Our philosophy

The name Toshokan means library in Japanese. To us, winemaking is a lot like curating a library. Except instead of dealing with human knowledge, we’re dealing with place, time, and people. Each bottle of wine is a window into the vineyard site and broader region, the weather patterns during the vintage, and the people that farm the grapes and make the wine.

In keeping with this idea, most of our bottlings are single-vineyard, and we only source grapes from thoughtful, conscientious growers in special places throughout Northern California. In the cellar, we take a minimalist approach to keep our wines pure and expressive of site: all our wines are spontaneously fermented by the wild yeasts and bacteria naturally present on the grapes and we add very little sulfur. Not surprising given our winemaker Tim got his start at Donkey & Goat and Matthiasson.

Our wines are lower in alcohol and meant to be enjoyed with friends and food.

Tim Sakhuja & Ayaka Nonaka