TAZINBA 田人馬about

(TA) is for Rice Field
“Tazinba” is made in a mountainous rural area of Tsunan, Niigata Prefecture. This is a land of fields, mountains, and nature. The beautifully terraced rice fields are situated at a height of 600 meters and clear mountain water flows from the uppermost streams coming from Mount Naeba. The horses that have eaten the local grass then plow the fields (田) and their manure becomes the fertilizer that regenerates the soil. In the world of wine, they call the land that carries within it the greatest manifestation of its particular soil a “terroir.” This land, nourished with mountain water, and then tilled over and over with horses to bring out the deepest essence of the soil, can proudly be described as a world-class “Japanese terroir

(ZIN) is for People
Takashi Iwama is one of the few remaining people in Japan to transmit the almost forgotten arts of logging and plowing with horses. He has been working in Tsunan, Niigata Prefecture, with a number of people trained by him, growing rice using horses to plow. Without relying on machinery, without damaging the countryside, these old but new techniques are brought to life and used generate a symbiosis between people and horses. The time and the skill this takes tie in directly with the taste of the sake.

(BA) is for Horse
The beautiful shiny coat and the sturdy legs that are a testimony to the horses that are raised eating the bounty of the earth. The picture on the bottles of “Tazinba” is a copy of an “Ema” illustration of horseman Takashi Iwama working with his horse in a terraced field. The “Ema” illustrated votive horse tablets in shrines represented a white horse and a black horse, and were used to pray for bumper crops. The white horse represented clear skies and the black horse represented rain.