When my mother told me that the rice fields around our house were almost all used for alcohol, I thought for a long time that our town produced sake. So imagine my surprise when I saw that the wine I was drinking at a bar in Tokyo was produced in my hometown. Botanical Life is located in a pastoral area of Kasai, Hyogo Prefecture (formerly Banshu Province), surrounded by rice paddies. I thought it would be nice to buy something local and so when I headed back home in October I headed to their wine distillery. I entered the building, which looked like a factory or warehouse with its corrugated iron-covered walls, and was met with a beautiful open space with gentle sunlight filtering in. Inside, there was a glass partition behind which were wine tanks, but also a turntable and a collection of records. Junpei Fukunaga, who moved to this area in 2014, has a long history as a DJ, and views this work as equal to his work in making wine (when I visited the distillery, he was in Georgia learning more about wine).

The view from outside the window of this large room could be said to be a typical Japanese landscape. The sun slipped across the sky as it cast a light on the scene, but I couldn’t see anyone around. According to Emi, who runs Botanical Life alongside Junpei, when working all day in this peaceful place, it can feel like you’re the only person left in the world. What a lonely thought. But, I thought while getting tipsy on their wine, it doesn’t seem all too bad when you have the picturesque scenery and the characterful wine made here.