Vineyard landscapes of eastern Yamanashi

The story

Legend says the Nara-period monk Gyoki dreamed of a Buddha holding grapes and carved the image now at Daizenji, known as the grape temple, bringing the Koshu grape, still used for Koshu wine, to Katsunuma. In the Edo period grapes were trained on bamboo trellises, which kept them airy and dry and became the model for grape growing in Japan. Wire, introduced in the mid-Meiji era, let trellises spread up any slope.

In 1876 Yamanashi opened a prefectural winery on the site of Kofu Castle, and Japan's first private wine company, in Katsunuma, sent two young men to France to learn winemaking. Local farmers later started a movement to drink their own wine at weddings, funerals and every day, and the writer Dazai Osamu described drinking Koshu white wine from a teacup.

What to see

• Daizenji: the grape temple, rising out of a sea of vineyards.Google Maps 大善寺 甲州市 (opens in a new tab)Show map
• Old silk farmhouses: houses with raised roofs for silkworms, now with grape trellises right up to the eaves.
• Hikawa River stonework: old flood-control walls that now run like stone paths through the vineyards.
• Grape-picking farms: along the main roads, open in the harvest season.

Plan your trip with the Yamanashi prefecture guide and see more nature.