Matsuo Sake Brewery

A Brewer on an Old Highway Corner Since 1873

Matsuo Sake Brewery (松尾酒造, Matsuo Shuzō) is a sake brewery founded in 1873 in Nishihonmachi, Tosayamada-cho, Kami City, Kochi Prefecture, where six structures on the lot, the main house, three sake storehouses, the front gate and wall, and a brick wall, were listed together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan on July 1, 2003. Its flagship label is Matsuokina.

The brewery's own history names its founder as Matsuo Shokichi. The first label, Matsu no I, took its name from a well dug on the premises. In 1892 it became Doyo Masamune, after the Doyo Shimbun, the Liberal Party newspaper of the day. Late in the Meiji period the family began making mirin under the name Okina Mirin, and in the early Taisho years it added shochu. The slump of the late Taisho and early Showa years forced the business back to sake alone, and the Matsuokina name, a nod to the Matsuo shrines where the god of brewing is worshipped, came after the Second World War. The present head of the house is the seventh generation.

Tosayamada sits northeast of Kochi City, at the northern edge of the Kacho Plain along the Monobe River. According to the Kochi Visitors & Convention Association, Matsuo Sake Brewery brews with Monobe river-system groundwater that rises beneath its own lot.

Six Listings on One Day

The six Matsuo Sake Brewery listings carry consecutive registration numbers, 39-0075 to 39-0080, and were gazetted on July 17, 2003 in the 37th round of registrations. Kami City's list of local cultural properties shows the six side by side.

Five were registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the nation. The west sake storehouse alone was registered under a different criterion, as a model of architectural design.

The dates fall into two groups. The north and west sake storehouses are early Meiji; the other four belong to the Taisho period. The main house is dated 1912, the first year of Taisho, and the south storehouse, the front gate and wall, and the brick wall are placed in the early Taisho years. Taken in date order, the brewing storehouses came first, and the guest-facing house front and a storage building were added once the Taisho era began.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs classes the house and the three storehouses as buildings and the gate and brick wall as other structures, but counts each as one.

How the Lot Is Laid Out

Pieced together from the Agency's descriptions, the Matsuo Sake Brewery lot is a corner plot with an old highway along its north side and a road along its east side, and the six structures run roughly from north to south.

On the old highway stands the front gate, a Yakuimon with earthen walls running east and west. South of the gate is the formal Shikidai entrance of the main house, which occupies the northern part of the corner and turns its east face to the road.

Behind the house lies a small courtyard garden, closed off from the road on its east side by the brick wall. Beyond it the north sake storehouse runs north to south along the east edge of the lot. Farther south, the south sake storehouse shows its gable end to the road, and the west sake storehouse stands inside the lot, southwest of the north storehouse.

On foot, start on the old highway with the gate and the north face of the house, then turn the corner and walk south along the east road. The house's boarded east wall, the red brick wall, the long flank of the north storehouse and the gable of the south storehouse appear in turn, timber giving way to brick and then to white plaster. The Agency does not describe the west storehouse as facing a road, so expect to see it only on a brewery tour.

Visiting and Getting There

Matsuo Sake Brewery is a working brewery, and its buildings can be entered only on a tour booked in advance. According to the Kochi-tabi site run by the Kochi Visitors & Convention Association, tours are held Monday to Friday, with weekend and holiday visits considered on request. Book by phone at least one week before the date you want; times and fees are confirmed when you book. The brewery notes that tours and tastings may be declined in busy periods or when production and shipping require.

Business hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays, closed on weekends and public holidays (subject to change in busy seasons). The phone number is 0887-53-2273, and parking is free.

Without a booking you can still see the Matsuo Sake Brewery gate and storehouse walls from the old highway and the east road. Please stay off the premises and take photographs from the public road without blocking traffic.

The brewery is about a 5-minute walk from JR Yamada-Nishimachi Station and about 10 minutes from JR Tosa-Yamada Station on the JR Dosan Line. By car it is about 16 minutes from Kochi Ryoma Airport and about 15 minutes from the Nankoku Interchange on the Kochi Expressway. The brewery gives its address as 5-1-1 Nishihonmachi.