WTN: Yuki No Bosha Junmai Ginjo Sake

Our local wine shop has an annual Sake tasting, which is a most interesting experience. Last week we tasted 8 lovely examples of premium Sake: Junmai, Junmai Ginjo, and Nigori, but no Junmai Daiginjo. All of these were well matched with food samples, and all were very good. However, to my taste, one really stood out, the Yuki No Bosha Cabin in the Snow Limited Release Junmai Ginjo. This Sake is made from Gin No Sei rice that was milled to 50%; it sells for $16 for a 300 ml bottle, and has 16-17% ABV with a Nihonshudo rating of +1.

The first thing you notice about this Sake is the lovely bouquet of fruit and anise. The taste is a light mixture of peaches and strawberries that finish with white pepper. It feels soft in the mouth, and has a wonderfully long finish. All in all, this is a very elegant and delicious Sake.

I first tasted this at the wine shop with fresh salmon and tuna nigiri. At home, I had it with grilled black cod that had been marinated in a simple mixture of garlic, soy sauce and olive oil.

-- Clark

Very interesting! But would you save me some Googling and tell me what "Junmai, Junmai Ginjo, and Nigori, but no Junmai Daiginjo" are? Are they types or grades of Sake or producers? Also I would love to know what the Nihonshudo rating is and how it works?

Thanks and sorry for being lazy and not checking it out myself,
-O-

Otto,

I am quite a rookie when it comes to Sake, and I tend to drink it only occasionally. However, during those times, I find that I enjoy the premium Sake grades the most. That is why I look forward to these Sake tastings at our local wine shop. One of the owners used to travel frequently to Japan for his business and learned quite a bit about this subject.

I found a pretty interesting web site with information about Sake. Give this one a try and see if it answers your questions: http://www.sake-world.com/index.html.

In a nutshell (or rice shell, I guess), the Junmai designation means the rice grains have been milled (or polished) to remove at least 30% of their outer layers, which tend to contain contaminents. If you see a bottle labeled Seimaibuai 65%, it means the rice has been milled by 35% and it can be considered Junmai. Junmai also indicates that the resultant beverage has not been fortified with brewer's alcohol.

The Junmai Ginjo designation means the grains have had at least 40% of their layers removed. The Junmai Daiginjo has at leaset 50% removed. The greater amount of milling produces rice material of greater purity, and will produce higher qualiy Sake.

The Nigori designation simply means unfiltered, and the above designations still apply. A Sake labeled Junmai Nigori would indicated an unfiltered Sake that started with rice milled to removed at least 30% of its outer layers and has no fortified alcohol.

The Nihonshudo rating is an indicator of sweetness, but here is where it gets a bit confusing to me. I have seen references to the scale running from -15 to +15, -5 to +15, -6 to +10, and -3 to +12. It might be that the scale itself is very broad, but in reality the beverages produced fall within a more narrow range. In general negative numbers are sweet and positive numbers are dry, with gradations along the way. It really is a measure of specific gravity, and can be influenced by more than disolved sugars, so it is best used as a general indicator.

One final note of interest from our wine shop. Drink Sake when it is young. They only buy it in the spring when the new shipments arrive from Japan.

I hope this information has been useful, and that you can find some very pleasant Sake as a result.

-- Clark