Yamada Nishiki Heads North: Fukushima University Develops a Cold-Hardy New Variety

Yamada Nishiki is the best-known sake rice (rice bred to suit sake brewing) in Japanese sake making. The area where this rice can be grown may be about to expand considerably to the north. A research team at the Fermentation and Brewing Research Institute, attached to the Faculty of Food and Agricultural Sciences at Fukushima University, a national university in Fukushima Prefecture in the southern Tohoku region, has combined mutant lines of Yamada Nishiki to develop a new variety that is easier to grow in cold regions.

Adapting the “King of Sake Rice” to a Northern Climate

Yamada Nishiki was bred in 1936 at an agricultural experiment station in Hyogo Prefecture, in western Japan, and is called the “king of sake rice” because of its qualities for brewing. However, many sake rice varieties take a long time to ripen so that the grains grow large, which makes it hard to harvest them in time in cold regions where winter arrives early. According to Professor Miki Matsuda of the institute, who holds a special appointment, the northern limit for growing Yamada Nishiki has until now been considered to be around southern Fukushima Prefecture.

The new variety combines early ripening (“wase”) with shortness of stem (“tankan”), meaning a short plant that is less likely to fall over in wind and rain. The research team says that no Yamada Nishiki-type variety with both traits has existed anywhere in the world before. Professor Matsuda expects that it could be grown as far north as Aomori Prefecture, the northernmost tip of Honshu, and explains that it is also resistant to disasters such as typhoons. He also hopes that it will spread across the Tohoku region, which has so far been unsuitable for Yamada Nishiki.

The First Bottle: “Shokuno Gakurui Ni”

Development began in 2023 as joint research with Mirai Nogyo, an agricultural corporation in Fukushima City, and the procedures for registering the variety under the name “Fukushima Daigaku Nigo” are under way. The first harvest took place in summer 2025, and in February 2026 brewing was carried out with the cooperation of Suzuki Shuzoten. The result is “Shokuno Gakurui Ni”, a lightly cloudy sake that has not been pasteurised (heat-sterilised). It is a limited release of only 150 bottles of 720 ml, which went on sale at the university co-op on 6 April for 1,980 yen. It is also reported that a sale as seishu (refined sake) is planned.

What European Readers Should Watch

Because so few bottles of this sake were made, it will be hard to find in Europe. Even so, sake made from Yamada Nishiki itself is relatively easy to come across in Europe. Check the rice entry on the back label or in the importer’s product description, and see whether the Yamada Nishiki comes from Hyogo Prefecture or from elsewhere. As more sake made from Yamada Nishiki grown in Tohoku appears, there will be more of the pleasure of tasting them side by side to see how the same variety changes with the land and the brewer. Whether the name of this new variety will reach beyond Japan is a development worth watching.