Chateau Kamiya

Welcome to Kamiya Chateau in Ushiku.

No, you are not in France, but there is some relation with the country, especially one of its most famous products: WINE. You are about to read something unusual, the amazing story (well, a summary of the life) of Denbei Kamiya,（神谷 伝兵衛 1856-1922）founder of the chateau of the same name in Ushiku.

Born Matsutaro Kamiya, Denbei was obviously a very quick learner, already independently storekeeping and peddling at the age of 11 after becoming an apprentice to a sake-barrel maker at the age of 8. Denbei managed various businesses until 16 when he went bankrupt.

Following the advice of his elder brother, he went to Yokohama and worked for a French managed distillery company called Freres. At one point, he became terribly sick and weak but the French saved his life, by making him drink wine. This made Denbei Kamiya want to make a wine of his own.

Kamiya built a factory behind a store in a rather quiet Asakusa. Mikawaya Meishu (みかわや銘酒店) was the name of the shop when it opened in 1880. Today, it is known as "Kamiya Bar" (神谷バー) and is a must-see three-storied historical building in the Asakusa district of Tōkyō.

He started by importing wine and reselling it on the Japanese market in 1881. Wines were mainly of French origin. Then he started to produce his own alcohol. He blended brandy with wine, gin, curacao and vermont to make refined liquor which is still sold and known today under the brand "Denki-Buran" (電気ブラン), or "electric brandy" because it was so strong in alcohol and taste that it tickled the tongue.

His greatest wine achievement was the "Hachijirushi-kozan-budoshu" (蜂印香竄葡萄酒). It appealed to the Japanese people because Kamiya removed the bitterness in the wine and made it sweet. He actually used honey in order to obtain the sweetness and that is the reason why one can see a picture of a bee on bottle labels. This wine was a smashing hit. His business flourished and he decided to try and produce wine domestically.

Denbei became so rich that he decided to produce real wine the French way. He chose a successor, Denzo Kobayashi, and welcomed him into his family. He taught him everything he knew and in 1894 sent him to Bordeaux, France, to study how to grow grapes and how to use the machines. Denzo came back in 1897 with books, machines and soil samples.

Denzo imported 6,000 seedlings from France and chose Ushiku in Ibaraki Prefecture as the soil and weather there were similar to that of Bordeaux. The hedge-row training method learned in France proved successful and Kamiya Denbei could increase his land cultivation by 40 hectares and the number of grape vines grew to 130,000.

Wine production was going well. Kamiya decided to build "Kamiya Chateau". Construction was completed in 1903. Though the architect was French, the chateau is not entirely of French design. It is of the brick style that was very popular in Meiji era (cf. Tōkyō station) and is not what we could say totally typically French; although brick style houses do exist in France. This chateau was a symbol of Kamiya's success as a wine producer and seller.

The chateau had a fermentation room, a preservation room, a warehouse and factory. Almost everything has disappeared now, but parts have been restored and turned into a museum of extraordinary high quality. Very precious documents and pictures are displayed in the Denbei Kamiya memorial hall (Kamiya Denbei Kinenkan神谷伝兵衛記念館).

You will understand better the importance of the chateau and its master Denbei Kamiya when you will see the number of great politicians and army officials that came to the chateau to have parties with Geisha in a room called Himitsu-Kaku (比蜜閣).

There is something important about the name of the room. In Japanese, just like in any other language, you have homophonic words, that is to say words pronounced identically but written in a different way, a thing which of course gives them another meaning. Himitsu is usually written with the following Chinese characters : 秘密, which means "secret". So here, we have some sort of play on word because all these politicians and army officials would meet secretly in a room of the Ushiku chateau, not to talk about politics but to have fun.

The Chinese characters of this Himitsu-Kaku actually give another meaning, but still people went there secretly. A literal translation is a bit awkward so we will just give the meaning of each of the three characters:

比: comparison, proportion
蜜 nectar, honey
閣 : ministry, cabinet

As you may have noticed, one of the three characters refers to honey, one of the ingredients used to produce the sweet wine, Hachijirushi.

The chateau was a trendy spot for high class Japanese people. The guest book, so to speak, contains traces of their passage. In the museum, it is actually opened at the page where Taisuke Itagaki (板垣退助founder of the liberal party in 1881) signed it. Just for an anecdote: Itagaki actually made a mistake on writing the date. He visited the chateau on the second year of Taisho era (大正2年or 1913) but wrote accidentally wrote "Meiji era" (明治) on the guests book.

The area around the chateau have changed a lot since WWII. One used to go back and forth from the chateau to the fields on tracks in a carriage. This same carriage would also be loaded with the crops when the grapes were ripe. With modernization and city expansion, the fields got smaller and smaller and actually do not exist anymore at all.

Now the chateau only bottles imported wine and sells it on to the Japanese consumer. Wine is imported from various countries, mainly France (80%), America, Chili, Australia and China. Its hard to imagine the original enormous size of the site when you see all the parking lots, streets and buildings that were built there from the early sixties?

We were told that the site was so big that the field had to be divided in parcels and given to local peasants to farm. If they worked well, they were given bonuses. We could say that Kamiya Denbei was ahead of his time concerning modern management methods. He was also very generous and financially helped people in need. For example, when the Nagoya train line (名古屋鉄道 or Nagoya Tetsudo) suffered heavy material losses because of typhoons and floods, he donated money. His achievements and contributions to Japan earned him the placement of a memorial stone (Kinenhi or 記念碑) in what remains of his vineyards, 10 minutes away from the chateau, in the Budo-En (ぶどう園) Park.

Additional information

- In November (to coincide with the arrival of the Beaujolais Nouveau), there is the Wine Festival, also known as the Wine-Sai (ワイン祭) in Ushiku. Among other things, people get to experience the old method used in the wine production process, that is to say squashing grape with the feet. Don't forget to wash them before and after this experience if you try it!!

- Ushiku does not make wine anymore but has been specializing in the production of a local beer (Ji Biiru, 地ビール) for 10 years now. When alive, Kamiya Denbei also wanted to brew a local beer. This wish was accomplished by the Oenon Holdings, the current owner of Chateau Kamiya, in 1996 with the birth of Ushiku Chateau Beer.

- The Wine Shop often has wine fairs. As we were writing this article, Ushiku Chateau was in the middle of a German Wine Fair related to the Soccer World Cup happening at the same time in Germany.

- When Spring and Summer are around the corner, Ushiku Chateau is one good idea to relax. As soon as you enter the domain, you instantly forget that you are in the middle of a town with its cars and noise.

- Many facilities and shops with French names to remind you that you are after all in a place whose construction got its inspiration from the French architecture. This includes a barbecue and beer garden (opens July), a French restaurant, a cafe, a bakery, a bridal salon (you can get married in a chapel!), a wine cellar and a souvenir shop. Most of the shops are open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

- The chateau was built 103 years ago, so it is well anchored in Ushiku people's lives. The chateau is one of their local prides.

Access: 8 minutes by foot from Ushiku station (East exit) Located next to the city hall.
Chateau entry fee: free.
Parking (outside the Chateau Kamiya entrance): 500 yen/day．
Map: http://www.chateaukamiya.jp/kamiya/info.html
Website: http://www.chateaukamiya.jp/kamiya/index.html (Japanese only)
Telephone number: 029-873-3151

Thank-you so much to Kawakita-san, who kindly showed us around the Chateau and answered our very difficult questions.