To be revived or renewed soon. Thank you for your patience.

Sake Tasting Notes
Over the years I have accumulated reams and reams of tasting notes on thousands of sake. However, I have for the most part done this for my own education and experience, and have felt that they were fairly irrelevant to most readers, who could not buy or taste such sake at a store near them. I have instead chosen in my books and articles to focus on introducing and reviewing sake that I knew to be available in countries outside Japan.

However, whether or not people can buy sake I have reviewed, it is better to get the names and basic flavor profiles out in circulation then to let them rot in my notebooks! As such, I will slowly begin to add to this list and let it grow, knowing it will have at best limited usefulness at least for the time being.

There is no rhyme or reason to this list, some you may never taste, many are not available outside of Japan, and there is no particular order. If you are looking for a particular sake, perhaps the best way to do it is to do a quick word search (Control F should do the trick) on the text, and see what pops up.

Note too that the verbiage may not be all that elegant, the information and presentation may not always be consistend, and grammar might even go by the wayside on rare occasions. I have not edited the writing to "submission standards." When tasting, it is hard to be come overly concernced about things like that. Your understanding is appreciated.

As always, I am open to suggestions on how to handle, use or improve this. Thanks, and enjoy.



Posted March 1, 2003

Dewazakura Karasansui (Grade: Honjozo, Yamagata Prefecture)
Flowers grass and moss in the low acid, sustained nose, with very light but lively fruits like papaya in the recesses of the nose. Lots of freshness to the flavor. Strikes the palate in a medium way, with a lot of flavor rising up soon after that. A great but not overly strong secondary aroma with a touch of bitterness and settled earthiness in the back of it. Wonderful, layered and complex, yet overall simple.

Tensei "Furou" (Grade: Tokubetsu Honjozo, Kanagawa Prefecture)
Rice: Gohyakumangoku at 50%, Nihonshu-do: +2.5, Acidity: 1.3, Alcohol: 15-16%. Nose is soft and creamy up front, touch of sweetness, but with a lemony acidity to the recesses. Light, springy, mild acid-bolstered flavor with a creamy sweetness in the middle. Touch of graininess too, dry finish, if a bit of a cardboard touch to it. A very, very faint fruitiness and lightness in the recesses and secondary aromas.

Nadeshiko (Grade: Tokubetsu Honjozo, Yamagata Prefecture)
Nama-zake. Rice: Gohyakumangoku at 60%, Yeast ND, Nihonshu-do: 2.5 Acidity: 1.3 ; Light grains like barley and oats, and raisins too in the nose. Soft and mellow up front, but a good acid-bolstered fruitiness in the back end. Nice and drinkable, nice aromatics. Clean. A very faint umami in the back that is quite nice.

Nasu Dan-dan produced by Shiraso Shuzo of Tochigi, whose main brand is Matsu-no-i.(Grade: Honjozo, Tochigi Prefecture). Light with good acid and lemons and bananas alternating in the aroma. Sweet impact on top, light, more refined than not, more elegant than not. A rising sweetness that is curious, but clean and delicate underneath. Nice bitter trace in the background, and a functional acidity that is not too driving.

Nasu Dan-dan produced by Shiraso Shuzo of Tochigi, whose main brand is Matsu-no-i. (Grade: Junmai Ginjo) Rice: Tamazakae. Nihonshu-do: +3, Acidity 1.0. Mild, but solidly grounded, marshmallow and rice aroma that is overall wide and hovering like a pillow and well connected to the flavor. Grainy, rich but delicate flavor, fairly unobtrusive, likely good with food, simple but well constructed. Mildly sweet.

Nasu Dan-dan produced by Shiraso Shuzo of Tochigi, whose main brand is Matsu-no-i. (Grade: Daiginjo) Rice: not sure, but organically grown, milled to 48%. Nihonshu-do: +4, Acidity 1.3. Pears and pineapples in nose, good staying power, hits palate brightly, rougher texture to the underpinnings. Lively, refined, tasty, and Becomes lighter, cleaner and a bit softer in the mid-palate, with a nice finish. 

From June 30, 2003:

Masumi "Sanka" Junmai Daiginjo (Nagano Prefecture)
Green, lively, fresh fruit, classic  No. 9 yeast aroma, although gracefully restrained. Very slight lactic sweetness in the flavor and recesses as well, but wonderfully clean.

Masumi "Yumedono" Daiginjo (Nagano Prefecture)
Fruity-sweet and nut-laced aroma, delightfully reigned in, very clean, balanced, but yet with an excellent dancing presence and overall lively flavor.

Yuki no Bosha Daiginjo (Akita Prefecture)
One of the most all-around well-brewed and enjoyable sake of the spring sessions. Made with Akita Komachi rice, which is usually not a top-grade sake rice, but in the hands of a brewer like this, it does just fine. A very faint sweetness at the beginning leads to a very tight, focused and compacted rice-like flavor, with a clean and balanced finish. Almost a bit of pine and melon lacing the aroma.

Shida Izumi Junmai Daiginjo (Shizuoka Prefecture)
This is a sake I am becoming increasingly fond of; they seem to be really coming into their own lately. (I believe this is due at least in part to a toji from another well known brewery arriving here.) Full breadth to the flavor, nice grainy touch to the feel, fresh and cherry tinged aroma with a rich sweet tone to the otherwise light flavor.

Shidai Izumi Junmai Ginjo "Muroka Nama Genshu" (Shizuoka Prefecture)
"Muroka Nama Genshu," i.e. unfiltered, unpasteurized, and undiluted. Too often this means a huge, overpowering flavor profile, but not in this case. Honey and ripe cantaloupe in the well-grounded aroma lead into a soft, spreading sweetness well diffused by a nice acidity, with a barely perceptible tart/bitter tone at the end to round out the balance. Hard to find, but thoroughly enjoyable.

Oroku "Hiyaoroshi" Junmai Ginjo (Shimane)
Hiyaorishi (basically) refers to sake that has only been pasteurized once, and not the second (usually pre-shipping) time. Oroku has a faint, goldenrod touch to the color, well crafted through very precise filtering. Pineapples and prunes wrestle in the comparatively heavy aroma. Soft initially, not sweet but not all that dry. Lots of mouth feel, soft and round and heavy in. Viscous and rich, but not over the top, with faint spicy and slightly citric touches in the recesses of your perception.

Naraman Junmai-shu Nama-zake (Fukushima)
An *un*pasteurized sake, i.e. namazake. Plum aroma, with a full but balanced flavor and a moderate acidity that tapers near the end. Made with F701, a yeast used only in Fukushima prefecture, and exhibits the best fruity aspects this yeast promotes. (Discovered with a light pork dish with a mild vinaigrette sauce that was a perfect match.)