A few years ago, I published tasting notes in the International Wine Cellar on a superb set of sakés imported by Vine Connections, an importer based in Sausalito, CA that also specializes in wines from Argentina. As a preface to those notes, I offered a fairly detailed introduction to saké, covering such subjects as how it’s made, types of saké and how to serve it. I thought I’d update this essay for Winophilia readers.
Saké, sometimes referred to as Japanese rice wine, is actually a brewed product made more like beer. The best artisanal sakés are very pure products made from just four basic ingredients: premium saké rice, pure water, hand-made koji and special yeasts. But note that there are an almost infinite number of combinations of rice varieties, water sources and yeasts, and many styles of sake can be created from the same brewed tank. There are saké brewers in virtually every prefecture of Japan; historically, they were established near sources of pure water: mountain streams (sometimes running underground), melted snow (as on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido), natural springs (often featuring water high in mineral content), deep wells, and the like. READ MORE »
