油長酒造Yucho Shuzo

Why does Yucho Shuzo polish its rice to only 80% when the prestige market rewards 50%, 40%, even 23%? The answer is in the water.

A hundred meters below the brewery in Gose City, Nara Prefecture, three wells tap groundwater filtered through sanukite — the dense andesite of Mt. Nijo in the Kongo-Katsuragi range. The water arrives at a constant 15°C and measures approximately 250 mg/L hardness, loaded with calcium and magnesium, with iron and manganese excluded through sealing technology at the source. Water this structured accelerates fermentation and builds backbone into the sake. If you strip the rice down to the starchy core you lose the very complexity that this mineral environment is capable of producing. So Yucho keeps more of the grain intact, and lets the water do its work.

The brewery has been in Nara since 1719, though the family pressed rapeseed oil for a century before the first recorded sake transactions. The shop name, Yucho, means "oil merchant" — and they kept it. Nara's claim to sake history runs deeper still: the 1687 manual Domonshuzo-ki names "Nara-ryu" as the root from which all later brewing schools descended, and Buddhist monks here were documenting fermentation technique in the fifteenth century.

In 1998 the brewery launched Kaze no Mori, a brand built around a single constraint: the sake goes to market raw, unfiltered, undiluted, and unpasteurized, as close as possible to its character at the tank. The name comes from a mountain pass on an old pilgrimage road nearby and the ancient wind-deity shrine at its foot. Where the industry norm at the time was to pasteurize and dilute before shipping, Kaze no Mori went out at full genshu strength. It reached five retailers at launch. By 2020 it was in over seventy shops.

The 13th-generation head, Yamamoto Chobei, assumed the traditional family title in 2019 during the brewery's 300th anniversary. Since then the operation has expanded into a second brewhouse exploring medieval Nara temple techniques, a third facility focused on local agriculture, and the Yamato Distillery producing KIKKA GIN from native botanicals. For Yucho, 1719 is a starting point, not a ceiling.

Key facts

• Founded 1719 in Gose City, Nara Prefecture; originally an oil-pressing merchant family (yucho = "oil merchant") who turned to sake in the early 18th century
• Nara is documented as the birthplace of systematic Japanese sake brewing; the 1687 manual Domonshuzo-ki names "Nara-ryu" as the root of all sake schools
• Water source: ultra-hard (approx. 250 mg/L) deep groundwater drawn from wells ~100 m below ground, filtered through sanukite volcanic rock of the Kongo-Katsuragi range, held at a constant 15°C
• Kaze no Mori brand launched 1998 — unfiltered, undiluted, unpasteurized sake delivered as pressed; now distributed through 70+ retailers
• 13th-generation owner Yamamoto Chobei (born 1981, bioengineering degree from Kansai University) assumed the traditional family title in 2019 on the brewery's 300th anniversary
• Rice polished to 80% (vs. 50% or less common in daiginjo), preserving complexity; uses Akitsuho grown by 30+ contracted farms in Nara Prefecture
• Now operates three brewhouses and the Yamato Distillery, exploring temple-era Nara techniques, local agriculture, and craft gin