Just spent 2 weeks in Japan (Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto and surrounding area). Amazing time, great experiences, culminating with the Mt Fuji climb (It’s cold up there! And windy!!).
Back to the point. Sake. I came over here knowing little. Yeah, I’d go to a sushi/sashimi place and order whatever the waiter/waitress recommended. Also the occasional larger event. But really I knew little beyond this idea that when you polish off more of the rice the sake gets better.
In Kyoto I went on a sake tour for about 2 hours. Like wine tasting in Napa. Hit a bunch of the brewers, tried their stuff, also some shops that were doing tastings, etc. My take was that there are ‘new school’ makers who make Daiginjo, Ginjo, Honjozo and Futsu-shu (in descending order of quality, Daiginjo as the best with the most polishing). And ‘Traditional’ makers who make Junmai Daiginjo, Junmai Ginjo and Junmai (also in descending order of quality, with Junmai Daiginjo having the most polishing so over 50% of the rice gone). We also tried some with different ages and after the tasting I decided that the ‘best’ for me was the Junmai Daiginjo with 1-2 years of age on it. In hindsight, it’s like saying “I like pinot noir with 5 years of age” without any thought to region or producer.
So then I went to a sake bar called Yoramu in Kyoto. Had a 2 hour tasting with 9 family/friends. I walked in with my new sake knowledge and said to the owner “I would like to try some Junmai Daiginjo with 1-2 years of age on it please”. Yeah. Cringe worthy. He said “first, you’re not pronouncing it correctly” . Nice start for me! So I told him to drive the bus, pick anything, but allow us to leave his bar with a greater understanding of sake. Wow. We tasted 1/2 glasses, to allow for more tasting. Maybe 20/25 different sake. Different age ranges, different levels of polishing, different producers. His view is that Junmai Daiginjo, the one where the rice is polished off until it gets down to the kernel of starch is the least interesting, as all producers will taste about the same, with similar age, as it’s the other parts of the rice that contain the variation in flavor and allow the producer to show his craft with different yeasts, timing of yeast, temp, etc, etc. He had us taste some Junmai from some producers that he loved where he thought they had been using more interesting yeast. Fantastic! He had us try some Junmai Daiginjo with 2 years of age, from large producers, that had won awards. Eh (that was his point).
So what did I walk away with? So similar to Burgundy! Producer Producer Producer!!! And don’t worry about the grade too much. And this is going to take an eternity of tasting to find producers that fit this. Fun!!!
Any thoughts from others who know more than me about this topic (wouldn’t be hard to know more than me!)??