By Bruce Rutledge

n some ways, wine lovers have it easy. They know a good bordeaux must be made in the Bordeaux region of France, and the bubbly stuff can’t be called champagne unless it was made in the Champagne district. Sake enthusiasts have to dig a little deeper to find out what goes into their favorite tipple. The complex brewing process renders regionality in sake as just one factor of many.  

Brewers have tended to select the best rice possible whether the crop is harvested close to their brewery or not, and even sake experts often can’t tell what region a sake comes from in a blind taste test. The sake we drink gets its taste from a complex mix of  water, brewing techniques, rice quality, how much that rice is milled and the expertise of the brewmaster.

However, sake brewers are starting to reconnect with the rice farmers in their region, industry sources say, as they search for more regional definition and try to cut transportation costs. This trend has emerged in the last five years or so, says Mariko Iida Yamazaki, executive director of the Japan Prestige Sake Association. It’s part of an overall trend to source food locally when local sources have high enough quality.

For years, the rice most associated with premium sake was grown in Hyogo Prefecture under the name Yamada-nishiki. While this is still considered the top of the line for sake rice, other strains have made big gains. For the last decade or so, the prestigious National New Sake Appraisal, or Zenkoku Shinshu Kampyoukai, judged sake made with Yamada-nishiki rice separately from the others to give those others a fighting chance. But this year, at the 99th appraisal held in May, that distinction was eliminated, reports sake expert John Gauntner on his website sake-world.com.

The upshot of all this is that brewers are more likely to find high-quality rice in their region, and thus regional sake could make a comeback. But even if it does, warns Kiyoaki Kojima of SakeStory in Kirkland, “you cannot determine regionality by taste alone. Too much of the process is interchangeable and complex.”

Hiroyuki Yamazaki, executive director in charge of planning for the famed Otokoyama (Man’s Mountain) brewery on Hokkaido. marvels at the progress sake brewers have made in the last four decades. Forty years ago, there were basically just three kinds of sake made throughout Japan -- they were separated by grades, or kyuu, with the first kyuu being the best stuff, Yamazaki explains. In those days, brewers often used rice from nearby farms and weren’t as picky about quality.

But little by little, brewers began to differentiate themselves and developed premium brands. Soon brewers started getting pickier about the rice they used and were willing to ship in high-grade rice from other prefectures if it could improve the taste of their brew, Miyazaki explains.

Today, Japan’s sake breweries have navigated the complex process to make some amazingly innovative and tasty -- even sparkling! -- sakes that were not imagined four decades ago. The irony is that as Japan’s sake brewers get more technically proficient, sake consumption in Japan has dropped. The Japanese drink beer, wine, whiskey and other libations as well as sake these days, so premium sake makers have started to look overseas to expand their fan base. Just as the world of sake brewing has blossomed, it has also spread overseas, which is a very good thing for North American sake fans.

Read More --

Japan’s Sake World Returns to Its Roots	Blessed with the Best
The Sake Brewmaster: Dedication to the Craft	How Sake Became Cool in the US

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