On the thirtieth of June 2021 the wine of Nagano was designated a geographical indication for alcoholic beverages. The sake of Nagano was designated the same day. It was the first prefecture in the country to have both registered together.

The application came from the Nagano appellation control committee, an organization run by the producers themselves, and it carries forward the thinking of the prefecture's own appellation system, which had been in place first.

The conditions are strict about place. The grapes must be grown in Nagano, and the wine must be made, stored, and bottled in Nagano.

Then there are two examinations rather than one. A physical and chemical analysis covers the measurable properties, and a tasting panel judges the wine by mouth. The vineyards sit mostly on alluvial fans around the rims of the basins, a good many of them above five hundred meters, with roughly a thousand millimeters of rain a year and around twelve hundred hours of sunshine. The prefecture divides its growing areas into four valleys: Kikyogahara, the Japan Alps, the Chikuma river, and the Tenryu river. To put the name of this place on a bottle, the wine has to be tasted by people and approved.