Torocco Winery

Chef Akihiro Nagao, originally born in Sapporo, spent decades honing his craft between Tokyo and around multiple celebrated restaurants in France. He returned to his hometown at 29 to launch his first restaurant, Aki Nagao. The goal is to feature and celebrate Hokkaido ingredients, and the hardworking growers who produce them. Inspired by that love, the obvious next step for Nagao was to start a winery and make his own wine! In 2021, he and his colleagues started Torocco Winery to transmit their love for the land, pair with the cuisine they are so passionate about, and to protect the land they’ve inherited to pass down to the next generation. The focus of the winery is to protect the land and to “aim for cultivation rooted in nature,” using the transparency of sustainable farming and low intervention winemaking that both protects and showcases the land they love. They began by purchasing grapes from trusted farmers in Yoichi, first with Pinot Noir, Kerner, and Acolon. At the same time, they purchased their own vineyard on the Oshima Peninsula, in Hokuto, on a sandy windswept maritime hillscape. The property had been a cherry orchard, called Frontier, but also has abundant Niagara vines of an average of 30 years of age. So they also made a pet-nat of Niagara from their home grapes. They received mentorship from noted Hokkaido godfather of wine, Bruce Gutlove, and vinified the wines with his help at 10R winery, in Iwamizawa. And they’ve built out the Hokuto winery little by little, first planting Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris (2021), then Chardonnay and Riesling (2022), followed by Pinot Noir and Zweigelt (2023), and Sauvignon Gris, Gamay, and Savagnin (2024) over three hectares. They will release wines made in their own winery starting with the 2025 vintage.  Integrity in farming is the basis for the whole project – no chemical sprays are used in the vineyard. In the cellar, they make no additions of any kind, and all wine movements take place using gravity. They use a mix of stainless steel and neutral oak, depending on the cuvée. And the name – Torocco – refers both to a little open rail cart used in mining, but also to an open top sight seeing train. Nagao would like his wine to be like a trolley train that delivers their emotions and feelings through their craft and care.