Founded in 1548, Yoshinogawa is the oldest sake brewery in Niigata Prefecture, with roots stretching back to the Sengoku period when Uesugi Kenshin held sway over the region. The brewery draws on underground water formed where snowmelt from the Nagaoka eastern mountains meets the Shinano River deep below the surface, and its brewers double as rice farmers, growing their own sake rice each summer before pressing it into sake each winter.
