Learning about sake

The Japanese government has recently decided that sake should be actively promoted as an export product, and the word has gone out to Japanese organisations across the world. The first stirring of activity in London was an invitation to a sake tasting workshop at the Embassy in Piccadilly on Wednesday. 5pm seemed an early start, but that’s the kind of sacrifice one has to make for Japanese culture.

The presentation, accompanied by eight different types of sake, was genuinely enlightening. It assumed the audience already knew a certain amount about sake, and much of it was about how to market sake to foreigners (I only saw one other non-Japanese person there). So here goes:

Sake is often translated as “rice wine”, but we should emphasise that the main ingredient is not rice, but water. Sake depends crucially on high-quality fresh water, just like Scotch whisky. And Japan has plenty of it, because of its high rainfall, which is about the same as the UK’s (we know, we know!). We were also told that to get across the sophistication of sake, we  should put it the context of wine, and explain that there is the same diversity of different types.

We tried junmaishu and daiginjou from the same maker; the main difference is that the rice grains are more highly polished for the latter, getting rid of the rougher outside and leaving only the “pearls” within. (We were encouraged to use the word “pearls”, since Westerners often use words like “ruby” and “garnet” when describing wine.) The junmaishu had a stronger flavour, while the daiginjou had more of that silky feeling you get with vodka. I particularly liked the one from Shikisakura.

We were encouraged to find fruity notes in the sakes we tasted, rather than just describing them as “tasting of rice”. I did manage to detect “mandarin orange” in one or two, but I struggled to find the “hint of strawberry” in one of the others. Unlike wine, sake isn’t actually made with fruit.  But the broader idea, that we need to develop a vocabulary for enjoying sake, seemed fair enough.

We tried two identical sakes made with a five year interval between them. In general sake is not aged in the same way that red wine is, but good sake can benefit from being put away for a while. The older sake tasted subtler, though one might also describe it as more reticent. But I didn’t find the case for “vintage” sake compelling. Actually, I am particularly fond of “nama” (fresh) sakes (“sake nouveau?”), though they are very difficult to find in the UK.

Another question that arises is what sake to drink with meat. The suggested one we tried was described by some tasters as complex; I have to say I didn’t like it at all, and I’m going to stick with a decent bottle of red. But sake takes some beating with fresh (particularly raw) seafood, and I’d certainly happily drink it with raw oysters, or those big French plates of fruits de mer.

The comparison with wine was thought-provoking. There is certainly a huge variety of different sakes, but despite one of them being described as an expression of the “terroir”, I felt that was pushing it. Vines suck up water from deep under the ground, absorbing its flavour; rice is grown in (flooded) paddy fields, so there’s not the same depth of connection with the soil. For me, the attraction of sake is its purity and freshness, rather than its complexity. I hope the new government policy is going to mean lots more opportunities to drink it.