Although Yamanashi Prefecture has the image of being Japan's wine country, with its fresh water and cold winter climate, conditions for sake brewing are in fact also optimal.

It has much free nature too - with Mt. Fuji straddling the border with Shizuoka Prefecture. Almost one-third of all land in Yamanashi consists of national parks. Besides grapes, the prefecture is also a producer of other fruits and its water quality is more than excellent - 40% of all bottled mineral water sold in Japan comes from Yamanashi and not for nothing Suntory operates its Hakushu whiskey distillery in the prefecture.

On the other hand, conditions for rice growing are not very good in this mountainous prefecture. Not surprisingly, there is no Yamanashi sake rice, although some sake rice from neighboring Nagano, Miyama Nishiki, is grown here.
There are 15 sake breweries in Yamanashi (2015). They lie along the Kamanashi and Fuefuki Rivers, and their confluence, the Fuji River. Toji are from Echigo, but also from neighboring Nagano (Suwa toji).

Sake from Yamanashi is soft and medium dry - one would expect a much sweeter taste from a landlocked prefecture, but that is not the case, perhaps because the water is medium-hard, too.

Some of the main breweries are (in alphabetical order):
Shichiken (Yamanashi Meijo Co., Ltd., Hokuto). "Seven Sages" (goes back to a Chinese group of sages of the 3rd c. who met in a bamboo grove to drink wine). At the eastern foot of ...