Hokkaido's Kaminokuni Winery Exports to Kazakhstan for the First Time

Kaminokuni Winery, in the small town of Kaminokuni (Kaminokuni-cho) on the Sea of Japan coast of south-western Hokkaido, has shipped its own wine overseas for the first time. The destination is not a big city in Europe or Asia but Kazakhstan in Central Asia. A special edition with Kazakh-language labels has gone on sale at “Onono.Kz”, a supermarket dedicated to Japanese products that opened in the capital, Astana, on 3 October 2026.

A small northern winery born from a closed school

Kaminokuni Winery is run by Kaminokuni Kaihatsu Co., Ltd., founded in 2019. The facility was created by converting a disused town school building, combining the winery with a satellite office (a shared workspace where city-based companies and individuals can work in the countryside). Here the company handles everything from growing wine grapes to brewing and sales, and until now it has sold its original wines mainly through the shop on site and at local events. Hokkaido is the northernmost of Japan’s main islands, and it is also a region where winemaking that makes the most of its cool climate has been spreading.

The first overseas shelf, speaking the local language

This shipment is the winery’s first venture abroad. To make the wine easier for local consumers to pick up, it prepared a special version with Kazakh labels. Small producers often export with their Japanese or English labels unchanged, so adapting to the local language was a considered, labour-intensive choice.

According to the announcement, interest in Japanese food and Japanese products is growing in Kazakhstan. The winery says it hopes to use “Onono.Kz” as a stepping stone to raise its profile overseas and widen its sales channels. Compared with sake and whisky, exports of Japanese wine are still small in scale, and this attempt to enter a new market in Central Asia deserves attention as a development for the industry.

Kaminokuni Winery’s wines are not currently distributed in Europe. Even so, opportunities to see wines from Hokkaido are slowly increasing. When searching in specialist shops, look for the words “Nihon Wine” (Japan Wine) on the label. In Japan, this designation is permitted only for wine made exclusively from grapes harvested in the country and brewed in the country, so it distinguishes such wines from those made with imported ingredients. Hokkaido wines are said to reflect the cool climate with many crisp, acidic styles, and their character comes through clearly when paired with fish dishes or simple Japanese cooking. The movement of small Japanese producers reaching the world through their own routes looks set to continue.