Torocco Winery sits on a hillside in the Mukaino district of Hokuto City, Hokkaido, with a clear view across to Mt. Hakodate. The winery is the realized dream of Akihiro Nagao, the Sapporo-born owner-chef of the well-known French restaurant “aki nagao,” who had long wanted to make his own wine. In 2007, Nagao met sommelier Sachiko Ishida, and over shared bottles of natural wine the two spent evenings talking about winemaking and their hopes for the future.

That dream began to take shape in 2021, when Nagao took over a plot of land in Hokuto City that had previously been an orchard called “FRONTIER.” Ishida left Tokyo and relocated to Hokkaido to grow the grapes herself, training at 10R Winery in Iwamizawa while the vines matured. Hokuto City was chosen deliberately: the two wanted a genuinely cool site, even accounting for a warming climate, and found it in Hokuto’s long, cool autumns, its volcanic and limestone-rich soils (the area sits near the historic Garou limestone quarry), and its south-facing hillside slopes — all conditions well suited to fine winemaking.

For several vintages, Torocco’s own 30-year-old Niagara vines were custom-crushed into a pétillant at Norakura, a nearby Hokuto City winery, while purchased Yoichi-grown grapes — Acolon, Kerner, and Pinot Noir — were custom-crushed at 10R Winery. In September 2024, Torocco finally completed its own winery: a small, single-story building built from Do-Nan cedar, with capacity for roughly 20,000 bottles a year. From the 2025 vintage onward, the estate has taken over full production of its own wines. The name “torocco” — a small mine cart or trolley train — reflects the pace the two have chosen: to move steadily and patiently, carrying their wine and their intentions to people one step at a time, the same way Nagao’s restaurant carries its own philosophy of using no additives in the kitchen into the vineyard and cellar.