10R Winery

The Producer

10R Winery was founded in 2012 in Iwamizawa, Hokkaido, by Bruce Gutlove and his wife Ryōko. Bruce is the American winemaker often called "the godfather of Japanese wine" — born in New York in 1961, UC Davis class of 1989, joined Coco Farm & Winery in Tochigi as a consultant in 1989 and full-time winemaker in 1994. After two decades at Coco Farm building Japan’s most influential winemaking program, Gutlove moved to Hokkaido to launch 10R as something new: a custom-crush facility plus winemaker incubator.

The Custom-Crush Model

Most wineries make wine from grapes they own or control. A custom-crush facility makes wine on behalf of multiple separate growers, each of whom keeps ownership of their fruit and their label. The growers pay 10R for the use of equipment, expertise, and space; they participate in every step of vinification. After roughly five years of incubation, most growers move on to start their own wineries.

10R was Hokkaido’s first custom-crush facility and became, almost immediately, the de facto incubator for Hokkaido’s natural-wine generation. As of early 2024, Hokkaido had 64 wineries (triple the 2014 count) and an outsized share of their founders had passed through 10R during the previous decade. Estimates put 10R alumni at roughly 35 active winemakers across the prefecture.

Style

Gutlove’s own minimal-intervention vintages are typically classified as natural wine, although he is on record disliking the label. He works with both Hokkaido-grown European varieties (Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Kerner, Zweigelt) and a range of Japanese hybrid varieties depending on what his collaborator-growers bring him.

Why It Matters

The custom-crush model solved a structural problem that had been holding back Japanese small-domain winemaking for decades. A grower with a few hectares of fruit but no winery and no licence could now produce their own labeled wine, learn the craft, and graduate to their own facility — without the capital and licensing barrier that had previously made small-scale Japanese winemaking impossible. The Wine Tokku-ku 2,000-liter floor (2003) made small wineries legally viable; 10R made them practically achievable.

For tracking the trajectory of Japanese wine, 10R is the single most important non-portfolio producer in Hokkaido. The names of its alumni largely match the names of the winemakers shaping the next decade of Japanese wine.

Details

• Founded: 2012
• Location: Iwamizawa, Hokkaido (Sorachi region)
• Founders: Bruce Gutlove (b. 1961, UC Davis 1989) and Ryōko Gutlove
• Model: Custom-crush facility plus winemaker incubator (~5-year program)
• Alumni: ~35 active Hokkaido winemakers (as of 2024)
• Style: Minimal-intervention, natural-wine adjacent