Gifu

Sake in Gifu

Gifu Prefecture lies almost in the middle of Honshu and is a landlocked prefecture. The list of brewery owners of the Gifu Federation of Sake Brewers Associations includes 45 sake breweries in the prefecture (as of September 2026). Sake is made all over the prefecture, from the Hida region in the north to the Mino region in the south.

Water flowing out of the mountains is what supports this sake. Gifu Prefecture is surrounded by mountains such as the Northern Alps (the Hida Mountains), Mount Hakusan, Mount Ibuki and Mount Ena. Snow that piles up on the mountains in winter melts into rivers such as the Nagara, the Hida, the Kiso and the Ibi. Their underground water (water that soaks into the ground and flows beneath it) becomes the well water of the prefecture's sake breweries.

Rice and yeast have also been developed within the prefecture. “Hidahomare,” a rice variety suited to sake brewing (shuzo kotekimai), was developed by the prefecture and became a recommended variety of the prefecture in 1981. Its grains are large, and it is known for a well-developed “shinpaku,” the part at the center of the grain that looks white; it is grown mainly in the mountains of Hida and Ena. In January 2024, an application for variety registration was filed for “Yoi Musubi,” a shuzo kotekimai that is easy to grow even in low-lying areas. It is a variety the prefecture's research institute developed in response to requests from sake breweries in the Tono region. As for yeast (the microorganism that carries out fermentation), “G yeast,” developed by the prefecture's federation of sake brewers associations, brewery owners in the prefecture and the prefecture's research institutions, has been distributed since around 1997 and is used mainly for ginjo-shu and junmai-shu.

Brewery map

Featured breweries

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