NAGANO, Japan -- A new seedless grape grown in Nagano Prefecture has joined Japan's club of premium produce this year, with shipments of the long-anticipated Queen Rouge kicking into full gear in late September.

About 850 kg of field-grown Queen Rouge grapes left a warehouse in the city of Nakano last Monday. The shipment was headed to destinations in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka.

"We've been working on a premium red-skinned grape variety for a long time, so I hope it will be eaten by everyone," says Naoto Takeda, a sales manager at the local agricultural cooperative.

With eye-catching red skin and a supersweet flavor, Queen Rouge is a cross between the popular Shine Muscat and Unicorn. Its developers set out to create a grape that was both tasty and easy to eat. It boasts a sugar content above 20%, as well as a tender skin and a crisp texture.

"I want to turn this variety into the queen of the grape world," Nagano Gov. Shuichi Abe says.

Producers want to ensure that only the best of the best Queen Rouge grapes reach the market in order to protect the brand. Only grapes of a certain size and sugar content will be allowed to bear the official name. Seedlings will not be sold to farms outside Nagano Prefecture.

JA Zennoh Nagano, the prefectural branch of the JA Group agricultural collective, plans to market Queen Rouge alongside other local luxury varieties like Shine Muscat and the darker-colored Nagano Purple. One option might be to sell them together as a gift basket.

From left to right, the Queen Rouge, Shine Muscat and Nagano Purple are three high-end grape varieties grown in Nagano Prefecture. (Photo by Shuhei Hatakeyama)

Hopes are high for Queen Rouge's export potential. Growers are taking the utmost care to keep seedlings from making their way abroad. Trademarks in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea aim to fight foreign-grown copycats.

Many farms in Nagano Prefecture have already embraced Queen Rouge, thanks to its high price tag and ease of growth.

"You can grow it just like you would grow a Shine Muscat," a farm operator in the city of Suzaka says. Queen Rouge now makes up a tenth of all grapes grown there.

About 30 tons of Queen Rouge are expected to be shipped this fiscal year. Nagano Prefecture aims to increase shipments to 300 tons in fiscal 2022, then to 3,000 tons in fiscal 2030, putting it on a par with Nagano Purple. The idea is for Queen Rouge to be an accessible luxury widely available at large retailers, not a delicacy almost never on the shelves.

Nagano was the second-largest grape producer among Japan's 47 prefectures in 2019, growing 30.7 billion yen ($275 million at current rates) of the fruit. The figure more than doubled in five years, thanks to a surge in Shine Muscat cultivation.

Nagano was about 5 billion yen behind top-ranked Yamanashi Prefecture in 2019. Queen Rouge could give the prefecture a significant boost in exports, solidifying Nagano's reputation in grapes.