Fattoria al Fiore

Fattoria al Fiore, "farm of the flower", began not as a winery but as a restaurant, and its story is inseparable from that of Hirotaka Meguro. Born in 1978 in Shinchi-machi, Fukushima Prefecture, Meguro originally entered university intending to become a teacher. A part-time restaurant job changed everything: he discovered cooking and pivoted entirely, studying in Italy before returning to open AL FIORE, a natural-ingredient Italian restaurant in Sendai's Aoba Ward. The restaurant, whose name means "one flower" in Italian, carried a founding aspiration: that a single flower, planted with care, eventually spreads its seeds and becomes a garden.

His restaurant gained a loyal following and he was featured on the nationally broadcast television programme "Jounetsu Tairiku" (Passion Continent). But after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, he closed the restaurant to devote himself to relief cooking in the affected areas, ultimately spending the savings he had set aside for his next venture. He started over, and after five years of rebuilding, his vision shifted from the kitchen to the land.

In 2014, Meguro began clearing abandoned, depopulated farmland in Adachi, Kawasaki-cho, at the foot of the Zao mountain range in Miyagi Prefecture. In 2015, he permanently closed the Sendai restaurant and committed fully to agriculture and winemaking. The winery facility itself, opened in 2018, is a renovated gymnasium of the former Hasekura Elementary School, a space transformed by his partner and wife, Reina Meguro Reina. Reina, born in 1989 in Yokohama, is an architect who graduated from Showa Women's University and studied sustainability and permaculture in France before joining Hirotaka in 2016. Together they founded the winery operating company Meglot in 2017. Before having their own facility, the Meguros made their early wines at Grape Republic's winery in Nanyo, Yamagata.

The winery's philosophy is direct: "Ingredients: grapes" — nothing else. No additives, no commercial yeast, no sulphites, no fining, no filtration. Wild yeast fermentation only, with the winemaker's role understood as helping the yeast do what it wants to do, not imposing a direction. The labels use handmade washi paper produced in Kawasaki, Miyagi from locally grown kozo (mulberry bark), and label artwork is commissioned from local community members.

The portfolio includes the flagship AL FIORE series (special-occasion wines with amphora-aged blends) and the NECO series: playful, everyday natural wines named after the cats that live with the Meguro family. "NECO" is a wordplay combining Italian abbreviations for "New Experiment" and "Cooperation" with the Japanese word for cat. The Craftvino line of 350ml pétillant naturels offers an accessible entry point, and their "Kamoshika Wine" is made specifically as an expression of gratitude to Kawasaki Town, Miyagi.