Tōmi City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan

Yutaka Nakajima embodies the archetype of a Japanese winemaker: low-key, thoughtful and deeply hands-on. From his small mountain house, he farms quietly and works in the cellar entirely by hand, using self-made, hand-cranked wooden tools to craft wines of quiet precision.

At 850 metres above sea level in Tomi, Nagano, Domaine Nakajima sits within the Chikumagawa Wine Valley. The region's cooler, drier climate, closer to Europe than much of Japan, allows for the planting of primarily French varieties. Since 2011, Nakajima has cultivated Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and Chenin Blanc on a small slope threaded with wild grasses and herbs. In 2019, he added a higher-altitude site planted to Savagnin and Pinot Noir. Production remains tiny, just a few thousand bottles annually, each one shaped entirely by hand and by season.

Merlot 2023

This is one of the rarest wines we carry. Merlot at altitude, in the cool mountain air of Nagano, is a very different proposition from the variety as it is commonly understood. Here, the warmth that Merlot typically demands is replaced by a slower, more considered ripening, one that trades plushness for precision and builds a wine of genuine complexity and restraint.

Grown on the same small slope Nakajima has farmed since 2011, the vines sit among wild grasses and herbs that find their way into the wine's character. Made entirely without additives, fining or filtration, this is Merlot stripped of convention and given back to the land. The result is something quietly extraordinary: a wine that feels both deeply Japanese in its discipline and unmistakably European in its bones.

On the nose, ripe plum and dark cherry give way to dried rose, earth and a subtle mineral thread. The palate is supple and focused, with a silkiness that carries through to a long, clean finish. It is the kind of wine that rewards attention and improves with every sip.

Production is extremely limited. Once it is gone, it is gone.