Shop by craft
Best of Shiojiri; search or filter for all 9
Shiojiri / Japan
Sinano Wine has crafted wine, juice, and brandy from Kikyogahara grapes in Shiojiri since its founding in 1916, now run by the fourth generation of the same family. The winery sells its full lineup through a dedicated online shop and takes phone and fax orders directly from its Nagano address.
Best for Food & Drink, Wine, Brandy
Kiso-Hirasawa, Shiojiri, Nagano, Japan
Yamaka Ogimura Shikkiten has sold lacquerware from its Kiso-Hirasawa storefront since founding in 1912, now run by third-generation proprietor Ogimura Minoru. The shop stocks everyday pieces such as cylindrical cherry-blossom-lacquered cups and red-rubbed cups and plates.
Best for Third-generation lacquer bowls and trays from a 1912-founded Hirasawa shop
Yamaka Ogimura Shikkiten (山加荻村漆器店) has traded lacquerware from the same address on the main street of Kiso-Hirasawa, Shiojiri, since its founding in Meiji 45 — 1912. The town is now a nationally protected preservation district for its lacquer-trade townscape, and the shop is one of its longer-running retailers.
The business is currently led by third-generation proprietor Ogimura Minoru, who has been covered in regional press (including the Nikkei) for the range of goods and approach he brings to a century-old family shop. The shop maintains an active blog, running since 2015 with well over a thousand entries, documenting both new products and the everyday use of lacquerware in the home.
On the shelf, Yamaka Ogimura carries pieces meant for daily use rather than display alone: cylindrical bowls finished in a cherry-blossom lacquer pattern, and cups and small plates in a red-rubbed (akazuri) finish that shows the wood grain through the coating. The shop's own framing emphasizes lacquerware as something to live with day to day, not a special-occasion object.
Shiojiri / Japan
Belly Beads Winery makes Shiojiri wines and ciders on a hillside vineyard 780 meters up, part of the Otaki restaurant group's move into winemaking. The winery sells its bottles through an official online shop and a direct-sales outlet a few minutes' walk from Shiojiri Station.
Best for Food & Drink, Wine, Cider
Narai-juku, Shiojiri, Nagano, Japan
Hananoya has bent Kiso cypress and sawara wood into magemono food containers in Narai-juku since 1937, continuing a trade its owners trace to Edo-period magemono makers in the same post town. The shop steams and curves each oval or round form by hand, stitching the seams with cherry bark to make ohitsu rice tubs, sushi tubs, steamers, and bento boxes sold from its two Narai storefronts.
Best for A magewappa bento box or cherry-bark-stitched ohitsu rice tub
Narakawa, Shiojiri (Kiso lacquer district), Nagano, Japan
Officially Michi-no-Eki Kiso Narakawa / Kiso Kurashi-no-Kogeikan, this roadside station sits in Kiso-Hirasawa, Shiojiri, a working Kiso lacquerware town. It sells pieces from local lacquer makers, runs a lacquer-display area and workshops, and ships via an online shop.
Best for Curated Kiso lacquerware from multiple local makers
The facility's full name, Michi-no-Eki Kiso Narakawa / Kiso Kurashi-no-Kogeikan, reflects a merger of two functions: a roadside-station rest stop (michi-no-eki) and a dedicated lacquerware showcase building. It stands in Kiso-Hirasawa, part of Shiojiri City, one of the towns most associated with Kiso lacquerware production and a stop on the historic Nakasendo trade route, where the craft developed in part as a souvenir trade for travelers during the Edo period.
Inside, the center groups traditional-craft sales corners together with a dedicated lacquer-coating display area explaining the finishing process, drawing on work from multiple local lacquer workshops rather than a single maker. A adjoining market area, Narakawa Ichiba, sells regional agricultural products, wine and sake alongside the lacquerware.
The center also runs reservation-based lacquerware experience workshops, an on-site restaurant and cafe, and an online shop for remote orders, and notes that Kiso lacquerware still sees genuine daily use locally, including in area school cafeterias.
Shiojiri / Japan
Motoyama Shikkiten produces Kiso lacquerware in Shiojiri's Kiso-Hirasawa district, working the craft from raw material through final coating for tableware, furniture, and commercial fixtures such as soba-restaurant tools. The shop operates an attached Urushi Craft Museum and takes custom orders plus lacquerware repair and restoration.
Best for Kiso lacquerware tableware and furniture with an on-site urushi museum
Kiso region (Shiojiri, Narakawa), Nagano, Japan
Based in Shiojiri, Nagano, Nakamura Shikki Sangyo sells Kiso lacquerware alongside imported lacquer pieces, folk-craft furniture, textiles and ceramics. It also runs related retail lines, including the contemporary lacquerware brand WABI×SABI.
Best for Kiso lacquerware, gift tableware and folk-craft homewares
Kiso-Hirasawa, Shiojiri, Nagano, Japan
Nishino Urushi Kobo is the workshop of lacquerer Nishino Takaaki, who trained under the late Sugishita Shigeru, was certified a Kiso lacquerware Traditional Craftsman in 2013, and opened independently in Kiso-Hirasawa in 2019. He hand-finishes chopsticks and small wares in sumi-jiro and shunkei-nuri lacquer techniques.
Best for Hand-lacquered chopsticks by a certified Kiso Traditional Craftsman
Nishino Urushi Kobo is a one-person lacquer workshop on the main street of Kiso-Hirasawa, the Nagano lacquer-trade town recognized by Japan's economy ministry as a traditional-craft production area. It belongs to Nishino Takaaki, an upper-lacquerer (nurishi) who entered the trade in 1988.
Nishino studied in the maki-e department of the Kiso Lacquer Art School under the late Sugishita Shigeru, then apprenticed at established Kiso lacquerware shops before setting up on his own. He was certified a Traditional Craftsman of Kiso lacquerware in 2013 and, in 2016, received the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award at the National Traditional Crafts Public Exhibition — one of the field's higher public honors. He founded Nishino Urushi Kobo under his own name in Kiso-Hirasawa in 2019.
The workshop's core output is hand-lacquered chopsticks and small wares finished in Kiso sumi-jiro, nuribunke ro-iro, and shunkei-nuri techniques, sold through regional outlets including the Kiso no Kurashi Craft Museum, shops in the Narai-juku post town, and department-store lacquerware corners. Nishino has also taken on corporate collaborations applying the same hand-lacquering to everyday objects such as bento boxes and gear-shift knobs, framing the work as pairing traditional technique with newer applications rather than reproducing set forms alone.
Shiojiri / Japan
Shoutaro Co., Ltd. makes Kiso lacquerware, commercial furniture, and wooden bathtubs from Kiso-Hirasawa, and in June 2022 launched an original lacquer-painted glassware line called Noree M's. The company also supplies fixtures such as droplet-prevention screens and takes part in the annual Kiso Lacquerware Festival.
Best for Kiso lacquerware furniture, wooden bathtubs, and lacquer-painted glassware
Neighbourhood walks
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