Visiting a winery in Himi, Toyama Prefecture.

 A few days ago I rent a car to drive to a winery “Says Farm” in Himi city, Toyama Prefecture. It was a sunny morning when I reached a long big bridge on the way.

 It's the biggest bridge in Nihon-kai, means sea of Japan In Japanese. The bridge is called “Shin-Minato Ohashi” , named after a town of Shin Minato. It's opened in 2012, so bland-new-one! :) It was so beautiful scenery from 47m high from the sea level. I was so excited that I went across it for four times :D (Yeah, it's complimentary, so you can go back and forth until you get sick of!)

 After that the car finally arrived in front of the entrance of the winery. As you can see in the photo, it's so hard to believe that this is a place someone can live. The car navigation system didn't recognize the address of the wineryXD With some doubt, I started to drive on a mountain. Then,

 Wow, it appeared to be correct way ;) Prior to my visit, I checked on its website and found that they have goats on their farm.

We're getting closer! and...

Here we are :) On the top of the mountain, you are able to see the farms below, other mountains and The Gulf of Toyama on the left. One day before I visit there, I mailed them to apply for visiting winery and have a lunch inside the farm. So they immediately recognized me and told that I could go around. I bowed and  thanked them, then began to take a walk for a while.

The temperature seemed 30 degrees or so, it means there was slightly hotter than Tokyo at that time. As I approached to a farm field, a man smiled on his face and explained what they grow on the farm, such as Merlot and Chardonnay. Also, he mentioned that this farm planted around 10,000 grape trees and they planned to harvest them in a week. This farm, he said, was launched in 2009, 5 years ago. At that time, however, most of them hardly knew how to grow and make wines. So some of them went to advanced wineries in Japan so that they could learn and do it themselves in this place. “Of course we have many quality of sake in Toyama Prefecture, and we thought it must be nice if we could make good wine as well. We want to cook meals that are from our neighbor, and so is the wines” he smiled again.

So, it's a lunch time :) Since the relative of the owner of this winery runs a fresh fish store, they serve nice meals :D Oh, don't forget to taste a glass of wine or two while eating!

They also showed me their winery in the afternoon. It's a small, but they said the selling is gradually increasing. “Hopefully we can build bigger one soon”.

On the way back to Toyama City, I dropped by at a historical town Takaoka. It's famous for making silver, copper, along with other metals for hundreds of years. Maybe you can find your souvenir at this place? ;)

:)