MAY 2020 105
Indeed, Ozaki told me, though the trend has been
toward lighter, drier sakes, younger Japanese drink-
ers are starting to embrace new styles. “There’s more
diversity in sake than ever,” he said. “I think it will
continue to expand.”
That was happy news, for I had come to Japan to
explore sake’s wilder side. My quest had started months
before at a Manhattan festival called The Joy of Sake.
There, at tables crowded with premium bottles, I
remained unmoved. Most of the sakes on offer were
daiginjo. Made from rice polished to at least 50% of its
original size (nearly all of it the delicate-tasting Yamada
Nishiki variety) and with a touch of distilled alcohol
blended in, daiginjo is considered sake at its finest. I
found it boring. There was little in its smooth character
to grab this wine lover’s palate. The acid of a cold-
climate white wine, the earthiness of a Burgundy—
where could I find such panache in sake?
Someone directed me to a table near the front. There,
I discovered the oddballs: richer, more rustic junmai
sakes made without added alcohol and with rice milled
to only 70%; sakes resulting from ancient techniques
that accentuate umami notes; sherry-like aged sakes;
sakes made with different types of rice and yeast to
achieve fuller textures and gutsier flavors. Reveling
in this funky panoply, I got hooked. When the winter
brewing season came around, I set off to visit the pro-
ducers of the bottles I had fallen in love with.
I quickly discovered that many of them are wine
aficionados. “I love Auslese Riesling and Chablis,”Shunichi Sato told me. “I like to age sake like wine.”
Sato is the fifth-generation owner at Kaetsu Brewery,
which he runs with his wife, Yoshiko, in the rice-growing
Niigata prefecture, wedged between white-capped
mountains and the Sea of Japan. There, snow was piled
on rooftops. Inside the brewery, I could see my breath.
“This region is good for sake because the cold winters
slow down fermentation,” said Sato. The yeast has time
to develop complex aromas. The area is also noted for
its soft water, ideal for the subtleties of sake making.
“Niigata sake is famous for being clean, light, and dry,”
he said. “But for the person who likes more umami and
fragrance, we make Kanbara.”
Kanbara is the junmai sake that Sato ages at room
temperature in the brewery. He can do it because it is
unusually high in acid, made by going heavy on a key
ingredient: the koji. Aspergillus oryzae, the mold called
koji, contains the enzymes to convert rice starch to the
sugar that yeast eats to make alcohol.
Sato led me to a cedar-lined room where rice sprin-
kled with koji was turning opaque with ferment. Warm
and humid, the room was suffused with a chestnutty
aroma that signaled the presence of amino acids, the
protein elements that impart umami. Wrapped in cloth,
the rice would rest for 55 hours, its temperature rising
with the heat of koji fermentation to nearly 108°F.
For most sakes, koji rice is 20% of all the rice in the
brew. But because it is more acidic than plain steamed
rice, Sato’s mash bill calls for 99% koji rice. And there’s
more: To begin the main fermentation, brewers mixTo star t the
brewing pro-
cess, brewers at
Mioya Brewery
in Hakui mix
water, koji and
steamed rice,
and yeast
culture.PHOTOGRAPHY: MIOYA BREWERY, ISHIKAWA PREFECTURE
0520_FT_Japan_Sake.indd 105 FINAL 3/17/20 5:20 PM