Over the past two months I have been publishing a series on how to read sake using the vocabulary you already have from wine. Eight pieces. The last one went up today, and it is the one I had wanted to write from the start.
Ten questions — the ten I am asked most often, at tastings, over dinner, in the first ten minutes of a class. Each answered from the regulations and the research rather than from folklore.
Does the rice variety matter the way the grape does?
Is there terroir?
Is there an appellation system?
Is there organic or natural sake?
Why is the alcohol so high?
Why is it all so clear?
Are there sulfites?
Is there a vintage?
Can you guess the region blind?
Why do the prices never climb?
Take the vintage one. There is a brewing year, running July to June, and you will see bottles marked with it — but that is voluntary, and outside the labelling rules entirely. What the rules require is a manufacturing date, defined as the moment the sake was filled into the container and sealed for sale. It is the bottling date. A sake that sat in tank for ten years and went into glass last March will tell you: last March.
And the whole series, in order:
What Is Sake? — four ingredients, and no sugar in any of them.
How Sake Is Made — the sugar and the acid are made by living things.
Reading a Sake Label — most of the label is not for you. Five words are.
Sake Styles, the Wine Way — a wine list sorts by colour. So can a sake shelf.
Temperature and Glassware — ten Japanese words for the temperature of one bottle.
Sake and Food: Where Wine Struggles — it was never the tannin.
Aged Sake: Fault or Beauty? — the compound behind vin jaune turns up here too.
Sake for Wine Lovers — the ten questions above.