Nagano Meijo Storage Warehouse

Where Finished Sake Rests

The Nagano Meijo Storage Warehouse (長野銘醸貯蔵蔵, Nagano Meijō Chozōgura) is a late Edo-period single-storey storehouse just east of the brewing hall at the Nagano Meijo sake brewery in Yahata, Chikuma City, Nagano Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 19, 2014.

Built between 1830 and 1868, it is a Dozo-zukuri building with a tiled roof, 9.7 metres by 7.0 metres on plan for a building area of 68 square metres, its ridge running north to south. The registration number is 20-0468.

The floor is beaten earth and holds tanks of finished sake. This is where the pressed sake waits before bottling; the South Storehouse, the old bottling house, stands farther east.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs focuses on the roof structure of the Nagano Meijo Storage Warehouse. Using noboribari, beams that climb with the slope of the roof, the builders gave a single-storey building a tall interior and an exterior that reads as two storeys.

In a conventional Wagoya roof, horizontal beams and short posts fill the upper part of the space. Sloping beams clear it, and that height was what tall storage tanks needed. The building was registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape, with the description also noting how it faces the work yard and helps form the brewery scene.

What to Look For

One Floor, Two Storeys Tall

From outside, the walls of the Nagano Meijo Storage Warehouse rise higher than a single-storey storehouse should, and you might count two floors. Inside there is only one. The mismatch is the sloping beams at work.

An Earthen Floor

The floor is tataki, tamped earth rather than boards. It takes the weight of heavy tanks and, with the thick clay walls, helps keep the temperature steady.

On the Work Yard

The warehouse faces the work yard. Walk east from the brewing hall to the storage warehouse and on to the South Storehouse and you follow the sake toward the bottle.

Visiting the Nagano Meijo Storage Warehouse

The Nagano Meijo Storage Warehouse stands in the middle of the compound and cannot be seen from the road. It is still in use, and how much of the interior you see depends on the tour.

Directions to the brewery and the arrangements for tours, open days and photography are covered on the Nagano Meijo page.