Our Producer · Katsunuma, Yamanashi, Japan
Grace Wine
Grace Wine — officially Chuo Budoshu (中央葡萄酒) — was founded in 1923 in Katsunuma, the historic heart of Japanese wine country. For five generations the Misawa family has devoted itself to Japan's native Koshu grape, and to proving it belongs among the world's great whites.
That conviction made history: in 2014 Grace became the first Japanese winery ever to win a Gold medal at the Decanter World Wine Awards, then took back-to-back Platinums in 2015 and 2016 — a feat fewer than a handful of producers anywhere achieve.
We're proud that Japanese Wine Co. is the first — and only — place to buy Grace Wine online in the United States.
Meet Ayana Misawa
Ayana Misawa grew up the fifth generation of a winemaking family — but she earned her place on her own terms, studying oenology at the University of Bordeaux and at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, the first in her family with a formal Western wine education.
She made wine across Argentina, Chile, Australia and France before returning home in 2008, at twenty-eight, to become head of viticulture and winemaking — the first woman to lead the century-old estate.
Her impact was immediate. She helped win Koshu official recognition as a grape variety from the OIV in 2010, and in 2014 guided Grace to Japan's first-ever Decanter Gold. Today she is among Japanese wine's most eloquent ambassadors, writing for the Yomiuri Shimbun and Marie Claire.
Koshu, Grown for Greatness
Koshu is Japan's ancient, pink-skinned white grape. Where it had long been grown flat on the valley floor as table fruit, Grace moved it onto well-drained hillsides at altitude — pioneering single-vineyard, estate Koshu.
At the Misawa Vineyard in Akeno (700 m, volcanic-ash soil), cool nights and slow ripening build the complexity that lets the wine age. Grace ferments with wild yeasts from its own vineyards and propagates its vines by massal selection — firsts for Japan.
The result is the celebrated Grace Koshu — delicate, mineral and quietly profound. In Katsunuma, every old-vine bunch still gets its own paper umbrella against the autumn rain.
A Hundred-Year Family in Yamanashi
Grace is the work of five generations. Chotaro Misawa founded the winery in Katsunuma in 1923; his grandson Kazuo launched the Grace label, began exporting to the French Navy in 1973, and in 1983 made Japan's first wine with an official Geographical Indication.
Fourth-generation Shigekazu Misawa created the premium Cuvée Misawa line and, in 2002, made the high-altitude gamble at Akeno that redefined Japanese wine — later receiving the Order of the Rising Sun. A century on, in 2023, the family marked Grace's 100th year.
