The main raw materials of sake are rice and water, and rice is the only fermentable material used in its production. And just as the grapes used to make good wine are significantly different from those bought at the supermarket, the rice used to make premium sake is significantly different from that which we find sitting under the fish in sushi, or in bowls in meals.

In truth, most sake – perhaps 75 percent of all produced – is actually made from regular table rice. And a lot of this is perfectly tasty sake. But when we meander into the realm of premium sake, especially ginjo, almost always it is made with proper sake rice, which is significantly different from regular table rice.

While there are many ways that sake rice differs from other types (size of the stalk, size of the grains, more starch, less fat and protein), the most talked about of them is surely the presence of a shinpaku.

In proper sake rice, the higher-than-normal starch content is mostly concentrated in the center of the grains. Why is this so heart-warmingly special? Because we want to get at the starch, which will be converted to sugar and then into alcohol. But we don’t want the fat and protein, which would lead to off-flavors and contribute rough elements to the sake. So with the starch neatly concentrated in the center, all we need to do is to mill away more and more of the outside of the grain, and by doing that we remove the fat and protein and leave only the starchy goodies behind.

That packet of starch in the center is called the shinpaku. The word itself is written with the characters for “heart” and “white,” and not surprisingly, when one looks at sake rice, you can clearly see that the heart of the grain is an opaque white, with everything around that being somewhat translucent. In regular rice, however, the color is uniform throughout since the starch, fat and protein are more mixed up and uniformly distributed.

Why does sake rice have the starch in the center, and fat and protein around that? Part of it is just the nature of those strains. But it also has to do with climate and growing conditions. Regions with hot days and cold nights are best for sake rice production, as the cold nights coerce the plant to send the starch to the center of the grains. In “bad years” for rice, seasons being too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry, or when the night and day temperatures had less variance, fewer grains will have a decent shinpaku.

What is interesting is that it is not the starch itself that makes the center of the grains white. What happens is that the starch molecules are round at the ends, and as they rush to get to the middle they don’t interlock well, and they leave tiny air pockets between their ends. These diffuse light passing through, giving the opaque appearance we see.

Beyond different varieties or strains of rice, within each type there are grades based upon how well it was grown. This is a function of locale, climate, and skill of the producer. And one of the big points of assessment is the percentage of grains with a visible shinpaku. This is also one of the standards in the official assessment of sake rice versus table rice in general.

There are many more factors beyond the shinpaku and its size that are involved in qualifying good sake rice. But the shinpaku is the most visible, if not the most talked about.

Note, too, that one can make decent-to-good sake from regular rice. It takes a good toji and good tools, but just a few of the many examples of table rice from which decent sake is brewed are Koshihikari, Sasanishiki, the illustrious Kame no O. So one can indeed make decent sake from table rice. It’s just easier to do so with real sake rice.

Finally, the question often arises, if a brewer is using table rice, why do they bother to mill down to 70, 60 or even 50 percent of the original size? If table rice has no shinpaku, isn’t that meaningless and wasteful?

The answer lies in the fact that in truth, all rice to some degree has more starch in the center and more fat and protein near the surface, whether or not this is manifested in a visible shinpaku. It is just that this is all more distinct in sake rice; much more starch is in the center, and much more of the fat and protein is near the outside of the grains.

So more milling will have a positive effect on table rice as well when it is used in sake brewing, just not as pronounced as with good sake rice. As usual with sake-related things, it’s all a tad vague.

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Sake Professional Course
in Japan 

Tuesday, January 10 ~ Saturday, January 14, 2017
Recognized by the Sake Education Council

No sake stone remains left unturned

“Quite simply, the best and most thorough sake education on the planet.”

From Tuesday, January 10 to Saturday, January 14,  I will hold the 14th  running (and 38th overall) of the Sake Professional Course in Japan.

The Sake Professional Course in Japan is far and away the best possible sake education in existence. Three days of lecture and tasting, each evening capped off with dinner and fine, fine sake, followed by two days spent visiting four sake breweries of different size and scale – punctuated again with fine sake and a great meal each evening make this course as comprehensive as it could be. If you are serious about sake, and especially about working with sake, there is no other course for you; this is it. Satisfaction is guaranteed.

The course is recognized by the not-for-profit organization The Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered near the end of the week.

The course will be held from the morning of Tuesday, January 10 to the evening of Saturday, January 14,2017, and will be focused in Tokyo, but with a two- day excursion to the Osaka – Kyoto – Kobe area to visit four sake breweries of various scale. Geared toward professionals, but open to anyone with an interest in sake, this course will begin with the basics, and will provide the environment for a focused, intense, and concerted training period. It will consist of classroom sessions on all things sake-related, followed by relevant tasting sessions, four sake brewery visits, and exposure to countless brands and styles in several settings, both in comparison to other sake, and with food. Participants will stay together at hotels in Tokyo and Osaka. Lectures will take place in a comfortable classroom, and evening meals will be off-site at various sake- related establishments.

The goal of this course is that “no sake stone remains left unturned,” and the motto is “exceed expectations.”

During the three classroom days, we will discuss various aspects of sake and the sake world, including grades, production, rice, yeast, koji, water and more. Tastings specific to the just-discussed topics follow each lecture, thereby allowing participants to understand with their senses the theory just presented. Participants will not simply hear about differences based on rice types or yeast types, they will taste and smell them. Students will not only absorb technical data about yamahai, kimoto, nama genshu, aged sake and regionality, they will absorb the pertinent flavors and aromas within the related sake as well.

Food and sake, the state of the sake-brewing industry, the culture and history suffusing sake are regionality are just a few more of the wide range of topics to be covered. Every conceivable sake-related topic will be touched upon, and each lecture will be complimented and augmented by a relevant tasting session.

Participants will also be presented with a certificate of completion at the end of the course.

The Tokyo classroom venue is the Japan Sake and Shochu Producers Association in the Shimbashi area.

The cost for this five-day educational experience is ¥190,000. This includes all instruction and materials, as well as evening meals with plenty of sake each night. Other meals, transportation to and from as well as within Japan, and hotel are not included in the tuition. To make a reservation or if you have any questions at all, please send an email to John Gauntner at sakeguy@gol.com .

For more information, a downloadable pdf announcement and a view of the daily syllabus, please go here . Testimonials from past participants can be found here as well.

Yamada Nishiki. One cannot tread far into the sake world without encountering the name of the most important sake rice in existence today. Yamada Nishiki.

It is the “king of sake rice,” there is no challenger in sight. It is the best choice for top-grade sake for a handful of reasons, and it is as expensive as it deserves to be. Yet, while it is admittedly deserving of its reputation, it can be a bit “in your face” sometimes. Yamada this and Yamada that, yada yada yada. (Yamada yamada yamada?)

But, what is it, really? What is behind its fame and success? From whence did it come and when? What, f’gad’s sake, is the big deal? I mean, it’s rice, right?

Indeed, it is just one variety of sake rice, of which about one hundred exist today. And it is the most grown sake rice, with about 1000 of the 1200 kura in Japan using at least some. But note, it is not by any stretch of the imagination the only game in town. There are plenty of other sake rice varieties that are interesting and lead to outstanding, deliciously enjoyable sake. The point of this article is not to worship Yamada Nishiki nor to idolize it, but to present some background as to what it is and why it is.

Taking a half-step back, let us recall that sake rice is as different from table rice as good wine grapes are from the fruit we buy at the grocery store. It is larger, has less fat and protein, and more starch which is centered in the grain, thus allowing the offending components to be more easily milled away and removed from the equation.

Most sake, in fact, is not made using sake rice. The 65 percent of the market that is non-premium (if enjoyable!) sake is made using much less expensive table rice, i.e. rice for eating. And much of that is perfectly enjoyable sake. Even some premium sake is also made with table rice; it is possible to make very decent sake from such rice.

However, the truth is that it is immensely easier to make good, tasty sake from proper sake rice. And not only is most premium sake is in fact made using sake rice, but in order to make great sake you must have great, proper sake rice. End of story. Full stop.

Furthermore, the better the sake rice the easier it is to make good sake, and great sake. Even within the realm of sake rice – and even within the realm of one variety of it – there are greater and lesser producers, harvests, regions, fields and grains.

Better might mean larger, more starch and in a manageable position and a manageable size  within the grains, solubility that is just right, and more. Of course, price will vary with that quality, and the quality of the grains in even one single field will vary too. (They will be separated by size and other criteria, and a good or great field will have more great grains than a ho-hum or mediocre one.)

So wuzzup with Yamada Nishiki? Yes, it is big, even for sake rice. And it has an ideal-sized and centered starch center (known as a shimpaku, which means “white heart”) enabling it to be easily milled so as to remove the fat and protein and leave the starch behind.

During fermentation it dissolves readily – but not too readily. It is harder to grow than regular rice, but not nearly as challenging as some other types of sake rice. And, of huge importance, it is predictable. Brewers know how it is going to behave – or at least, a bit more so than with other rice types. One reason for this is that it is so widely used that there is data out the wazoo.

What does sake made with Yamada Nishiki taste like? It has breadth and depth, and flavor that billows into the expanses of one’s palate. It has a wide range of flavors that somehow work together well, often with ideal levels of sweetness and umami. However, it is extremely important to remember that the range of flavors and aromas is massively wide, since in the end rice is only half the story. The way the brewer manipulates, directs and coaxes the rice through the production process is, as they say, “the rest of the story.”

Just like any agricultural product, each variety of sake rice grows better in some regions than others, and has climates and soil types within which it thrives. Often these can be small and vary with just a short distance. And the best Yamada Nishiki undoubtedly comes from Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan, within which sits the city of Kobe.

Even within Hyogo there are regions, villages and even plots of land that yield superior Yamada Nishiki rice. And the two best villages in the region, country, world and Universe for Yamada Nishiki are Yokawa and Tojo. If you remember two place names related to top-notch Yamada, let it be those: Yokawa and Tojo. But as is always the case with sake, it’s not that simple.

Yokawa is a township in the city of Miki in Hyogo Prefecture. However, Tojo no longer exists, at least not officially. (So, yes, you are being asked to remember the name of a place that no longer exists. Ain’t sake fun?)

Tojo was a region that was annexed during a spate of consolidation of sparsely populated municipalities that took place in Japan a few years back. So now, what was the township of Tojo is currently the city of Kato. However, the Yamada Nishiki from Tojo was so damn good that it had branding power. So the growers of the region formerly known as Tojo banded together and registered “Tojo-grown Yamada Nishiki” as a registered trademark. So Tojo-grown Yamada Nishiki exists even if Tojo itself no longer does. Ain’t sake fun?

Why does it grow best here? A veritable plethora of reasons! The soil is rich in minerals. The climate is perfect, and the Rokko mountain range to the south isolates the area just enough to make the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures significant, which sake rice prefers since this climactic condition helps the starches accumulate in the center of the grain.

Yokawa-cho in particular is high in elevation, and the growers there use rice fields cut into the mountainside like a set of descending shelves, which lets the water flow down through the fields smoothly.

From whence did it come? Yamada Nishiki was created in 1936 as a crossbreed between two other rice strains, one being Yamadaho. This was also a great sake rice, but was too tall and lanky and frustratingly difficult to grow. So the prefectural agricultural research center at that time (which has since morphed into a broader organization but still exists in spirit) crossbred it with a shorter, sturdier sake rice called Tankan Wataribune. This made the progeny that became Yamada Nishiki more manageable and better in many ways.

Sake rice can be shipped all over the country, and brewers from northeast to southwest seek Hyogo-grown Yamada Nishiki for their top grades of sake. Not all, mind you, but many. However, Yamada Nishiki is also grown in many other places in Japan, some almost as well as Hyogo. In fact, 33 of Japan’s 47 prefectures grow at least some Yamada Nishiki, although a full 60 percent of all grown comes from Hyogo.

Interestingly, though, Yamada Nishiki seeds have never officially left Hyogo Prefecture. This is significant because, in order to put a premium grade of sake on the label, a brewer must use rice that has passed a certain level of inspection. And in order to have rice inspected, the rice must be registered with the local authorities, and the seeds must also be sourced from a proper source. It is all a bit gray, sometimes even to sake producers.

So if the seeds never left Hyogo, how do other prefectures know that what they have is the real thing? And why do other prefectures recognize it? Hm. Not sure about that. Let’s chalk that up to the mystique suffusing this venerable rice and sake in general.

Also, credit must be given to the largest sake brewers in the country, the current-mass producers of sake in the Nada region in Hyogo. It was they that drove the production of this standout rice from the start. When their technology began to help make decent sake with less expensive rice, Yamada Nishiki became more available to the rest of the sake industry. As is too often the case, their significant role may be unappreciated.

All of the above combines to create the legend, the reputation, and the mystique that surrounds and suffuses Yamada Nishiki. So next time you come across it – and that should not be long if you drink sake on anything remotely resembling a regular basis – bear in mind it is not just another rice. It’s Yamada Nishiki.

Would that there be a tokubetsu junmai, Fodder?…

The late, great comedian George Carlin, in a skit called “I used to be Irish Catholic,” speaks of a time
when he and his friends would ask a priest named Father Russel weird questions during what they called “heavy mystery time.” One such deftly crafted conundrum concerned “Easter duty,” or receiving communion during the Easter season. George himself tells it with a thick New Jersey accent, rendering it much funnier than mere prose. Nevertheless:

“Hey, hey, hey Fodder! Hey, uh, suppose that you didn’t make your Easter duty and it’s Pentecost Sunday, the last day, and you’re on a ship at sea. And the chaplain goes into a coma! But you wanted to receive. And then it’s Monday, too late… But then you cross the International Date Line! Would that there then be a sin, Fodder?”

I remember this story each time I talk about the grades of sake called tokubetsu junmai and tokubetsu honjozo.

In short, tokubetsu means special, so tokubetsu junmai is special junmai, i.e. a bit better than regular junmai (but not quite as good as junmai ginjo), and tokubetsu honjozo is special honjozo, i.e. a bit better than regular honjozo (but not quite as good as ginjo). And, importantly, there are legally defined rules that determine what makes them special.

So, a junmaishu or honjozo can be tokubetsu, i.e. special, if it conforms to any one (or more) of three rules. One, it is made with 100% proper sake rice. Two, the rice used has been milled to ginjo levels, i.e. to 60% of its original size or better. And three, “something else special, approved as such, and listed on the label.”

The qualifying point will almost always be one of the first two above. Like, 99.9999 percent of the time, it will be. But the possibility exists that there is some bizzare-o reason a sake is qualified as tokubetsu. However, for all intents and purposes, we can forget about that third rule.

But when lecturing about these wonderful and under-appreciated two grades, there is invariably someone who wants to get to the very bottom of all this, and understand it with crystal clear clarity. Sake doesn’t roll that way, but nevertheless, they want to try to nail it down. So (s)he will come up with all kinds of weird concoctions and ideas, and will ask, “Would that then be enough to call it a tokubetsu?”

It might. It might not. It would be up to the folks in the National Tax Administration. But it is all but moot since almost without exception what qualifies a sake for tokubetsu will either be ginjo milling, the use of sake rice, or (commonly) both.

In fact, the only exception I recall ever having seen was a junmai-shu mixed with a slurry of daiginjo nigori-like dregs. Approval was received, the label explained it, and the sake sold as a tokubetsu junmai. But, really: whatevuh. It was an anomaly.

It needn’t be that difficult nor complex. Just bear in mind that, for all intents and purposes, tokubetsu junnmai and tokubetsu honjozo are legally defined grades that are special by virtue of having been made with 100% proper sake rice or by being made with rice (not necessarily proper sake rice) milled to ginjo levels, i.e. down to 60% of the original size or more. And often, it conforms to both of these rules.

Why am I putting so much energy into this explanation? Because tokubetsu junmai and tokubetsu honjozo are some of my favorite sake. They are clearly a cut above the simple grades below them, but they do not conform (get sucked into?) the ginjo-flavor-and-aroma borg above them. Plenty of almost-rustic character, lots of interesting things happening in their flavor profiles, but still quite refined. While there are comparatively fewer products in these two grades, they are very much worth exploring and spending time with; eminently enjoyable.

If these are that good, why then don’t the brewers that make them bump them up just a notch and sell them as ginjo and junmai ginjo? Surely most of them would qualify, and if not, could be tweaked to do so!

Indeed, this is true. There are a handful of possible reasons, and one is that often breweries have products in the ginjo and junmai ginjo realms that are standard and sell well. To introduce another sake in the same category could confuse consumers. Or perhaps by backing the specs off just a bit, a product like a tokubetsu jumai or tokubetsu honjozo can sell for a bit less, at a different price point. And surely, there are other well-considered reasons as well.

But in the end, just remember that tokubetsu junmai and tokubetsu honjozo are knocking on the door of junmai ginjo and ginjo, and that in all practicality their legally-defined specialness derives from either sake rice or ginjo milling.

But yes, once in a blue moon, there may be another qualifying reason. And so we can continue to ask, from time to time, after stating a curious if appealing set of circumstances, “Would that then be enough to call it a tokubetsu?”

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Sake Professional Course in New York City, December 7 to 9

The next Sake Professional Course is scheduled for New York City, December 7 to 9. The venue is smaller than usual so that only 40 seats are available.

More information is available here, and testimonials from graduates can be perused here as well. The three-day course wraps up with Sake Education Council supported testing for the Certified Sake Professional (CSP) certification. If you are interested in making a reservation, or if you have any questions not answered via the link above, by all means please feel free to contact me.

This will be the last Sake Professional Course this year (after all, it does take place in December!); the next one after that in the US will be next spring.  If you are interested, feel free to send me an email to that purport now; I will keep track of your interest!

Sakaya Banryu.

This little expression says so much, and holds so much veracity in the sake world. What it literally means is there are ten thousand ways to make sake. What it implies is that, even though all brewers are doing their best to make good sake, each kura does things a little bit differently. No two places do it the same.

It is not uncommon at all to have two brewers that have the very same goal, but do things in the exact opposite manner to achieve that goal. Nor is it unheard of to have something that has long been accepted as common sense to be shown to actually be the wrong way to do it. And herein lies one of the most fascinating aspects of the sake world. We’ll never get it all down. We’ll never get bored.

Let’s look at an example that has been garnering attention for a couple of years.

When sake is made, the first step is milling the rice. In particular for the special sake rice used in making premium sake, milling removes the fat and protein hovering in the outer regions, leaving only the starch in the center of the grains behind. Especially for premium sake, this must be done ever-so-gently, so that the milling process does not crack or break the rice. That would be a bad thing, for many reasons.

However: the milling process itself employs friction, which means heat, which means that the rice gets dried out. That alone makes the rice more fragile, and more susceptible to structural damage.

Next, the rice will be soaked to very precisely adjust the moisture as well as the distribution of that moisture within the grain. Like, more moisture in the center, where the starch is and where the enzymes in the koji mold need to go, and less moisture near the outside of the grain.

And herein comes the reversal of what has been considered common sense for decades upon decades, if not longer.

It used to be, and still is for many, conventional thinking that soaking the dry rice just after having been milled would cause the rice to crack as the water rushed in to the overly dry rice. So what everyone did, and what most brewers in fact still do, is to leave the rice sitting around for about two weeks. It sits in controlled conditions and in semi-porous paper bags, and slowly absorbs moisture from the ambient environment so that when it is later soaked, it is not so parched and therefore less likely to break or crack. It’s just the way everyone thought it had to be done.

Enter the rice-milling-machine company Shin Nakano. While they have a comparatively small share of the market, they focus more on sake rice milling machines rather than the machines for general rice milling, and put more R&D into sake rice milling as well.

And they came out with scientific evidence from their testing that actually the opposite is true. In other

Rice bag label

words, data showed that by wrapping the just-milled rice in plastic to actually prevent it from re-absorbing more moisture, there was less cracking and breakage of the rice when they did wash and then soak it. Less breakage. Wow. Whodathunkit.

At first, just a few brewers had the courage to try it this way, but as of last year, Shin Nakano has apparently been conducting seminars to demonstrate to more and more brewers the merits of going against the grain, so to speak, pun most definitely intended.

Some of the brewers to whom I have spoken are still reticent; others have totally embraced this new-fangled method, including many of the young whippersnappers in the industry (read: its future). But all are at least taking the scientifically sound data seriously.

Is this a major change that will spin the sake-brewing world upside down on its north and south pole axis? Nah. Not at all. But it is still fascinating that after all these decades something new can be discovered that makes it easier to make great sake, and that has been anathema until very recently.

Sakaya Banryu. Ten thousand ways, indeed.

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Sake Professional Course in Florida, August 17-19

Thanks to everyone’s support and the current popularity of sake, the Sake Professional Course in Las Vegas, June 1-3, is full. The next Sake Professional Course is scheduled for Miami Beach Florida, August 17-19, at the Shelborne Wyndham Grand Hotel, within which sits the South Beach Morimoto Restaurant. This is the first Sake Professional Course to be held in this part of the country and promises to be a particularly enjoyable running of the course.

More information is available here, and testimonials from graduates can be perused here as well. The three-day course wraps up with Sake Education Council supported testing for the Certified Sake Professional (CSP) certification. If you are interested in making a reservation, or if you have any questions not answered via the link above, by all means please feel free to contact me.

Following that, the next one is tentatively scheduled for the fall in the northeast part of the US. If you are interested, feel free to send me an email to that purport now; I will keep track of your interest!

…and why is it in so many sake rice names?

There are, at present, perhaps 100 varieties of sake rice out there. A few new ones are born (crossbred) each year, and a few fall out of production, and therefore out of official existence. And of those 100, a disproportionately high number have the character for “nishiki” (pronounced closer to neeshki) in the name.

There is of course the most famous, Yamada Nishiki. But also there are Miyama Nishiki, Hattan Nishiki, Oyama Nishiki, Kinmon Nishiki, Saka Nishiki, Toyo Nishiki and even Hakutsuru Nishiki. Then there is Misato Nishiki, Kita Nishiki, Senbon Nishiki, Tosa Nishiki, Yume Nishiki, and yet a few more nishikis out there as well. You probably get the point by now. Interestingly, this character does not make an appearance in eating rice, just in sake rice. At least, as far as I can ascertain things.

So, just what is a nishiki anyway, and what is it doing in our sake rice?

The most commonly found translation in Japanese-to-English dictionaries
is “brocade.” Okay. Fine. But that doesn’t really help much either. I mean, what, really, is a brocade? A similarly typical dictionary check resulted in this: “A class of richly decorative shuttle-woven fabrics, often made in colored silks and with or without gold and silver threads.” Oh; okay. That helped.

To me, a brocade is a beautiful cloth or tapestry hung on the wall, usually with some meaning involved in it – like, it represents something or has a story behind it. Kind of like a tapestry but richer in appearance. I learned a lot more about brocades in researching this, but never found out why they might be in so many sake rice names. But then I met a farmer who is also sake brewer.

Yuichi Hashiba is his name, and his brewery is Izumibashi Shuzo of Kanagawa, brewing a sake called Izumibashi. And he explained it.

Rice is planted sometime between April and June, and harvested sometime between August and October. Most sake rice is planted later and harvested later than most eating rice. Most, that is. But when harvest time comes around, be that August, September or October, one can stand on the edge of expansive rice fields and look out on the golden ears of rice that hang over in their ripeness, awaiting the sickle. Or a combine, which is more often the case these days.

When I visited Hashiba-san last fall, we strolled out on narrow lanes separating fields of Omachi, Yamada Nishiki, and Kame-no-o.

“Look out at all that,” he began. “See that beautiful golden expanse of sake rice? Look at all those hanging ears! Duddn’it all just tell a story? Duddn’it look like something you could hang on a wall as a show of glory and success?” You could see by the passion in his eyes that he indeed meant it.

And as we gazed out upon these acres of golden ears of rice bending in anticipation, the wind blew, causing the whole scene to move in undulating, golden waves. It looked like… well, like a brocade of rice surging and swelling in gentle waves. It looked like a nishiki, actually.

All it took was one explanation with a rice farmer / sake brewer as we stood at the edge of his fields on an October evening as the wind gently blew. It was clear why so many sake rice types have the character for brocade in their names.

Being early July, it is still a couple-few months before we can see this again. But it is a beautiful scene, and one that will remind us when we see it that the next sake-brewing season is, again, just around the corner.

Certainly most readers are aware that rice is not just rice, and that sake rice is better for making sake than regular “table” rice. And surely most readers are also aware that there are various varieties of sake rice, each with its attendant flavors and brewing characteristics. And doubtlessly, most readers know that for lots of reasons, Yamada Nishiki is widely considered the best – even if it is decidedly not the only game in town.

But did you know that not all Yamada Nishiki is created equal, and that there are in fact twenty four different grades of Yamada Nishiki? Well, sort of, anyway…

The “sort of” caveat comes about because not everyone agrees on all aspects of the system that has been set up. On top of that, while there are indeed 24, there is not an absolute hierarchy or order amongst them, as some exist in parallel, and others exist only unofficially.

Let us start with the easy stuff. Rice is usually inspected by the government for quality. The things that are assessed are size, the number of grains with a visible shinpaku (starchy center), the number of cracked grains, the number of undeveloped green grains, and more.

Most rice for eating has three classes, san-to (3rd class), ni-to (2nd class) and itto (1st class). Sake rice has two more on top of that, toku-to (special class) and toku-jo (top special class). Then there is of course the inevitable amount of rice that is not even inspected, for one reason or another. This adds up to a total of six different grades of rice (including not even inspected, that is), and this will apply to any sake rice out there.

Note, if a sake is not made with an inspected rice, the brewer cannot put a special grade name on the label. In other words, if the rice is not at least inspected then it cannot be sold as a ginjo, a junmai or a honjozo. (Let it suffice to say that this point is a rabbit hole to be saved for another newsletter.)

So we have six grades for all sake rice, grown anywhere in Japan.

Next, let us focus on Hyogo, the origin of Yamada Nishiki rice. Hyogo is also where it grows best – but note it can be (and is!) grown in many other prefectures as well. Even within Hyogo, there are a few villages nestled next to the mountains that have perfect climactic conditions for growing Yamada Nishiki, and a couple of villages – even a couple of fields – from which the absolute best stuff comes.

Over time, a system of ranking these regions came into existence. It was naturally enough created and driven by the farmers that produce Yamada Nishiki, through the local agricultural cooperative. It was and is also supported at least a bit by the Hyogo Prefectural Government.

In short, the few fields that consistently produce the absolute best Yamada Nishiki are designated at as “Toku A,” (Special A) fields. Those in the immediate vicinity that are almost as good but not quite there are called “A” fields. Others in Hyogo that are not in the area are called “B” fields. And fields growing Yamada outside of Hyogo are doing it in fields called “C” fields.

Note, though, two things. One, only the top two are commonly used. In fact, I only recently heard of a brewer speak of B and C fields, and know that there are others who do not use that nomenclature at all. It is not law nor obligatory. And two, even the “Special A” and “A” designations are based on agreements amongst the farmers. While they take practical and legal measures to protect and promote this system, it is not the law nor official in any other sense. Also, the fact that the system is recognized at all is proof of the quality of the rice that comes from that region. If the rice were not that good, everyone would just ignore them.

This ranking of rice paddies is another rabbit hole, albeit it a very interesting one. You can read more about that system, called the “muramaiseido,” here if you like:
http://www.sake-world.com/html/sw-2009_3.html

One more thing to note: while the above ranking of fields is an unofficial system, the inspection of rice is a very official and very regulated system. There are concrete, objective points that are observed and recorded, and they are more or less the same for every inspector everywhere.

So we have four grades of fields, and six grades of rice. That gives a total of 24 possible grades of rice. However, most of them we will just never see.

If the ranking of the field is listed on the label, we only really see “Special A” or “A” on a label. No one will write “B” or “C” for all to see. This is for two reasons: one, no one brags about being second or third, and two, the field designation system is only officially recognized inside the “Yamada Nishiki Club,” (my term!) or those that own and till the best fields. No outside of their considers or calls their fields B, and no one outside considers their fields C fields. “That’s a Hyogo thing,” disdained one brewer north of Tokyo in response to my question about his home-grown Yamada.

Also, many that grow their Yamada Nishiki outside of Hyogo are proud of that. And rightfully so! “It’s local, man, and it’s good.” So we often see the region listed on the label, even when it is not Hyogo. My point here is that just because it is not Hyogo-grown does not at all mean it is not great. Hyogo just markets better as a region. But I digress.

Also, there is lots of overlap between these regional rankings and inspected grades. There is not a linear progression across all 24 types. In other words, it is very, very likely that the “special class” rice of a good field outside of Hyogo is better than the “1st class” rice of a Hyogo field, and that the “top special class” of a field in Hyogo but not from one of the “Yamada Nishiki Club” fields is better than lots of the special class from that hallowed region. The permutations of this argument are endless, and I think readers can see the complexities involved.

Paring it all down to what is really important, if you see “Toku A” field designation for Yamada Nishiki, and / or “Tokujo” grade rice listed on the label, you know you have something great in your hands. And bear in mind that there are, if we count ’em, 24 different possibilities about sources for Yamada Nishiki. But just remember it is a great rice, and if it has been used to make the sake before you, it has a head start on many other sake.

Beyond that, absorb what information has been provided, and enjoy it. That’s enough.

In a recent newsletter about aged sake, I read about how the system used to tax sake brewers that was in place from the late 1800s until just after WWII was one that indirectly but strongly discouraged brewers from even thinking about trying to age sake. While this system is long defunct, it left the industry with decades of catch-up self-education on the results of aging, yet at the same time shaped the sake we enjoy today.

In short, back then brewers had to pay tax to the government on sake as soon as it was pressed, in other words, as soon as the rice lees has been filtered away after fermentation was complete, i.e. as soon as it became proper sake. Note, it did not matter whether the stuff ever got sold. As soon as it came into existence, the government demanded its due taxes.

The problem was – especially back then – what if it went bad after that, or if a tank leaked or it got spilled. Too bad, intoned the Ministry of Taxation. And so ensued clandestine tactics.

In order to make sure that every taxable drop was accounted for, the government would measure everything at every stage. (They still do, more or less, today.) They operated on the basic assumption that brewers were fundamentally trying to avoid paying taxes. And so genmai (unmilled, “brown” rice), white (i.e. milled) rice, koji, liters of moto (yeast starter), and liters of moromi (fermenting mash) all had to be carefully measured and recorded for each batch.

After reading the article, I spoke to the author, a now semi-retired (one never really leaves the sake world!) former director of a large-ish, dignified and diverse brewery of some means. He explained the details of how things proceeded.

“Back then,” he began, “it was a game, really. Everyone was doing it!” His smile was laced with some embarrassment, much like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, as he continued.

“In truth, we felt we had to – or at least had the right to – make up for what was sure to be at least some inevitable losses, be it from inadvertent spillage or leakage, sake going bad from incomplete pasteurization, or just other unexpected mishaps. We had to at least make up for what we were sure we would lose!”

So the brewers would try to hide part of the moromi, or hide the sake as it was being pressed, and went w-a-y out of their way to come up with creative ways of doing this. And of course, there were in fact occasionally incidences of the moto or moromi spilling or leaking. But it was hard to convince the tax man of the veracity of this.

They would have none of that nonsense, and would scour the kura looking for where it was being hidden. Never limiting their searches to the main brewing facilities, they would go into the living quarters of the kuramoto (the owning family) and poke around in closets and storage rooms, and if they did not find anything there, they would search for the unaccounted volumes in the homes of neighbors and relatives. It seems to have been quite the game!

The drag for the brewers was that, again, from time to time there were real accidents. The wooden tanks in use back then might have cracks, so that months after filling a tank with sake for maturation, they could open the tank and find it empty. Whoops! Or the wooden stopper at the bottom, if not properly inserted, might pop out and a whole tank’s worth of ambrosia could disappear in a couple of hours. Or warmer-than-expected temperatures could spoil a sake not yet pasteurized. Yet they could expect no redress from the tax man for this. Hence the perceived need to pre-emptively account for that via whatever means available to them.

And this is why the Zoukokuzei system was so hard on the brewers. Fortunately, the government is more reasonable these days, and brewers are now taxed on what they sell and when they sell it. And this has opened up brewers’ willingness to at least experiment with aging sake. We can at least understand their reticence of brewers long ago, since once they have paid taxes, if the aging thing did not go well, they were out a significant amount.

This seems to me to have affected sake as we enjoy it today. Very little sake is matured today, much less than might have been had brewers been permitted the leeway to experiment over the decades. As such, sake has developed in such a way that it is best enjoyed relatively young, albeit with some exceptions.

And I, for one, am OK with that.