What to do and see in Gifu Prefecture, Chubu: The Best Breweries

Watanabe Sake Brewery is located in central Japan in a beautiful small town called Hida-Furukawa located in Gifu Prefecture. Our brewery is not big but our sake is world class! We are proud to make many people smile and touch their hearts. You can do special brewery tour also!! Special tour is 2500 yen/1 person and takes about 90 min. You can see the heart of our brewery and enjoy special tasting! If you are interested in it, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Iwamura Castle and the Lady of the Castle (Onnajyosyu)Iwamura Castle was constructed in 1185 during theKamakura era and ranks alongside Takatori Castlein Nara Prefecture and Matsuyama Castle in OkayamaPrefecture as one of Japan’s big three mountaintopcastles.The stone walls of the castle are situated 721m abovesea level, making it the highest castle in Japan. In 2006,Iwamura Castle was selected alongside Gifu Castlein a ranking of the top 100 castles of Japan.The castle town of Iwamura has an unbroken 400yearhistory. The tranquil streets provide visitors to Iwamurawith a lasting impression of the old Japan and havebeen recognized for their cultural and historicalsignificance by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs. The Lady of the Castle label (Onnajoshu) takes itsname from Lady Otsuya, the aunt of LordNobunaga Oda, for her role in holding outan invading army during the Siege of Iwamura in 1572.Iwamura Brewery - Brewer of Premium Sake Since theIwamura Brewery was founded during the Edo era in 1787,we have always operated under the principle of brewingpremium sake with crystal clarity and aroma. Using natural mineral water that springs from a four hundredyear-old well, brewed in the secluded natural environmentof Iwamura by expert sake brewers, we have strived to deliveryou sake to exceed yourhighest expectations.In modern day Japan there is a wide range of sake brewing rice varietiesgrown in different regions throughout the country, and it isa simple matter to achieve a variation in taste by using adifferent variety of rice. Here at the Iwamura Brewery,we don’t subscribe to that line of thought.We create only Genuine Local-Brewed Sake using local riceand water taken from our private well inside the brew house. To extract a variation in taste from a single variety ofrice is an extremely challenging task, but that is exactlywhat our pre-eminent sake brewers, drawing on their yearsof experience and technical expertise, manage to achieveyear after year. The rice used by the IwamuraBrewery increating the 130,000 liters of sake brewed annually (as of 2010),is polished tosuch a high grade as to make almost the entiretyof our sake special brew. The expertise of our sake brewers is a source of great pridefor Iwamura Brewery, with almost all of the sake we haveentered into various sake competitions becoming prizewinners.※Iwamura Brewery uses only 100% Japanese grown rice.

Hida Takayama has continued to hold it's tradition and culture for years. We are a "Kuramoto"(brewery), located in the corner of old street that stretches along the crystal clear stream of Miyagawa River, has kept the original building for almost 200years. We hope many visitors enjoy Funasaka's sake brewed by the traditional way as well as the unique way.