Coming Soon
Due Punti
デュエ プンティ
Hokkaido, Hokuto, Japan
Joining our portfolio. Due Punti sits on a south-southwest slope above Hokuto, in Hokkaido's Oshima Peninsula — a strip of warm-current coastline at roughly the latitude of Rome, where Hakodate Mountain anchors the view and the Tsugaru Strait keeps the winters surprisingly mild. Founder Shinsuke Isaka came home to plant it in 2020 after a long apprenticeship abroad: a working-holiday year at Kusuda and Neudorf in New Zealand, sommelier shifts in London, two vintages in central Italy at Falesco, and three more as winemaker at Camel Farm in Yoichi. The estate's name — Italian for "two points" — names the pair of ideas he came back with: quality first, and a wide perspective.
Two hectares of Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay, and Zweigelt grow on andosol topsoil over hard, root-stopping clay — a soil profile Isaka calls one of the rarest in the wine world. The vines are kept low and untrellised so that Hokuto's deep winter snow can insulate them; in summer, every flower cap is blown off the bunches with compressed air to head off botrytis before it starts. The first wines from the new on-site cellar — built in 2023 — are quietly establishing Due Punti as one of the most thoughtful new addresses on Hokkaido's slowly emerging Pinot map.
Due Punti sits on a south-southwest slope above Hokuto, in Hokkaido's Oshima Peninsula — a strip of warm-current coastline at roughly the latitude of Rome, where Hakodate Mountain anchors the view and the Tsugaru Strait keeps the winters surprisingly mild. Founder Shinsuke Isaka came home to plant it in 2020 after a long apprenticeship abroad: a working-holiday year at Kusuda and Neudorf in New Zealand, sommelier shifts in London, two vintages in central Italy at Falesco, and three more as winemaker at Camel Farm in Yoichi. The estate's name — Italian for "two points" — names the pair of ideas he came back with: quality first, and a wide perspective.
Two hectares of Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay, and Zweigelt grow on andosol topsoil over hard, root-stopping clay — a soil profile Isaka calls one of the rarest in the wine world. The vines are kept low and untrellised so that Hokuto's deep winter snow can insulate them; in summer, every flower cap is blown off the bunches with compressed air to head off botrytis before it starts. The first wines from the new on-site cellar — built in 2023 — are quietly establishing Due Punti as one of the most thoughtful new addresses on Hokkaido's slowly emerging Pinot map.
Winemaking Philosophy
The winery's name — Italian for "two points" — names the two themes that guide every decision in the cellar and the vineyard: quality first, and a wide perspective. Founder Shinsuke Isaka came back to Japan after stints in New Zealand, London, and central Italy convinced him that great wine grows from places where the last weeks of the season run cool, and that no single tradition holds the whole answer. He chose Hokuto for its rare combination of warmth from the Tsugaru Strait, a south-southwest slope, and andosol topsoil over hard clay — a profile he believes is found in only one or two percent of the world's vineyard land.
Farming is patient and labor-led. Vines are kept low and untrellised through winter so the snow can blanket and protect them; come summer, the entire vineyard is walked through with air compressors to blow off spent flower caps before botrytis can take hold. The acidic topsoil is corrected every other year with crushed scallop shell rather than imported amendments. Behind every detail sits the same question Isaka returns to: what kind of wine does this particular collaboration of soil, sea, and season actually want to make?
