Marufuji / Rubaiyat

The Producer

Marufuji Winery (丸藤葡萄酒工業) was founded in May 1890 (Meiji 23) when Jisaku Ōmura built a small wine production facility in his Katsunuma garden. The Ōmura family had been involved in winemaking even earlier — Chūbei Ōmura, an earlier-generation member, had been an investor in the 1877 founding of Iwai-mura Wine Company (the predecessor of what became Mercian).

The "Rubaiyat" brand name — adopted in the 1930s — was selected by the Japanese poet, novelist, and translator Kōnosuke Hihara, after the 11th-century Persian poet Omar Khayyam’s "Rubaiyat" (collection of quatrains). The naming reflects the literary self-conception of early-20th-century Japanese cultural elites as participants in a global civilization, and it has stuck — every generation of Marufuji wine since has carried the Rubaiyat label.

Modern Identity

The estate is now in the fourth generation, run by Haruo Ōmura (大村春夫). Marufuji is best known among serious Japanese wine drinkers for its early adoption of vertical-trellis (kakine, 垣根) cultivation for Koshu in the 1990s — a quiet break from the prevailing tanashiki (pergola) standard that allowed for tighter cluster control and more concentrated wines. The estate now grows Koshu, Muscat Bailey A, Black Queen, and several European varieties on its Fujii district hillsides.

The Rubaiyat sur lie Koshu is among the most consistent expressions of the modern Yamanashi style.

Why It Matters

Marufuji is the producer that proved a small Yamanashi family operation could survive a century-and-a-half of Japanese economic upheaval — including two world wars, the postwar reconstruction, the bubble years, and the contemporary natural-wine reframing — by sticking to a clear identity. The 1990s VSP shift demonstrated that heritage and innovation are not opposed in Japanese wine: the same family that had been making Koshu for a hundred years was the one quietly modernizing the trellis system.

Details

• Founded: May 1890 (predecessor activities from 1882; family invested in Iwai-mura 1877)
• Location: Katsunuma, Koshu City, Yamanashi
• Current proprietor: Haruo Ōmura (4th generation)
• Brand: Rubaiyat (named by poet Kōnosuke Hihara, ~1930s)
• Signature wine: Rubaiyat Koshu Sur Lie
• Notable innovation: 1990s adoption of vertical-trellis cultivation for Koshu