10R Winery

10R is the cellar in Iwamizawa, Hokkaido where much of modern Japanese wine has quietly been learning its craft. Founded in 2012 by Bruce Gutlove — the New York–born, UC Davis–trained winemaker who spent two decades shaping Coco Farm & Winery in Tochigi before moving north — 10R is built around a custom-crush model that scarcely exists elsewhere in Japan: a shared bench where emerging Hokkaido growers vinify their own fruit under their own labels for a five-year residency, learning native-yeast fermentation, low-sulphur work, and how to hold a Burgundian line in a climate that buries the vines under four metres of snow. The graduate list reads like a roll call of contemporary Japanese wine — Soga Takahiko (Domaine Takahiko), Kondo Ryosuke (Kondo Vineyard), Domaine Bless, Domaine Toi, Nora Kura — and most of the producers we love from Hokkaido began here. Alongside the contract work, Bruce farms 2.3 hectares of his own — the Kaze block in Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Poulsard and Gamay; the Mori block in Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Auxerrois, Aligoté, Chenin Blanc, Savagnin and Grüner Veltliner — bottled under the Kamishoro label, with the Pinot cuvée "Kaze" recently called the best red wine in the world by Noma's head sommelier. The cellar is also home to the Coco-to-Aru (こことある) collaboration, where Coco Farm sources Hokkaido fruit and Bruce vinifies it in Iwamizawa: Pinot Noir, Pinot Rosé, and a Zweigelt now bottled in qvevri buried in the cellar floor — wines that travel the 700 km south to Ashikaga only to be released.