4 Arrows Trading Company crest
4 ArrowsTrading Company

Southern Oregon wine,
bound for Japan.

4 Arrows Trading Company is building two-way trade between the Rogue and Applegate valleys and the markets of Japan. We are early, and this page is an honest account of where that stands.

Who we are

A family company based in Grants Pass, Oregon. The name comes from Psalm 127 — the four arrows are our children, and a full quiver is the blessing the psalm describes. We named the company after them because it is meant to outlast us.

Saori, who co-owns the company, is Japanese. The language and the cultural reading this business depends on are in the family rather than contracted out, and our focus on Southern and Central Japan follows from that connection rather than from a market study. Most people selling export services to Oregon winemakers are learning Japan from the outside; we aren't.

My own working life has been spent inside the systems that move freight and inventory between companies — warehouse management, trade documents, the unglamorous mechanics of getting a shipment from one country to another without it going wrong. Wine is new to us. Logistics is not.

What we are doing

To Japan Premium, boutique, and natural wine from the Rogue and Applegate valleys, and from growers across Oregon and Northern California, purchased at wholesale and placed with licensed trade in Japan.
From Japan Consumer goods, appliances, and vehicles sourced in Japan for buyers in the United States, so freight moves loaded in both directions.

The valleys grow distinctive wine at a scale the conventional export trade cannot serve. A winery making four hundred cases cannot fill a pallet or fund a Japanese marketing budget, so the calls do not get returned. We are built for that scale deliberately: small lots, a short list of producers, and a market we develop ourselves rather than rent from a distributor.

We also live here. Our business and our house are in Grants Pass, on the Rogue, and the Applegate River runs past us — we are inside the Applegate Valley, which carries its own appellation within the wider Rogue. The tasting rooms we visit are the ones down the road. That means we are not weighing a region from a spreadsheet in another state, and it means a producer we carry into Japan is a neighbour whose name travels with ours.

Our intent is also to buy at wholesale and carry the wine ourselves rather than work for a commission. That is a heavier position than a broker takes, and we prefer it — a commission rewards volume through the door, while ownership rewards actually building demand. It is the reason we are licensing on both sides instead of remaining an intermediary.

Where we are in the process

Complete Company formed in Oregon, with international banking and transfer capability in place.
Ongoing Visiting and tasting with producers across the Applegate and Rogue valleys. We live here, so this is not a trip we take — it is where we are.
Active Relationships underway with wine and beer retailers in Southern and Central Japan.
Active Working with a licensed importer in Japan who can bring wine in under their own licence. That route could carry the first shipments while our own Japanese licensing is still in process.
In review Oregon wholesale licensing, required before we can purchase wine at wholesale.
In review Japanese liquor sales licensing, which would let us sell in Japan on our own account rather than through a partner.
Next Buyer meetings in Japan this autumn.
Next First shipment. With an importing partner on the Japanese side, this follows our Oregon licensing rather than waiting on both.

4 Arrows Trading Company is not currently licensed to purchase or sell alcoholic beverages. Nothing on this page is an offer to buy or sell alcohol.

Get in touch

We are putting together the first list of producers to visit. If you make wine in Southern Oregon or Northern California and Japan has been on the someday list, this is a good time to talk — well before there is a purchase order on the table. Licensed trade buyers in Japan are equally welcome to write.

Or write to us directly at