Bruce Shimizu is doing his part to keep Japanese culture alive in Sonoma County. The 69-year-old Windsor resident is a fourth-generation Japanese American and recently opened a sake brewery in Windsor as a tribute to his great-grandmother, who was sent to an internment camp during World War II.
He has also spearheaded a public Japanese Garden in conjunction with the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) that’s set to open later this year at Paradise Ridge Winery, a property rich in Japanese American history.
A sake family tradition
My family migrated from Japan to Hawaii in the 1880s and in the 1920s came to Cotati. There was nowhere for them to buy sake unless they went to San Francisco, so my great-grandmother started brewing sake in the basement. The family recipes died with her in the 1950s. A few years ago I was in Sacramento at a brewery and it hit me that sake was something I wanted to do. I’m pretty sure my craft brewery is either the only one or one of a few in the entire country run by American-born Japanese. This is all in addition to the fact that sake is versatile and delicious.
A garden of memories
Before the Byck family bought it, Paradise Ridge was known as Fountaingrove Winery, owned by a man named Kanaye Nagasawa, who was one of the last samurai. The Bycks had one of Nagasawa’s samurai swords on display for years in a little museum; the sword was recovered from the ashes after the Tubbs Fire burned the winery in 2017. Before he died, Walter Byck asked the JACL to help build a garden on the property as a way to acknowledge the past. It is designed to be a place of reflection, inspiration and Zen.
Importance of preserving culture
People don’t know this, but most Japanese Americans in Sonoma County around the time of World War II were rounded up and sent to internment camps in places like Southern Colorado. My family was one of the families that was rounded up. For this reason, it’s important to celebrate this community today. We won’t ever forget the past. At the brewery, we’ll share information about my family’s brewing legacy. At the garden, we’ll have interpretive signage with QR codes that tell guests more about the community. In both places, we just want people to learn.
