Nagano Meijo Rice Storehouse

Where the Rice Was Kept

The Nagano Meijo Rice Storehouse (長野銘醸米蔵, Nagano Meijō Komegura) is a late Edo-period single-storey storehouse west 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 and altered in 1916, it is a Dozo-zukuri building under a sheet-metal roof, covering 149 square metres with its ridge running north to south. The registration number is 20-0470.

It held the brewery's raw material: both brown rice and rice that had already been polished. Among the brewery's working buildings, the Nagano Meijo Rice Storehouse stands at the start of the process.

Why It Was Registered

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, old plans of the estate suggest that by the middle of the Meiji era a waterwheel house stood at the south end of the Nagano Meijo Rice Storehouse, and rice was polished here. There is no floor today, but traces of the beams that once carried one survive. The description presents the building as evidence of one stage in the brewing process.

Brewers grind away the outer layers of each grain before brewing, because they carry flavours that muddy the sake. Before powered mills, that work was done by water-driven pounders. Here you can read the sequence from the layout: brown rice stored, polished next door by the wheel, and the white rice brought back in. It was registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape.

What to Look For

A Missing Floor

Storehouse floors were raised to keep grain away from ground damp. The floor of the Nagano Meijo Rice Storehouse has gone, but the seatings of its obiki, the heavy joists beneath the boards, remain, and from them you can judge how high the old floor sat.

A Metal Roof

In a compound of tiled roofs, the sheet-metal roof stands out. The published record does not say what the 1916 alterations involved, so when the roof changed is unknown.

Rice to Sake, West to East

The rice storehouse lies west of the brewing hall, the storage warehouse east of it. Walking from one to the other takes you from raw grain to finished sake.

Visiting the Nagano Meijo Rice Storehouse

The Nagano Meijo Rice Storehouse stands in the middle of the compound, west of the brewing hall, and cannot be seen from the road. 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.