Two Sakes and a Schilcher

S

Saina Nieminen

Saina Nieminen
Inspired by Vinod Vijayakumar's excellent FAQ on Sake that I recently read, I bought the two Sakes we have available here (we also have a Gekkeikan, brewed under license in the US that is absolutely wretched so I didn't count that). We made a bit of fake-Japanese food from mostly local fishes and drunk the Okunomatsus and one more Schilcher.

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Okunomatsu Tokubetsu Junmai 20,80 / 0,72 liters
What first struck me was its purity. It was like the minerality I so seek in my whites: rain water on rocks. The second thing that struck me was how delicate and elegant it was despite a whopping 15,5% abv. The alcohol didn't taste at all. There was a slight scent of banana mixed with the purity, but it was so slight I didn't mind it though usually I find such estery aromas off-putting.

Okunomatsu Junmai Ginjo 7,16 / 0,18 liters

Like the Tokubetsu Junmai, this is a wine of great purity, but this was a darker toned Sake with, instead of banana, a scent of something more savoury: liquorice and grass. Slightly more sweet at 20g/l RS and more acidic, but still pure.

I really can't decide whether I prefer the ethereal purity of the Tokubetsu or the more earthy flavours of the Ginjo. Thank you Vinod for your inspiring posts!

I love a good ros with Sushi, so I also opened up the second of the Schilchers I had. The Weingut Lazarus Schilcher Elegance 2007 ( label ) was again a lovely, earthy scented, deep ros with bright cherry aromas reminding me of Rodenbach's Grand Cru. Lovely acidity as one can expect from 9g/l, but not as extreme as it sounds as it is tempered by 3,4g/l RS and a general ripeness of fruit. Lovely stuff.
 
Is that really how you drank the sakes?

Such huge glasses/pours.

I also wonder what happens to the delicate aromas in such a huge glass. According to your notes I guess the alcohol didn't take over. Maybe you're on to something!
 
Nice pours in those glasses Otto! (I always drink my sake from a decent wine glass too...usually the chard or chianti glass.) Vinod did an excellent job on that report. The Ginjo's to me are heavier set, but can be just as clean and streamlined...or tip over into robust, depending on the maker. I do think that people with a taste for German, Austrian and/or "unusual" whites are usually the first to gravitate towards sake and get into it. Anyway, thanks for the notes...you're right to stay away from Gekkeikan.
 
Rahsaan, yes the glasses are much bigger than the bowls I have usually had Sake served in. But I can't get any scent at all out of the bowls and I wanted to experience the aromas as well, so I used these Riedel Tempranillo glasses. The alcohol wasn't accentuated at all, so I think it was a good experiment and one where I enjoyed the result more than the traditional tumbler. Perhaps the Sake purists will find this abominable.
 
I'm no purist (well, no fruit-flavored sakes, please) but any glass shape which brings on more aromatics compared to those silly chokko's (which seem to be designed for atsukan/warmed mainly) is fine by me. I've yet to see a local restaurant use a wine glass for sake here, but it's what I prefer personally.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Rahsaan, yes the glasses are much bigger than the bowls I have usually had Sake served in. But I can't get any scent at all out of the bowls and I wanted to experience the aromas as well, so I used these Riedel Tempranillo glasses. The alcohol wasn't accentuated at all...
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Sounds good. Doesn't always work with Port, but I can see the logic here.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
I'm no purist (well, no fruit-flavored sakes, please) but any glass shape which brings on more aromatics compared to those silly chokko's (which seem to be designed for atsukan/warmed mainly) is fine by me. I've yet to see a local restaurant use a wine glass for sake here, but it's what I prefer personally.
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I'm so glad to hear I'm not the only to dislike those bowls.

BTW, is sparkling Sake any good? Or is it in the category of fruit-flavoured?
 
Otto, Vinod is the only guy I know to have to have tried any of the new styled frothy sakes (awa-shu), so he'd be a good person to ask. Some of the nigori style (unfiltered)sakes gain a bit of effervescence and as far as I know that's a style thats been around for some time. Lastly, there is "kassei-shu", which to me sounds a bit like the sake version of methode ancestral, but I haven't tried it yet.....want to. There was a thread here on nigori awhile back which gets into some of the technicalities of both nigori and kassei-shu. BruceG has some detailed information towards the end of that thread...

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Personally, I like the bowls or the glass tumblers that are popular at sake pubs in Japan.

Awashu isn't in the infused category, but I don't care for it either - it's very much in the sweet alco-pop style, and that's how it's being marketed.

I don't know for certain that nigori is always unpasteurised, but even so probably not all the yeast is killed off. For a cleaner, drier version of that "effervescent" style, the thing you should try is nama-zake. There are many variations, all have a "live" character to different degrees, and will be labeled with the specific style:

- nama-nama or hon-nama: never pasteurised. The vast majority of sake is twice pasteurised, once before maturation (either in tank or in bottle, depending on the brewer), and once prior to shipping.

- nama-chozo: unpasteurised maturation, either in tank or in bottle.

- hiya-oroshi: pasteurised only before maturation, and as I understand it, only released in the fall. Most nama appear in the spring for some reason.

- nama-zume: pasteurised before maturation, and strictly speaking, before bottling.

There are some other styles that also have more liveliness than regular sake, and may or may not be nama as well:

- muroka: means that it hasn't seen secondary filtration - most sake, after pressing will be filtered with charcoal. Nigori-zake refers more to the size of the filter used in the pressing.

- shinshu: "new" sake. Might or might not have been fined, filtered, pasteurised... but never matured.

- shiboritate: a freshly pressed, bottled and delivered. Usually nama.

- genshu: undiluted or "cask-strength" sake. Usually around 18 - 20% abv.

And then you can mix and match... nama nigori junmai genshu, nama shiboritate muroka, and so forth...
 
Vinod, which of these (if any) retain their liveliness in bottle over time? The November '08 bottled Hiya-oroshi's we had showed quite a diff between the first (consumed in Jan) and the second (consumed in Feb)...as if there was a window beyond which that freshness for which it was designed is taken over by more recognizable maturation qualities.
 
As a general rule, drink nama as soon as possible. And, once opened, try to drink it off within a couple of days. I opened an isshobin (1.8litre) of nama two weeks ago and it was going downhill within a day. I will not be opening nama in that size again (well, except today, since I have another isshobin of nama in the fridge.)

Nama-nama, especially if not stored cold, will actually get livelier over time until it just goes off - it will actually turn cloudy, the live enzymes just flipping out.

I'm not so sure about the singly-pasteurised versions - after all, they are "chozo-ed" - stored/matured by the brewer for some period of time before release. Hiya-oroshi, the fall version, is probably like shiboritate - little to no maturation, so that is definitely worth drinking immediately. Not sure what would happen with an extended cold maturation - that would a fun experiment to do with some 300mls... stick a few bottles of nama at the back of the fridge for a year or two.

Ok... now please direct me to these Brasilians I was promised.
 
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