Saké & Rice Wine
Hi all!
We're stocking a small number of Sakes and Rice Wines for Sushi night
and hopefully we can expand upon them. I would love to give y'all some
education but I'm a super novice and have spent the last week trying
to cram as much information as I can on the subject into my head, so I
thought it would be easier to just give y'all the links I've been
reading, some more general links and then some specifically about the
producers we're pouring. We have two sakes, and one Korean style rice
wine from a small producer in Brooklyn.
First off, a primer on Sake production:
https://www.kikusui-sake.com/home/en/c/sake.html
All the sake we are carrying is junmai sake, or pure rice sake, as
opposed to honjzo-shu, which is fortified sake. Fortified sake
pre-WWII was seemingly a stylistic choice but after WWII for years it
was the only sake made, in order to stretch the scarce rice supply as
far it could go. In the seventies Junmai sake began to make a
comeback. One person I read compared the rise of Junmai sake to the
the rise of natural wines, but from my reading it was more of a
re-introduction of the style rather than a wholesale rejection of the
other style, and that trying to impose a cultural moment in wine onto
sake is facile and should be avoided. Anyhow, a primer on the style:
https://www.seriouseats.com/sake-school-all-about-junmai-what-is-junmai
Next we have a Korean style rice wine from a young producer in
Brooklyn. I thought rice wine and sake were interchangeable as terms,
but I was wrong!
https://simplycalledfood.com/sake-vs-rice-wine/
Our producer Hana Makgeolli makes entirely organic Makgeolli, a style
of rice wine brewed with a tradional starter called a Nuruk:
https://www.makgeollilab.com/post/what-is-nuruk
Her wines are amazing and for a me a totally mind opening experience.
They are bright citrus, with this amazing light pop-rock texture.
https://www.hanamakgeolli.com/our-sool
The first sake we have is from Japan's first female head brewer, and
just an amazing exciting sake all around. It's made from an heirloom
red rice variety and has a great savory profile.
https://zrswines.com/wine-producer/mukai-shuzo/
The second is from an ultra-tradtionalist sake producer who is also
one of the only bio-dynamic rice farmers making sake.
https://zrswines.com/wine-producer/akishika-shuzo/
I hope this helps!
Cory