These labels you are reading apply to US alcohol regulations. The Japanese do not have the same regulation so what they put on the bottle is usually a description of the region, the sake maker and the style of sake. Sake from Japan has no such labels on them. We bring back about a half a dozen bottles every year when we go to Japan. The styles are so varied but it is not wine at all.
IMO, dry apple cider is the hands-down answer here.
Many are single-variety, just like with wine. And many of them have wonderful complexity and even a touch of funk that is strongly evocative of red wine.
If you do a search in the Beer and Spirits sub-forum, and choose to search only thread titles, I think you’ll find a thread on Cider; I think I started such a thread many years ago when I was living in England and had access to a ridiculous array of quality offerings. Assuming that thread exists, there will be some solid recommendations for you in there.
ETA: … okay, so it took all of 15 seconds for my curiosity to get the best of me. The thread does, in fact, exist, and a quick perusal proves it to have lots of good information for you: What CIDER are you drinking? - Beer and Spirits - WineBerserkers
Thanks, Brian! I appreciate all the info you gave me.
Sake does share some similarities - there are different procedures and processes the maker can apply, where the rice and water are from is important, and there are some very serious artisans out there. And many of those differences flow through into the flavours. Plus, of course, it taps into that human desire to obsess over minutiae.
But instead, I would nominate: Tea!
I saw some insane figures for the world’s most-expensive teas. I wonder if the most-expensive sake plays in the same league.
If we’re going to go the non-alcoholic route, then I’d nominate coffee.
Although I’m more of a coffee person than a tea drinker, I still say that tea beats coffee hands down, when it comes to terroir differences, styles across different regions and countries and complexity.
+100
If you’re looking for vinous characteristics in cider, a great place to start is Sundström’s Sponti. If someone served it to me completely blind and claimed it was a German riesling I’m not sure I’d contradict them…and in fact the producer worked, among other places, at Leitz. Their whole lineup is terrific.
I’m also quite a fan of Shacksbury, though for more critical drinking you want to go for the stuff that comes in bottles rather than cans; the latter is how they release their more commercial products.
A good barrel-aged sour beer is a great sub for wine, and a good way to bridge a beer-skeptical wine lover.
No wonder, he’s been dead for 103 years now.
You win the thread.
That was certainly true in the past but there’s some fascinating stuff being done in the coffee arena these days. For example, if you have a chance to check out what Cafe la Granja Esperanza is doing with the gesha variety it’s well worth it.
No. I took a few minutes off from work for relaxation and picked this thread, so I can’t go through a whole megillah (love to mix metaphors) but about 10 years ago Zach’s brought in some of the best Saki makers from Japan to pour their stuff and I spent one parking meter plus one parking ticket talking to them about their craft. I agree it’s not wine, but it is far more complicated than you describe. How much you roll the rice and polish it to get rid of the bran changes the flavor dramatically, which is far different from cook it and ferment it. There is also a terroir component to it. AND I agree that it can have fruit-like flavors and aromas at the high end.
Lambic.
I mean while Sake IS a beer, I’d say it outranks Cider as the closest thing to wine, not because of specific flavors, but because of how people drink it, talk about, savor it etc. There are a huge range of aromatic compounds in Sake to geek out on, it’s a more intimidating world to me than wine.
There was a winery in Bellevue Washington that made rhubarb wine. It tasted like an off dry rose. Supposedly somebody gave it to a famous french winemaker and he said it was well-made, but he could not recognize the variety. They got frozen rhubarb from a company near Tacoma on an as needed basis.
What do you mean Sake is a beer? It’s a brewery product, but it definitely isn’t a beer. That’s like saying wine is cider.
Only academically, since the definition of a beer is a fermented grain beverage
What? 
Beer definitely is a fermented grain beverage, but not any fermented grain beverage is beer. Definitions are not a two-way street.