Producers

The name AL FIORE originates from an Italian restaurant opened in Sendai in 2002 by the winery’s founder and CEO, Hirotaka Meguro. Meaning "one flower" in Japanese, AL FIORE reflects the hope that a single, captivating flower will one day produce seeds, spreading joy like a blossoming field of flowers. Fattoria AL FIORE represents the next chapter of that vision—a transition from restaurant to winery, and the foundation for a greater dream: the creation of a metaphorical “flower garden” through community, collaboration, and craftsmanship. It is a place where wine becomes a means to connect people and support the creative efforts of the many friends made along the way. The story began in 2014, when Meguro began cultivating a field in the Adachi area of Kawasaki Town—an area facing abandonment and depopulation. He saw the potential to revitalize the land by planting grapevines and creating a place where people could gather once again. Fattoria AL FIORE is guided by the belief that people with shared values can come together, work in harmony with nature, and create something meaningful. The winery aspires to be a space where joy, creativity, and connection flourish—just like a field of blooming flowers.

Nakajima brings the techniques gathered from all the steps in his career to influence his philosophy in winemaking. He and his wife, Michiru, manage their little winery out of the basement of their home that reminisces with its half-timber style of Loire or Alsatian design. The winery proper is full of the remarkable inventions that Nakajima’s engineering career have taught him to create – the winery can operate as carbon neutral with its hand operated press, almost like a large scale pasta maker, the wooden electric car that Nakajima has built to carry pick bins in between the vines, and a homemade device for roasting coffee beans. The vineyard sits on a mixture of primarily clay mixed with schist, sand, and volcanic clay and ash. The active volcano, Mount Asama, towers in the background over the vineyard and has a symbiotic impact on the terroir of the surrounding valley, including the home vineyard of Domaine Nakajima. It last erupted in 2019 and smokes idly below gray skies. Compared to other areas in the Chikuma River Valley, this vineyard sits closer to the town level, around 750 meters in altitude. The plot itself is quite steep, at around a 45 degree angle, and not terraced but straight up the hillside, so that the water in the rainy season runs right down the hill. The site is broken up into rows of the four Loire varieties that they work with. A little farther away, at a slightly higher altitude, they are planting another larger vineyard dedicated to a wider variety of grapes from Alsace and Jura, as well as of other French provenance. The wines themselves reflect the trademarks of Nakajima’s career – all native yeast fermentation, no chemical sprays in the vineyard, and a combination of delicacy and concentration that is impressive given the moisture levels inherent to Nagano’s growing season. They produce a main line of estate wines produced from the Vitis vinifera that they grow, while also making a more casual series of pet nats using Japanese grapes from trusted growers elsewhere in Japan.

While clicking through a database from the local government listing abandoned farmland, he found the perfect site in Onoyama, outside of Ueda City. The site was near the historic location of Onoyama Castle, and there had previously been a terraced vineyard on a portion of the land, though it was now covered in brush. Once cleared, it saw clear through to the Chikuma River and Mount Asama to the north. So Tamura handed over day to day operations of the restaurant to his sons and moved to Ueda, returning to Kyoto on the weekends. The site is primarily clay, more removed from the volcanic soils further east in the river valley closer to Mount Asama. It is planted in rows to primarily Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, and Petit Manseng, though they are expanding further up the hillside into more hectarage, and a wider variety of French origin grapes are going into cultivation. And there is a ton of nuance to the site, with slopes that point in various directions and different aspects, leading to a complex array of ripening times and water flows. No pesticides, herbicides or any chemical sprays are ever used in the vineyard, nor is there any tillage. They do practice green fertilization, mowing cover crops and artfully placing the resultant greenery along with the trimmings from vines around the vineyard to aid with water flow off the soil. In the first few vintages, Tamura produced the wine at the Arc-en-Vignes, the production facility attached to the wine school he attended. Winemaking methodology changes year to year, depending on factors such as ripeness of the stems and relative volumes of different varieties. But the consistent factors are the exclusion of all additions and chemical interventions, the use of only gravity in the cellar, and the adherence to zero/zero philosophies throughout the production cycle. Tamura’s daughter, Moe Ozono, tasted her father’s wine after the first release in 2019 and was astounded by the work. She had a career in the fashion industry, but knew she wanted to help her father share his wine with the world, rather than just at the restaurant. So she moved with her family to Ueda and joined the winery to run the sales and take on work in the fields and in the cellar. They built their own winery space in 2024 and have plans to open a tasting room soon as well. They are excited to share their wines with a larger audience and hope you enjoy the effort of their work.