFattoria al Fiore \"Hana\" 2025\u003c\/h1\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA former Italian-restaurant chef who gave up his savings to feed earthquake-relief workers, then rebuilt his life as a winemaker in a converted elementary school gym.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrape varietal \u0026amp; region\u003c\/strong\u003e: Merlot and Steuben (an American hybrid grape widely grown in Japan) from Fattoria al Fiore's vineyards in Kawasaki Town, at the foot of the Zao mountain range in Miyagi Prefecture. \"Hana\" means flower — a callback to the winery's own name, Fattoria al Fiore, \"farm of the flower,\" which began life as founder Hirotaka Meguro's natural-ingredient Italian restaurant in Sendai. Meguro closed the restaurant after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake to cook for relief workers in the disaster zone, spending down the savings he'd set aside for his next venture in the process. He started over: clearing abandoned farmland in Miyagi from 2014, and building the winery — now run with his wife and partner Reina Meguro — in a repurposed gymnasium of a shuttered elementary school.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTaste profile\u003c\/strong\u003e: a natural rose built on the pale, delicate end of the spectrum — expect red berry fruit and a savoury, slightly rustic edge typical of hybrid grape varieties, with the freshness and light grip that comes from zero additions. Straightforward, honest drinking rather than a polished, fruit-forward crowd-pleaser.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinemaking process\u003c\/strong\u003e: the estate's philosophy is stated as plainly as possible — \"ingredients: grapes,\" nothing else. No commercial yeast, no sulphites, no fining, no filtration; wild fermentation only, with the winemaker's job understood as helping the yeast do what it already wants to do.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinemaker\u003c\/strong\u003e: Hirotaka Meguro trained as a chef in Italy before opening his own restaurant in Sendai, and only came to winemaking after the 2011 earthquake reshaped his priorities. His wife Reina, an architect who studied sustainability and permaculture in France, redesigned the old school gymnasium that now houses the winery and has run the business side, Meglot, alongside him since 2017. The labels are handmade washi paper from local mulberry bark, with artwork commissioned from members of the community they rebuilt around.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fattoria Al Fiore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43103072616546,"sku":null,"price":78.0,"currency_code":"SGD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0552\/1339\/1970\/files\/AlFiore-Hana.png?v=1783860219"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0552\/1339\/1970\/collections\/Japan-Miyagi.png?v=1783866111","url":"https:\/\/boundbywine.com\/collections\/miyagi-japan.oembed","provider":"BoundbyWine","version":"1.0","type":"link"}