The Last of the Heisei Era

The last Zenkoku Shinshu Kampyoukai (Officially, the Japan Sake Awards, but more descriptively, the National New Sake Competition) of the Heisei Era was held last month, and the results were recently announced.

Lamentably, the awareness of this historically, culturally and technically significant event on the part of the consuming public, the average Taro on the street, is dismally low. Like, next to nothing. That really is a shame as it is such a cool, important event within the industry.

I have written about this contest each year for perhaps 20 years, often at length with peripheral topics like rule changes, politics, and the actual mechanics of the tasting. All of those can be found in the newsletter archives, which are necessarily split up across several locations, the list of which has been collated and presented at the end of this newsletter. If you are interested in more detail on the event, by all means please check that out here.

This year was the 107th running of the contest, which has run each year but two over the last 109 years. Each brewery is permitted only one submission per brewing license. (So those breweries with more than one brewing facility can submit one per brewery.) Of approximately 1200 active sake breweries in the country, 857 submitted a sake.

Almost always it is a daiginjo, although junmai daiginjo are becoming more common. Almost always it has been brewed especially for this contest, i.e. not a sake on the market. And almost always it is fairly intense in flavors, aromas, with exquisite balance. Think “daiginjo on steroids.”

Of those 857 entries, 416 received an award, and of those 237 were gold medals (the remaining 179 being the equivalent of silver, although different nomenclature is used).

There were several notable accomplishments this year. Takashimizu (they have several facilities, but their Goshono Brewery is the one of which I write here) of Akita and Koganezawa of Miyagi upped there industry-leading record to 16 consecutive gold medals in a row. Considering that there are breweries that have never won a single gold medal at all over their entire history, and that winning consecutively is a fairly big accomplishment, that many in a row is quite amazing. Furthermore, the brewery making Urakasumi sake in Miyagi extended their industry leading total to 38, although not consecutively of course.

And, of even further significance, Fukushima Prefecture won more gold medals than any other prefecture for an unprecedented seventh year in a row! In truth, this needs to be conveyed together with the fact that there a lot of producers in Fukushima, third in number behind Niigata and Nagano. So that helps.

For example, Akita prefecture has about half the number of kura that Fukushima has, and scored enough golds to have the highest ratio of golds to submissions. That, too, is really significant; perhaps even more so. I’m just sayin’.

But still, they have this contest dialed in up there in Fukushima, and the quality of their contest sake drips down (no pun intended!) to raise the overall level of their sake on the market.

Fukushima sake has the utmost respect of the industry overall, and let’s hope this spreads even more to the sake-loving contingent all across Japan.

Congratulations to all award winners! The organization behind the competition, the National Research Institute of Brewing, publishes the results in both Japanese and, in recent years, English. You can see the results here, in Japanese. And a scant few days ago the NRIB also published the results from there English-language website and those results are here.

Sake Professional Course, September 25-27, in San Francisco

From Wednesday, September 25 to Friday, September 27, 2019, I will hold the 33rd stateside running of the Sake Professional Course in San Francisco. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

The course will be followed the next day by the True Sake “Sake Day” event, for which SPC attendees will receive a discount. Learn more here: Sake Professional Course in San Francisco

The Verdict: More Milling is NOT unequivocally better!

So, it’s official. The milling wars are over.

In the past few decades, we have seen increasingly frequent appearances on the market of sake made with rice that has been milled further and further. Well, they did it: this has been taken to the absolute extreme degree to which it could be taken.

Readers certainly recall that rice is milled to remove fat and protein, and that the more this is done, the cleaner and more refined the final sake can be. And readers surely also recall that the term referring to the milling rate is the seimai-buai, and that the number expressed refers to the percentage of rice that remains after milling. And lastly, surely we all recall that the various grades of rice are most visibly defined by that seimai-buai; the more the rice is milled, i.e. the lower the number, the higher the technical grade.

Legally, a brewer has no need to go beyond 50 percent. That will qualify the resulting sake as a daiginjo, and there is nothing higher, at least in terms of legal classifications. But as milling technology and brewing technology advanced in the 1970s and beyond, naturally enough a few brewers wanted to push that envelope for any one of several reasons.

Why would they want to do that? Because – make no mistake – more milling does make a difference, but only to a point. The more one mills before brewing the more elegant and refined the resulting sake will be.

Elegance and refinement are collectively only one figure of merit in sake. There are many others. Breadth. Depth. Richness. Intensity. Resonance. Weight. They are all valid, loveable aspects of sake, and more milling means less of these. But more milling does mean more challenges, and that has its appeal.

And so push that envelope they did, down to about 35 percent. Soon, that number became the de facto maximum, the line beyond which even the most maniacal brewers felt no gain in going beyond. Until they did.

Eventually one brewer milled to 27, but was largely ignored. Then one took it to 25, with pretty much the same non-result. Then along came Dassai, who milled the rice to make their iconic

Sake rice

“Niwari-sanbu” product (a fancy way of saying 23 percent). From the start, Dassai did what Dassai does well, and daiginjo made with highly milled rice became much more familiar to us all.

In time, of course, some enterprising kuramoto had to push beyond that as well. Soon wesaw a seimai-buai of 18%, then 17%, then 8% and even 7%. (Not sure where those numbers, as targets, actually came from.) There are a couple of brewers that put effort into these things, like Tatenokawa Shuzo of Yamagata (brewers of Tatenokawa) and Niizawa Shuzoten of Miyagi (brewers of Atago no Matsu), but there are others that dabble in it as well.

And then it happened: as reported in the October 2017 issue of this newsletter, the aforementioned Tatenokawa made a sake with a one percent seimai-buai! The product name is Tatenokawa Komyo, and in order to achieve the one percent, the milling machines ran for two and a half months straight! In the end, the rice was milled for a total of about 1800 hours. For a daiginjo milled to 35 percent, this usually takes about 72 to 100 hours.

“OK, well, that’s been done. Let’s move on,” is what most would be content to think. But, of course, it did not stop there.

In the legal definition of the number used to express the seimai-buai, the final number is rounded down. So, for example, a 35 percent seimai-buai could really actually be as much as a 35.9 percent seimai-buai. Astute readers will have already seen where this is going: if a brewer can mill rice down to, say, 0.9%, then that leaves the door open to create a sake made with rice that has a zero percent seimai-buai.

Yep; it exists: a sake made with rice milled down to zero percent of its original size!

The sake is made by the also aforementioned Niizawa Shuzo in Miyagi, and it redefines “extreme” in sake brewing. The rice was milled for 5297 hours and 34 minutes (that accuracy in reporting is very Japanese!), which is 220 days. That is over seven months of straight milling – compared to three days for most daiginjo, and maybe eight hours for your average junmai-shu. Geezus. The product is called Reikyo, and in English Absolute Zero, and retails for 350,000 yen, or about US$3500 a bottle.

In truth, there is no technical merit to milling down that far. There; I said it. Most would say going beyond 40 percent has no benefit, since by then your have removed all the fat and protein you can, and you begin to eat into the shimpaku, the starch packet in the center. That is porous and fragile, and the rice will break up if you go that far. Also, as you begin to mill away the stuff that would actually give the sake flavor, then things have to be changed in the brewing process to ensure there is actually some flavor in the final sake.

And this, of course, can be done. And it is done, when making sake like that. But some would ask, why? What’s the point? Why not just mill less to begin with?

The answer is, not surprisingly, marketing. Stories sell, and extreme stories sell extremely. It’s something to talk about; it’s newsworthy. People will remember your brand. In that sense, it is brilliant. As the folks at Dassai have said, “we make the 23 to sell more of the 50.” And certainly, it works.

So yes, milling to such extremes as eight, seven, one and zero will demonstrate technical prowess. It will express attention to detail in its extreme. It will state clearly that yes, we can; yes we dare. And yes, we did. But will the sake itself be unequivocally better because of it? No; it will not.

And, at zero percent seimai-buai, you cannot be outdone. Or so you’d think. But never say never in the sake world. The only thing that I can imagine that can happen beyond this would need to incorporate quantum mechanics; like, the rice simultaneously exists and does not exist at a given point in time and space. Don’t put it past the sake world to achieve that! But until the main milling machine companies like Satake or Shin Nakano figure that one out, we are good.

So the seimai-buai war is semi-officially over. Postwar rebuilding will take time, but let us hope that rebuilding includes provisions for recognizing how much more less milling can be. More on that next month.

Please be sure to check out this space at least one more time, next month, where I will address the other side of this issue. I will actually diss the seimai-buai, suggest we are all better paying less attention to more milling and showing what we miss out on by jumping on the highly-milled rice bandwagon. A short spoiler would be, there is so much better sake to drink out there!

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Sake Professional Course, September 25-27, in San Francisco

From Wednesday, September 25 to Friday, September 27, 2019, I will hold the 33rd stateside running of the Sake Professional Course in San Francisco. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

The course will be followed the next day by the True Sake “Sake Day” event, for which SPC attendees will receive a discount. Learn more here: Sake Professional Course in San Francisco

To open the last year of the second decade of the still-new millennium, I want to offer a somewhat bold suggestion. It may go against much you have learned about sake, but here it is: from here on out, drink more futsu-shu and honjozo. Not exclusively, mind you; just more.

I’m not issuing a challenge; it’s not like that. It is nothing more than an idea, a suggestion for this year, for those that have the willingness, and the means – as dictated by availability. Starting in 2019, drink more honjozo and futsu-shu.

As a quick, new-year’s review, amongst the handful of ways to “divide all sake into two groups,” one is tokutei meishoshu, or “special designation sake,” and the rest is, well, everything else, i.e. sake that does not qualify for a special designation. And since it does not qualify for one of eight special terms, it’s kind of just regular sake.

That “regular sake” is called futsu-shu, which means – not surprisingly – regular sake, and comprises between 60 and 65 percent of the market. As the sake market continues its rapid shift toward more premium products, futsu-shu consumption is dropping fast. Tokutei Meishoshu, or “special designation” sake, is “special” by virtue of how much the rice was milled before brewing, and further divided up by whether or not distilled alcohol was used. You can learn a bit more about the grades here, and with an at-a-glance version here.

Very often Tokutei Meishoshu is called premium sake. This is fine, and technically speaking it is basically true. This line has been drawn by the industry, and we need to make sake easily understandable and approachable the world. But such nomenclature automatically implies that anything not in the Tokutei Meishoshu club is non-premium, which implies it is not so good – and that is simply a misperception. Or at least, it’s just not that simple.

To cut to the chase, let’s just state it: there is plenty of good, very enjoyable futsu-shu out there. Lots. Sure, there are some dodgy ones in the market as well. But many kura brew simple, straightforward, unassuming, not ostentatious futsu-shu that is easy to drink and very reasonably priced.

Also, as we go up the arbitrarily ascending scale of Special Designation sake, the first one we come to is honjozo. Like futsu-shu, distilled alcohol has been added, but the allowed limits are much lower. However, honjozo also has a minimum milling rate that must be observed (70 percent), usually rendering it more refined and delicate. And like futsu-shu, there is a lot of really good honjozo out there. Tons of it. Lakes of it.

Honjozo is currently only about nine percent of the market now, but that market share is lamentably contracting very quickly, even more so than futsu-shu. Why is this? What is behind this rapid decline?

In my opinion, honjozo – which is, by the way, a full-fledged Tokutei Meishoshu – just has a bad rep. People misunderstand how enjoyable it can be, and miss its outstanding price performance. Consumers like things simple, and therefore tend to polarize things. So if someone wants to drink cheap sake, honjozo is passed over for futsu-shu. If someone wants to drink premium, just a few more coins will get them into the ginjo realm. So honjozo tends to get overlooked.

Regardless, what is important to bear in mind is that there are plenty of very good sake in each of these classifications, even though they are not the glitterati of the sake industry.
Often, we all tend to go right for the ginjo – and that includes this guy. And again, there’s nothing wrong with that. It is certainly closer to a safe bet, and it is the fastest way to get someone interested in sake – if not instantly hooked. But the truth, especially with sake, is never that simple. There is really just so much great futsu-shu and honjozo out there that is well worth exploring. And that is what I want to encourage in 2019.

But really, why bother? Ginjo is a safe bet, more easily available overseas, and the word is easier to remember, even. Why put out actual effort to drink less expensive, less ostentatious sake? Here are five reasons.

One, it will help you expand your sake horizons. The more variety you include in the repertoire of sake that you drink, the more you will learn about sake in general. If you drink only ginjo, or only junmai styles, you’ll not learn nearly as much as if you include a good dollop of honjozo and futsu-shu into the mix.

Two, by trying a wide range of styles, when you find the types and grades of sake you enjoy the most, you’ll enjoy them even more after having made the rounds and come back to them. Worded less romantically, your ginjo will taste better if you drink futsuu-shu and honjozo from time to time.

Three, there are tons of great honjozo and futsu-shu out there. Oodles and oodles of ‘em. Certainly they are not as ostentatious as much ginjo-shu – they’re not supposed to be. But they can be extremely enjoyable, quite tasty, and very well suited to simple, unfettered drinking sessions. I cannot emphasize this point enough!

And four, if you want to learn about a particularly brewery and what their sake-brewing philosophy is all about, drink their futsu-shu. Sure, ginjo is good. But ginjo flavor profiles tend to converge; futsu-shu maintains much more of the character of the individual brewery. So by tasting a brewery’s futsu-shu, you’ll learn much more about their approach to sake brewing.

There is that fifth reason too, albeit a less appealing one: you’ll help the industry. The overall industry is in decline, and that decline is led by futsu-shu and honjozo: they drop every year. Drinking more of them will help bolster the industry and help make it easier for us to enjoy our Tokubei Meishoshu from amongst the currently active 1200 or so brewers. The more of them we lose, the less we have to choose from. So we can help keep things interesting by enjoying more futsu-shu and honjozo from time to time.

So next time, at least for 2019, resist the urge to go straight for the ginjo. Tokutei Meishoshu is great; junmai and the four ginjo types are of course wonderful sake, and they deserve to be in the spotlight as they are. But bear in mind that sake that do not qualify for those grades are no less wonderful sake, and drinking a bit more of them – in particular futsu-shu and honjozo – can be enjoyable and worthwhile in so many ways.

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Sake Professional Course in Chicago
April 23 ~ 25, 2019

From Tuesday, April 23 to Thursday, April 25, 2019, I will hold the 30th North American running of the Sake Professional Course at the restaurant Sunda, in Chicago, Illinois. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries.

The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

You can learn more about the course here, see the daily syllabus here,and download a pdf here. If you are interested in being in the mailing list for direct course announcements, please send me an email to that purport.

Testimonials from past graduates can be perused here as well.

The sake of the Tohoku region in Japan has been showered with much-deserved attention over the past five to ten years. Certainly, it is worth it to learn a bit more about the area, and why their sake is so highly regarded.

Regionality in the sake world is fascinating to study, but it may be a bit further than most people want to go. Honjozo, junmai daiginjo, and “the glass in front in front of me now” may be plenty of sake study for most folks. And that’s fine; it is all about enjoyment after all. But like most things sake, a little study goes a long, long way. And it might not be so interesting to start by learning 47 new prefecture place names. But just one or two big-ass regions? Sure, we can do that.

If we are going to talk region, by all rights we should start with the Kansai region, wherein sits Hyogo (and therein Nada), Kyoto (and within it Fushimi), and Osaka. The first two (Nada and Fushimi) are the largest producing regions of sake in the country, and historically the most significant. But since Tohoku is “big in Japan” right about now, let us start there.

Where is the Tohoku region? It’s easy to remember: it is the top third of the main island of Japan. It consists of six of Japan’s 47 prefectures, all larger than average. (The cheap-looking photo was taken in the office of the Tohoku region Tax Office in the city of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, when I was up there as a judge last week.) Those are Aomori, Akita, Iwate, Yamagata, Miyagi and Fukushima.

Let us look at why the sake of Tohoku – as a region overall – is so popular, and also at what the main identifying characteristics of the various prefectures are.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons the sake of Tohoku is so well known is the region’s success in the Zenkoku Shinshu Kampyoukai, or “National New Sake Tasting Competion,” held each May in Japan. (The official English translation is the Japan Sake Awards, but I like my unofficial but more direct translation better.)

Sake brewed just for this contest (i.e. not normal sake you can buy at the store) is submitted and blindly tasted and judged. While many consumers do not even know this contest exists, it is a very prestigious event in the sake world. And over the past ten or fifteen years, Tohoku sake has done very, very well.

In particular, Fukushima Prefecture has won more gold medals than any other prefecture for the last four years in a row, and in seven out of the last ten years. Only vaunted Niigata and Tohoku neighbor Yamagata are close to that performance. This contest demonstrates brewers’ command of the highest levels of brewing skill, and as the results might suggest, currently this brings lots of attention to the sake of Tohoku.

The Japan national competition is one big one, but there are a handful of other competitions both in and outside of Japan to which many people pay attention. If you look at the results of these blind tasting competitions, there are a handful of brands that very often rise to the top. Quite often, these are of a light, fine-grained, bright and aromatic style. And this style is precisely what Tohoku does well.

While the style of sake that often does well in such contests is far, oh-so-very-far, from the be-all end-all of what makes a good sake, or what everyone likes, the results do indicate what is consistently popular based on one figure of merit.

But the point is that the style of sake made by many of the brewers in the Tohoku region is that kind of fine-grained, light and clean style; it is a style that is approachable and likeable. And this is yet another explanation of why the region is popular and worthy of attention: it makes the kind of sake that people these days like.

It is extremely important to emphasize that this is only one style. Many sake fans from the western half of Japan would find Tohoku sake too light, with no body, umami, or earthiness, and perhaps find it challenging to pair with food – especially in comparison to the rich, broad, umami-laden sake of their own region. We are only looking at one snapshot of all the great sake that is out there.

What makes the sake of the region taste this way? Many things, of course. One is climate. It’s colder up there, and when you brew and subsequently mature at colder temperatures, you end up with lighter, cleaner sake. Higher temperatures give fuller bodies. Think lagers and ales.

Next would be the support of the prefectural governments. While all regions in Japan have this to some degree, Fukushima, Yamagata, and Akita in particular have very active sake research organizations. These are run by the local governmental industrial research center or tax administration, and crank out sake-brewing technology, new rice strains and new yeast strains that constantly and consistently raise the Tohoku bar.

Then there is rice itself, of course. Most of the Tohoku prefectures are large rice-producing prefectures as well. While most of this is for eating, they all produce plenty of one variety or another of sake rice. The aforementioned colder climate means the indigenous strains of rice are generally smaller than their western-Japan counterparts, leading to the more narrow flavor profiles of the area.

Each of the six prefectures of the Tohoku region has plenty that could be said bout them. A “sake readers digest” version might look something like the below.

Fukushima has about 70 active breweries, ensuring a wide range of styles, and three distinct geographies: an oceanside, planes and mountains, with most breweries in the prefecture located in the last of these. Miyagi has about 40 breweries, and an inordinately large amount of what they make is junmai. Yamagata right next door makes just as inordinately large amount of ginjo compared to other types, and has lots of fragrant, light sake coming from the 40 or so kura there. Iwate is the home of the most prominent and accomplished guild of toji (master brewers), the Nanbu guild, but only 25 active kura. Much of their sake is light, but a few rich, reverberating deep sake are made there too.Akita sake, made by the 50-odd active breweries there, is often rich but seems quite fine-grained to me, with of course the requisite exceptions. And at the very top of the region is Aomori, with 20 breweries making a richer, sweeter style than the rest of the region.

While the above-described styles are of course vague, with exceptions and variation across each prefecture, the region in general does confirm to the light, crisp, aromatic style that is quite popular today. And while each prefecture is much deserving of detailed study, knowing a bit about the region goes along way too. It is, after all, Tohoku time.

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Sake Professional Course

The next Sake Professional Course will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 27 to 29.  As of today, only three (3) seats remain open.

The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

Learn more about the course here. You can read Testimonials from past participants here.

If you would like to make a reservation or to be placed on the notification list, please send an email to that purport to sakeguy@gol.com.

Fall can be fun, but fall can be tiring. One sake tasting after another means so much other work does not get done. The traditional fall tasting season mercifully ends soon, but making the rounds is both important and fun.

One of the last for me this year was a tasting of Yamaguchi Prefecture sake. There are 28 or so breweries there, 20 of which gathered for the event. And as I am always reminded, tasting the sake is fun, but one can learn ten times as much from chatting with the brewers. Therein lies the value and appeal of these tastings.

And at the Yamaguchi tasting the other day I made my way round to the eponymous Taka, brewed by the company called Nagayama Honke. The owner/toji Taka Nagayama himself was there to pour and greet.

I know his stuff well and zipped through them, but the last one got my attention. It was a junmai daiginjo, but made with Tojo Yamada Nishiki. While not overly assertive in flavor, the breadth and the reverb permeating the overall flavor profile were outstanding – but not surprising. Afterall, it was Tojo Yamada.

Tojo was the former name of the village in which this outstanding rice is grown, but a spate of annexations saw the town itself become annexed into another one a few years ago. So even though the town of Tojo is long gone, the term Tojo Yamada Nishiki was safely trademarked, and good thing too.

Like any agricultural product, there are certain regions and even microclimates in which each strain of sake rice will thrive. And this of course applies to what is almost universally considered to be the best sake rice, Yamada Nishiki. This variety is grown in 33 of Japan’s 47 prefectures, but the overwhelming consensus is that it grows best in Hyogo Prefecture. And deep in the mountains of this prefecture, where the days are hot and the nights are cold, is a village formerly known as Tojo, and another village named Yokawa. And it is these two areas from which the best Yamada Nishiki comes. Tojo tends to command a higher price than Yokawa, but the latter is exceptional to be sure, especially in comparison to that rice grown in other regions.

And Taka, our sake-pouring owner-toji friend from the opening paragraph, lavished praise upon Tojo Yamada. “Yeah, you can’t really top it, can you! It’s as good as it gets, and the price of the rice reflects that. But I have done a good job of keeping the retail price as low as I can so folks can enjoy it.

“And,” he continued, “what is amazing is how well it stands up to time. It basically does not hineru,” he asserted. Hineru refers to a sake starting to taste old from, well, getting old. The difference between hineru and nice maturation is a fine line, of course, but I digress.

“Even Yokawa,” he continued without being prompted, “as good as it is, that will show maturity pretty quickly; but not Tojo. That’s why I think Yokawa Yamada Nishiki might be good for super premium sake bound for overseas markets – it will remain stable for a long time,” he concluded.

The point here is not that one should drink Tojo over Yokawa, or that one region is superior to another. Those are worthwhile discussions too. But rather, what is interesting is how fundamentally different the same strain of rice can be from two regions that are so close. Tojo and Yokawa are right next to each other. They are perhaps a couple of kilometers apart; that’s all. But the slight differences in the mineral makeup of the soil and of course minute climactic differences lead to the best and second best examples of the mighty Yamada Nishiki to be noticeably and consistently different.

What is wild about this to me is that, yes, the choice of rice is connected to the final flavor profile of a sake. But that connection is not nearly as tight as the connection between the grape variety and the final flavor of the wine. Ten brewers can take the same rice, milled to the same degree, and make ten completely different sake. How the koji was made, the yeast used, the fermentation temperature and number of days, and how the sake was pressed and later handled all contribute huge differences.

Yet, in spite of all this, the basic nature of the rice will shine through, and that basic nature can be quite different on a subtle but measurable level, even for the same strain grown just a few kilometers apart.

Similar differences can, in fact, be demonstrated in other strains of rice from other parts of Japan. In fact, there are a handful of brewers now doing things like brewing sake using the rice of only one rice field, and not blending them, to make the most of the differences that invariably exist from one rice field to the next.

Surely these efforts will garner more attention as time goes on, although few will be as prominent as the tale of two Yamadas as told by Taka. It’s all fascinating stuff, and it all demonstrates how much there is to learn – and unlearn – about sake

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Sake Professional Course

The next Sake Professional Course will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 27 to 29.  As of today, only three (3) seats remain open.

The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

Learn more about the course here. You can read Testimonials from past participants here.

If you would like to make a reservation or to be placed on the notification list, please send an email to that purport to sakeguy@gol.com.

In May and early June, there was a spate of tasting competitions held in and out of Japan, many of which are significant in both scale, and potential impact. These competitions have usually hundreds of sake that are blindly judged by dozens of judges, and the results are made public. This happens across several media, both electronic and printed, and several of the organizations provide stickers for the producers to further promote the winning sake.

While such results are not the only way to select sake, and in fact are arguably not even close to the best way, these contests do an outstanding job of at least one thing: they draw attention to sake as a super-premium beverage worthy of assessing at the highest level by experienced professionals.

Let us look at four such contests (in the chronological order in which they took place), with a bit of information about each, and links to the results as well.

“The Nationals” in Japan

In May, the sake industry held the 106^th (!) running of the Zenkoku Shinshu Kampyoukai, or “National New Sake Tasting Competition,” which has the official English translation of the “Japan Sake Awards.” While my unofficial translation above is certainly more descriptive, the nature of the contest should be clear.

Interestingly, at 106, it is the longest running competition of its kind anywhere in the world. For all but the last few of those it was run by the government itself with the goal having always been helping brewers improve their skills. The last few years, the body running it has been semi-privatized.

Those interested can find more information in the archives of this newsletter (which go back to 1999!), in particular in the June or July editions for each year.

The sake submitted to this contest by the brewers is not stuff you can normally buy, but rather daiginjo or junmai daiginjo made specifically for this contest. It is brewed to have a minimum of faults, but still seem unique and special. I often refer to it as “daiginjo on steroids.”

Just about two-thirds of Japan’s sakagura submitted an entry to the contest, for a total of 850 entries. Each company is allowed to submit one sake per brewing license, i.e. one per brewing facility owned. Some larger companies own more than one facility so they would be permitted one for each.

Almost all of it is not junmai because using the added-alcohol step brings out more aromas and flavors. But this year, 163 of the 850 submissions were junmai, up seven submissions from a year ago. It seems that at least a few more brewers are interested in trying to win with junmai sake.

Sake is tasted blind in round one, and about half make it to round two. They are then tasted blind again, and about half of these will be designated as gold, the rest that made it into the second round are designated as prize-winners (the term “silver” is not used, although the gist is the same).

While the contest is extremely prestigious within the sake industry, it is not that commonly used in marketing as the average consumer has no idea this contest even exists.

For the eighth time in twelve years, and sixth in a row, Fukushima Prefecture won more golds than any other prefecture. This was a new record, as no prefecture has ever won the most golds for six years in a row. Just as interestingly, Hyogo Prefecture (wherein sits Nada, the Mecca of sake brewing) was number two. As has been the case for the past decade, the entire Tohoku region did very, very well.

While the sake submitted is not usually sake destined for the market, the flavors, aromas, styles and leading prefectures are a harbinger of where sake is currently headed. Therein lies the contest’s appeal.

There is so much to be said about this competition: the changes over the years, the politics, the history, the records, and more. Much of that can be dug up in the archives of this newsletter, but more importantly it seems as though amidst today’s sake popularity, more brewers and consumers as well are showing an interest in this historically and culturally significant competition.

You can see the results in Japanese here and in English here.

IWC in Japan

From May 13^th to May 16^th, the 10^th International Wine Challenge 2018 Sake Competition was held in Yamagata Prefecture. This was the third time the event was held in Japan, away from its usual home of London.

This contest sees sake judged in panels, with discussion amongst the judges to ensure general consensus. It is a great way to help raise more experienced sake judges all over the world. Also, the results are marketed wonderfully and glamorously, furthering sake promotion efforts.

Sake is judged in one of nine categories: futsuu-shu (regular sake, i.e. non-premium sake), honjozo-shu, junmai-shu, ginjo-shu, junmai ginjo-shu, daiginjo-shu, junmai daiginjo-shu, koshu (aged sake) and sparkling sake. That is a lot of tasting, and it took us three and a half days to work through it all in the multiple rounds that were called for. Judges are encouraged to judge a sake as a representative of the grade in which it was submitted, meaning it cannot be overly ostentatious if not of a grade that is expected to demonstrate that. (In other words, super fruity honjozo, for example, would get dinged for that character.)

Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals are awarded, with sake that is good but not quite of medal quality receiving a Commended award. Producers that choose to can affix little labels to their bottles advertising those accolades.

Complete results in Japanese can be found here: http://www.sakesamurai.jp/iwc18_medal.html

The list of all medal winners and commended sake can be found in English here : www.internationalwinechallenge.com/canopy/search.php#tabs1-sake. If you click on “Search for a Sake” the entire list of Medal and Commended sake comes up, in alphabetical order.

Also, the trophy winners (only; not all medal winners) for each category are here in English (near the bottom of the page – because the best is saved for last!): https://www.internationalwinechallenge.com/trophy-results-2018.html

Hasegawa Saketen “Sake Competition”

Next – at least chronologically – is the Hasegawa Saketen “Sake Competiton.” Hasegawa Saketen is a large and well known sake distributor and retailer in Japan that has for ten years or so ran a sake competition of its own. The sake submitted is all market sake – nothing specially brewed. And the judges are industry people – brewers, toji, owners, and folks like myself. There are two rounds held two days apart.

Just like the Japan Sake Awards mentioned above, each judge assesses alone, with no input or influence permitted, and no discussion amongst judges either.

This year, it was held right after the IWC mentioned above. That was challenging. Furthermore, in the second round there are over 500 sake to be tasted – by each judge – in one day. It’s a marathon.

Yet, at the same time, the contest is on the up-and-up, and worthwhile to participate in, and the results are useful as well. Interestingly, the same sake seem to be popping up at the top each year, with a few changing in and out. And these are mostly well known, prized sake. The results of the blind-tasting contest, then, seem to uphold the popularity of those sake.

The gold medal results in English are here: https://sakecompetition.com/?page_id=1647 Poking around the English header will lead to more about the contest, and also, there is plenty about the competition on that site in Japanese as well.

US National Sake Appraisal

Last but by no means least is the 2018 US National Sake Appraisal, held in June this year (although usually it is held in August). This contest takes place in Hawaii with a mix of judges, some from Japan and some from the US and other countries. The judges from Japan are from the National Research Institute of Brewing, and various prefectures around Japan. All are quite esteemed.

This judging too takes place just as it does in the Japan Sake Awards; in other words, each judge tastes on his or her own, with no discussion. Results are tallied as an average of all judges’ scores.

The classifications for judging are a bit different, and are more focused on the milling rate than whether or not they are junmai style or not. So Junmai is one grouping, Jumai Ginjo and (non-junmai, i.e. added alcohol) ginjo are together as another group, Daiginjo A – in which the milling is 40% or less (i.e. 35%, 38%), and Daiginjo B for which the milling is between 50% and 40%. This is certainly a slightly different take, and a very valid one for sure.

These sake are then taken on a road show, being presented at the Joy of Sake events which this year are to be held in New York (just finished!), Honolulu in July, London in September and Tokyo in November. If you are anywhere near one of these cities at those times, be sure to check the party out. The results have been made public, and you can see the top winner in each category, and the medal winners for each as well here: http://www.sakeappraisal.org/en/appraisal-2018.html

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There are other competitions too, and there will be more popping up. Of this I am quite sure. These are just the most visible. The results are extremely interesting, and if you want to make things even more interesting, take the time to look across the results of each of the above and see what names keep popping up; that tells us a lot. I’m just sayin’.

After having judged in three out of these four this year, and all of them at one time or another, there are a couple of thoughts about these competitions.

First and foremost, they all attract attention to quality sake, and the fact that sake is worthy of being assessed by beverage professionals from around the world. This is an unequivocally good thing!

In truth, though, only certain styles or types of sake will do well through. Those that do are, of course, worthy and deserving for sure. But in these contests, sake is tasted on its own, with no food, no friends, no ambiance suffusing the situation. Sake that has any semblance of quirky or idiosyncratic character will not likely win a medal in any of these. Often, such characteristics can be extremely appealing. But sake that is not a part of the orthodox clean light ginjo borg does not have much of a chance. And it is what it is.

In the end, it’s a good tradeoff. The sake that receive awards are all great sake, and the contests draw attention to sake. That’s enough, at least for now, methinks.

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No Sake Stone Remains Left Unturned!

From Monday August 13 to Wednesday August 15, 2018, I will hold the 30th North American running of the Sake Professional Course at at the Miami Culinary Institute in Miami, Florida. The course will run 9-5 all three days. The cost for the course, all materials, and the right to take the exam for Certified Sake Professional certification is $899. Learn more here. Interested? Please email me at sakeguy@gol.com .

Each year, the month of April is chock full o’ sake tastings, both industry-focused and consumer-oriented. Usually these are run by distributors with dozens of brewers that each have a range of products to taste and about which to ask questions. Sometimes there are two in one day; and one can easily taste hundreds of sake in that eight hour period. It is exhausting, but important.

Far more important to me than actually tasting all those sake is interacting with the representatives from the kura, be they brewing personnel, or company directors. The information exchange is invaluable. Via such discussions, we can learn how this year’s rice is behaving, how the weather affected that, what new rice or yeast did they start or stop using, and what else affected how this year’s sake will turn out. Then, we can taste and confirm all that.

Groups and gangs of sake promotions notwithstanding, one of the tastings I look forward to each year is held by one brewer only, Hirako Shuzo of Miyagi Prefecture, the brewers of Hitakami sake, and run by the president Takahiro Hirai. I enjoy this particular tasting so much since Hirai-san, with whom I have been friends for a long, long time, likes to talk. He prepares a short presentation on much that transpired over the last year, and about the sake we are about to taste. And it is always educational.

The tasting itself is primarily for retailers and restaurant staff, and is held in a small, simple room in the building of his Tokyo distributor, in a drab but old and classic Tokyo neighborhood. Large bottles of this year’s brew are lined up on long, narrow tables, flanked with spittoons every meter or two.

Each bottle is labeled with the number of the tank from whence it came. The handout received upon entering gives us the necessary information: “Tank #37, Junmai-shu, Hitomebore rice milled to 60%, Miyagi Yeast, Nama Genshu, Nihonshudo 5, Acidity, 1.5”, and maybe a comment or two on what might be special. And so on down the line. Furthermore, we were given the date on which the sake was pressed, i.e. the day fermentation ended.

As we taste, every hour or so he sits everyone down and explains a handful of things. Hirai-san has a knack for saying interesting things to a fairly educated audience, and he did not disappoint this year. Admittedly, he goes a bit deeper than even the average sake geek might be interested. But hey.

The summer was a comparatively cold one, or at least not so hot. This means that the rice ends up softer, which in turn means it dissolves more quickly than hard rice. If the rice does not dissolve well, the sake will be short on flavor and richness. But the other side of the coin is that soft rice can dissolve too quickly and uncontrollably, and that leads to sloppy, cloying and rough flavors. So, in short, an expectation of soft rice makes brewers nervous. And that effects how they process the rice.

In particular, it affects how they soak the rice before steaming. If rice is expected to dissolve quickly, this can be countered by limiting the amount of water it is permitted to absorb. This will slow down the speed of dissolution.

To make matters even more challenging, when the weather is cold like it was this past summer, there is a lack of uniformity in the rice in terms of how fast it absorbs water. So some grains absorb too quickly, others just right, and others not at all. This makes it hard for brewers to control how it dissolves during the month-odd fermentation, since some grains have absorbed more water than others due to that lack of uniformity.Hirai-san explained their countermeasures.

“In short, we were cautious; in fact, we erred on the side of caution. So we did not let the rice absorb enough water, and the sake flavors were too tight, and not quite rich enough. And, so, we countered that in turn by letting the sake sit longer before pasteurizing it. In so doing, enzymes remaining from the koji convert left-over starch molecules to sugar; furthermore, the flavor gets richer and more umami laden in general.”

Enzymes are deactivated by heat, so as long as they do not pasteurize the sake, the enzymes will still do their job – however, they only function in a narrow temperature range. So too cold and they do not work, but too hot and they are deactivated forever.

“The tricky part,” continues Hirai-san, “was that once we measured and tasted and knew the flavor was where we wanted it, we needed to get the enzymes to cease and desist. The problem is, we have a ton of sake that needs to be pasteurized more or less all at once. We simply cannot pasteurize fast enough in those situations; but the sake does not care! It will keep on changin’.

“So the way to do that is to lower the temperature to the point where the enzymes simply do nothing. As recently as 25 years ago, this would not have been practical. But now, we can control that pretty precisely. Modern-day refrigerated tanks make that possible,” he wrapped up.

A week later, I ran into him at another tasting, where he was one of perhaps 30 other kuramoto present that day. We returned briefly to our conversation above, what which point he warned me, “amongst these sake here today, this year you will find extremes. Some will be rough-n-tumble, others too narrow and rigid. Either too much flavor or not enough. This belies the year’s rice, its lack of uniformity, and the reticence it fosters in the brewing staff!”

What this all illustrates so well is the complexity of the sake brewing process, how important the post-fermentation steps are, and just how much one can learn with a few pre-sipping questions.

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Sake Professional Course

The next Sake Professional Course will be held in Miami, Florida in September.

The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

You can read Testimonials from past participants here.

If you would like to make a reservation or to be placed on the notification list, please send an email to that purport to sakeguy@gol.com.

In just about any educational material about sake, we read or hear that the main difference between premium grades of sake like ginjo-shu and regular non-premium sake is the milling of the rice. Specifically, for ginjo sake the rice has been milled much more, and down to a specified degree before brewing. The more the rice is milled, the higher the grade of sake. Short and sweet, and easy to remember. Yeppir.

While true, beneath the surface of that truth is another, and that is that rice milling is just the tip of the iceberg. In reality, there are a gazillion little things that are done differently in the processes used to make premium sake versus regular sake. At least a gazillion.

Of course, the milling is, in fact, very important. This removes the fat and protein that are found in the outer regions of the rice grains, leaving a higher ratio of starch, and leading to a more refined sake.

But how, beyond the milling, does brewing ginjo differ from brewing regular sake? Basically at every step of the process. Each step is done with increased attention to detail that adds a bit more quality with each successive step, leading to a significantly better sake in the end.

Concretely, what changes? For example…

Once the rice is milled, it is soaked and then washed to remove the clinging rice powder, and to adjust the moisture content. For cheap sake, the rice will be washed and soaked in fairly large vats and lots; that will get almost all the powder off and get the moisture content into the ballpark in a fairly efficient way.

Precision Soaking

But for ginjo brewing they wash the rice even more thoroughly, and soak in much smaller lots to attain uniformity of moisture across each grain in the batch, and also to get that moisture content to within a half a percent of target. While that was easy to write for me, it is not easy to accomplish. Do not let the significance of that precision be lost on you.

Doing that every single day to a ton or rice at one time takes skill, experience, and attention to detail. In fact, washing and soaking may be the one step where the difference is the most visible to us mortals.

And this lunacy continues with each step. Steamed rice for regular sake goes along a conveyor belt and cold air is blasted through it, but for ginjo, often it is spread out on straw mats to cool down slowly and naturally. The difference in the effort expended is huge. It is almost as if the sake gods conspired to ensure that the more hassle-laden the work is, the better the sake will be.

While less visible, koji-making is where it really gets nuts. Koji, that moldy rice that supplies enzymes for saccharification, as well as much so much flavor-augmenting amino acids, can be made using machines, and/or in huge-ass lots in which the moisture and temperature are not consistent throughout. But for ginjo, koji is often made in trays as small as 1.5 kilos, and then checked every two hours across the 48 or so hours it takes to make. Every. Two. Hours. This helps ensure that every single grain of rice sees the same temperature and humidity, and provides the same enzymatic power.

On to the yeast starter: Ginjo is usually made with different yeast strains, and in yeast-starter rooms that are kept much colder than average to thwart wayward bacteria from proliferating.

Next, fermentation itself. In short, regular sake is fermented in large tanks leading to large yields with large efficiency. Ginjo is always made in smaller tanks, as it is easier to keep the temperature consistent across the whole mash. With a huge tank, the temperature in the center of the mash will not be the same at the bottom, top or sides of the tank. Ginjo tanks will be jacketed too, with coolant running through those jackets at the flip of a sensor-driven switch to help keep temperature appropriately low no matter how warm or cold it is outside.

Extreme Method of Pressing: by drip

But wait! There’s more! Once fermentation is complete, the sake is pressed to remove the rice lees. This can be done in a handful of ways, some mundane yet good and some extravagant. You have likely surmised by now that ginjo is made using the much more extravagant, low-yield, hassle laden methods. Even when pressing by machine, a recent trend is to put the whole kit-n-kaboodle inside a refrigerated room to eliminate the activity of bacteria that can damage aromas.

Pasteurization for cheap sake is done roughly and quickly, with stability being the goal. Ginjo is pasteurized in one of a handful of methods each with a handful more variations that try to ensure stability but retain liveliness. Not only is the method important but the timing is paramount as well. For regular sake, such attention to detail is simply not justifiable.

Each one of these adds just a bit to the mix and that incrementally leads to better ginjo. And all of the explanations of each one of the steps above could have been expounded upon ad nauseum to further illustrate the point. But I figured readers have a few better things to read; and you all likely get the point.

Interestingly, all of this has trickled down to once lowly junmai-shu. In other words, the junmai-shu of today is brewed using the ginjo techniques described above, whereas a few decades ago it was more commonly brewed in basically the same way as cheap futsuushu (regular sake). The methods, tools, and attention to detail were the same as very cheap sake; only the milling of the rice and the addition of distilled alcohol were different.

As such, the junmai-shu of just a few decades ago rarely boasted the fine lines of distinction that much of today’s junmai offers. While it was hardly rough stuff, it was not nearly as smooth, genteel, lively or aromatic as the average junmai-shu today – which tends to push the ginjo envelope.

Gentle Pasteurization

Some less than optimal flavors and aromatics can be particularly pronounced in just-brewed sake; so a bit of maturity – like six months to a year – works wonders in mellowing and melding the various elements. Pasteurization also helps in taking the edge off. As such, the junmai of olde was rarely drunk young, or nama (unpasteurized). It just wasn’t enjoyable enough in that just-pressed state.

But these days, junmai-shu is much more light, aromatic, soft, refined and layered. In fact, of late, the term “fruity” lends itself to many a junmai-shu description. In particular, banana and melon. And much junmai – as well as ginjo – can now be enjoyed very soon after brewing, and as nama too. This evolution is a result of it being made much more like lofty ginjo-shu and daiginjo-shu, and less like plebian futsuu-shu.

Note, though, that not all brewers are making junmai-shu in these ginjo-esque ways. And there are increasingly glaringly obvious differences between the dos and the do-nots. But certainly the basic visible trend is that junmai-shu has approached ginjo-shu and left futsuu-shu behind.

In truth, it is not as clear cut as the above. Not all regular sake is made in the rough ways, and not all ginjo is made using every one of the precision-driven steps above. But in general, the differences are as laid out here.

Both junmai-shu styles and ginjo-shu styles (including daiginjo styles, i.e. “ginjo to die for”) have been evolving for 40 years, and will continue to do so. And that evolution will take place in countless small ways, mostly outside of the milling process. So yes, it is about the milling of the rice, but it is about so much more as well.

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Sake Professional Course

The next Sake Professional Course will be held in Miami, Florida in September.

The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

You can read Testimonials from past participants here.

If you would like to make a reservation or to be placed on the notification list, please send an email to that purport to sakeguy@gol.com.

Drink more what?

To open the last year of the second decade of the still-new millennium, I want to offer a somewhat bold suggestion. It may go against much you have learned about sake, but here it is: from here on out, drink more futsu-shu and honjozo. Not exclusively, mind you; just more.

I’m not issuing a challenge; it’s not like that. It is nothing more than an idea, a suggestion for this year, for those that have the willingness, and the means – as dictated by availability. Starting in 2019, drink more honjozo and futsu-shu.

As a quick, new-year’s review, amongst the handful of ways to “divide all sake into two groups,” one is tokutei meishoshu, or “special designation sake,” and the rest is, well, everything else, i.e. sake that does not qualify for a special designation. And since it does not qualify for one of eight special terms, it’s kind of just regular sake.

That “regular sake” is called futsu-shu, which means – not surprisingly – regular sake, and comprises between 60 and 65 percent of the market. As the sake market continues its rapid shift toward more premium products, futsu-shu consumption is dropping fast. Tokutei Meishoshu, or “special designation” sake, is “special” by virtue of how much the rice was milled before brewing, and further divided up by whether or not distilled alcohol was used. You can learn a bit more about the grades here, and with an at-a-glance version here.

Very often Tokutei Meishoshu is called premium sake. This is fine, and technically speaking it is basically true. This line has been drawn by the industry, and we need to make sake easily understandable and approachable the world. But such nomenclature automatically implies that anything not in the Tokutei Meishoshu club is non-premium, which implies it is not so good – and that is simply a misperception. Or at least, it’s just not that simple.

To cut to the chase, let’s just state it: there is plenty of good, very enjoyable futsu-shu out there. Lots. Sure, there are some dodgy ones in the market as well. But many kura brew simple, straightforward, unassuming, not ostentatious futsu-shu that is easy to drink and very reasonably priced.

Also, as we go up the arbitrarily ascending scale of Special Designation sake, the first one we come to is honjozo. Like futsu-shu, distilled alcohol has been added, but the allowed limits are much lower. However, honjozo also has a minimum milling rate that must be observed (70 percent), usually rendering it more refined and delicate. And like futsu-shu, there is a lot of really good honjozo out there. Tons of it. Lakes of it.

Honjozo is currently only about nine percent of the market now, but that market share is lamentably contracting very quickly, even more so than futsu-shu. Why is this? What is behind this rapid decline?

In my opinion, honjozo – which is, by the way, a full-fledged Tokutei Meishoshu – just has a bad rep. People misunderstand how enjoyable it can be, and miss its outstanding price performance. Consumers like things simple, and therefore tend to polarize things. So if someone wants to drink cheap sake, honjozo is passed over for futsu-shu. If someone wants to drink premium, just a few more coins will get them into the ginjo realm. So honjozo tends to get overlooked.

Regardless, what is important to bear in mind is that there are plenty of very good sake in each of these classifications, even though they are not the glitterati of the sake industry.

Often, we all tend to go right for the ginjo – and that includes this guy. And again, there’s nothing wrong with that. It is certainly closer to a safe bet, and it is the fastest way to get someone interested in sake – if not instantly hooked. But the truth, especially with sake, is never that simple. There is really just so much great futsu-shu and honjozo out there that is well worth exploring. And that is what I want to encourage in 2019.

But really, why bother? Ginjo is a safe bet, more easily available overseas, and the word is easier to remember, even. Why put out actual effort to drink less expensive, less ostentatious sake? Here are five reasons.

One, it will help you expand your sake horizons. The more variety you include in the repertoire of sake that you drink, the more you will learn about sake in general. If you drink only ginjo, or only junmai styles, you’ll not learn nearly as much as if you include a good dollop of honjozo and futsu-shu into the mix.

Two, by trying a wide range of styles, when you find the types and grades of sake you enjoy the most, you’ll enjoy them even more after having made the rounds and come back to them. Worded less romantically, your ginjo will taste better if you drink futsuu-shu and honjozo from time to time.

Three, there are tons of great honjozo and futsu-shu out there. Oodles and oodles of ‘em. Certainly they are not as ostentatious as much ginjo-shu – they’re not supposed to be. But they can be extremely enjoyable, quite tasty, and very well suited to simple, unfettered drinking sessions. I cannot emphasize this point enough!

And four, if you want to learn about a particularly brewery and what their sake-brewing philosophy is all about, drink their futsu-shu. Sure, ginjo is good. But ginjo flavor profiles tend to converge; futsu-shu maintains much more of the character of the individual brewery. So by tasting a brewery’s futsu-shu, you’ll learn much more about their approach to sake brewing.

There is that fifth reason too, albeit a less appealing one: you’ll help the industry. The overall industry is in decline, and that decline is led by futsu-shu and honjozo: they drop every year. Drinking more of them will help bolster the industry and help make it easier for us to enjoy our Tokubei Meishoshu from amongst the currently active 1200 or so brewers. The more of them we lose, the less we have to choose from. So we can help keep things interesting by enjoying more futsu-shu and honjozo from time to time.

So next time, at least for 2019, resist the urge to go straight for the ginjo. Tokutei Meishoshu is great; junmai and the four ginjo types are of course wonderful sake, and they deserve to be in the spotlight as they are. But bear in mind that sake that do not qualify for those grades are no less wonderful sake, and drinking a bit more of them – in particular futsu-shu and honjozo – can be enjoyable and worthwhile in so many ways.

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Sake Professional Course in Chicago
April 23 ~ 25, 2019

From Tuesday, April 23 to Thursday, April 25, 2019, I will hold the 30th North American running of the Sake Professional Course at the restaurant Sunda, in Chicago, Illinois. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries.

The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

You can learn more about the course here, see the daily syllabus here,and download a pdf here. If you are interested in being in the mailing list for direct course announcements, please send me an email to that purport.

Testimonials from past graduates can be perused here as well.

2017 National New Sake Compeition Report

In May, the 105th Zenkoku Shinshu Kanpyoukai was held in Japan. The official English name for this contest is the Japan Sake Awards, but the literal translation is much more descriptive if slightly unwieldy: the National New Sake Tasting Competition. It is the longest running competition of its kind anywhere in the world. Those interested can find more information in the archives of this newsletter (which go back to 1999!), in particular in the June or July editions for each year.

But to save you the hassle, here is a summary of the main points of this prestigious competition.

The sake submitted is not stuff you can normally buy, but rather daiginjo or junmai daiginjo made specifically for this contest. It is brewed to have a minimum of faults, but still seem unique and special. I often refer to it as “daiginjo on steroids.”

This year, 860 of Japan’s 1200 sakagura submitted an entry to the contest. Each company is allowed to submit one sake per brewing license, i.e. one per brewing facility owned. Some big companies own more than one facility so they would be permitted one for each.

Almost all of it is not junmai because using the added-alcohol step brings out more aromas and flavors. But this year, 156 of the 860 submissions were junmai, up from 139 a year ago. Clearly more brewers are interested in trying to win with junmai sake.

Koji being cultivated in small trays

Sake is tasted blind in round one, and about half (this year, 437 to be exact) make it to round two. They are then tasted blind again, and about half (this year, 242 to be exact) of these will be designated as gold, the rest that made it into the second round are designated as prize-winners (the term “silver” is not used, although the gist is the same).

This year, 242 won gold, and 215 won silver. While prestigious within the sake industry, it is not that commonly used in marketing as the average consumer has no idea this contest even exists.

For the seventh time in eleven years, and fifth in a row, Fukushima Prefecture won more golds than any other prefecture, and as has been the case for the past decade, the entire Tohoku region did very, very well. In fact, much more interesting than Fukushima – with all due respect to their accomplishments – was Miyagi, where 20 sake out of the 23 total submitted got gold! Two more got silver as well. This was an unprecedented result.

This year, brewers were whining that the Yamada Nishiki rice that is most commonly used for contest sake like this was not dissolving easily in the fermenting mash. This means tight flavor profiles with little flavor expressed. But this proved to not be too much of a problem, although flavor profiles seemed to vary quite a bit from region to region.

Much winning sake was on the sweet side, with extra glucose to balance out bitterness contributed by yeasts that give fruity aromas. This seemed especially true in Fukushima, and only slightly less so in Miyagi.

While the sake submitted is not usually sake desitned for the market, the flavors, aromas, styles and leading prefectures are a harbinger of where sake is currently headed. Therein lies the contest’s appeal.

There is so much to be said about this competition: the changes over the years, the remarkably-few-yet-still-there-to-some-degree politics, the history, the records, the reasons it came to be. Much of that can be dug up in the archives of this newsletter, (see the end of the newsletter for more on that) but more importantly it seems as though amidst today’s sake popularity, more brewers and consumers as well are showing an interest in this historically and culturally significant competition.

You can see the results in Japanese here and in English here .

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Sake Professional Course  in Denver, Colorado
August 28-30, 2017

From Monday August 28 to Wednesday August 30, 2017, I will hold the 27th North American running of the Sake Professional Course at the University of Denver, (Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality, Daniels College of Business) in Denver, Colorado. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries.
The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

You can learn more about the course here, see the daily syllabus here,and download a pdf here. If you are interested in being in the mailing list for direct course announcements, please send me an email to that purport.

Testimonials from past graduates can be perused here as well.