Photo/Illutration A visitor tastes a wine aged for one year in an underground passage at the Tono Dam in Tottori on Nov. 19. (Yoshihiro Tomita)

TOTTORI—The fruits of labor from a multiparty project have emerged from beneath the Tono Dam here.

The first batch of locally brewed wines was sampled from among thousands of bottles aging in an underground passage at the dam in the Tono area of Tottori’s Kokufucho district.

The dam is known as the “Heisei Pyramid” for its appearance, and it has attracted tourists from outside the city.

But in an attempt to develop new specialties and raise the profile of the area, Totto Winery, a city-based winemaking and sales company, and the municipal government started the joint project in November 2024 to age wine in the 15-meter-long underground maintenance passage.

The land ministry’s Tottori river and national road office, which oversees the dam, is supporting the project.

“The dam’s underground passage is an ideal wine warehouse because the temperature there remains around 15 degrees year-round,” a representative of the winery said. “We will closely monitor the degree of maturation and bring the wines out for commercialization, hoping to promote them along with the charms of the area and the dam.”

Under the project, 2,400 bottles will be brought to the passage each year over three years.

Of the bottles stored there last year, 100 reds and 100 whites were brought out for the first time on Nov. 19 to check the aging process.

The representative said the wines have aged extremely well and have an elegant and assertive taste.

“We expect the aging period to be four to five years,” the representative said. “They still taste young, but it is possible they will taste much better later on.”

A sales and tasting event for the wines was also held that day at a specialty shop in the city.

Completed in 2012, the rock-fill Tono Dam is made from naturally available rocks and stones that are stacked up to build embankments. 

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