Sake Talk Anyone?

Shichida Junmai 75 - Tenzan brewery in Saga, Kyushu
rice is milled down to 75%
super ricey junmai, as it warms seems to get more nutty & sweet


Goes very nicely with shuto on cream cheese :slight_smile:

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He’ll be on this podcast sometime next week:

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Oh nice. I wanted to go to the event on Feb 17th. It was my birthday weekend and would have been a fun thing to do. But the family had other plans for me, so. :slight_smile:

Y’know how sometimes delivery people will leave bread, produce or laundry at the front door of a restaurant that has not yet opened for the day?

Exploring a narrow food alley yesterday later afternoon.

Came upon what appeared to be a closed sake shop.

Front door, in plain view.

No Porch Pirates here. Love Japan!!!

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What?? I’m loving this trip of yours.

Care to share the location / address of this shop?

We were walking from Tokyo Tower back to the Strings hotel in Minato-Ku. Half way back, we detoured through this gate to check out the street.

The pin is the gate.

There’s an Ikinari Steak just past the arch.

The wine shop is about 50 meters past the steakhouse, right side of the alley.

My wife claims the sake shop was indeed open, and the wrapped unopened bottles were out as decoration. I’m having a difficult time believing that.

Sorry can’t be more location precise. Neither of us are Japanese literate. Hope this may be of some help.

At Don Quixote today, saw Hennessey Richard for „299000. That’s a great retail price. Very interesting.

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Much appreciated! Looks more like an unagi restaurant showing off their bottles in the window rather than a sake shop! The beer and smoking allowed signs are another giveaway! Makes sense to have their alcohol delivered.

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The Jeff Cioletti interview is online:

In it, he suggests sake can be stored (refrigerated) after opening for months without a change in quality or flavor. Nama/unpasturized sake aside, this seems contrary to much of what I’ve read, heard and experienced


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So desu ne. We were just trip’in down the street and feeling the ‘hood when my side vision picked up this street.

Our current hotel is a hop and a skip from Shinagawa Station. Great radius point for the JR, Shinkansen and N’Ex. Tomorrow, 15 minutes from lobby to N’Ex, another hour to NRT.

Area is surrounded by drink and food options.

Last night, we explored and were tempted by so many of the usual delicious suspects.

We opted for a Classic American ala Japan restaurant.

Tonkatsu with all the trimmings for She. Hamberg Steak on salad, trimmed w/fancy greens for me. Paired with giant Highballs.

Very satisfying sides. Salad, sautéed spinach, tofu and of course, miso soup. Great rice, par for Japan.

A satisfying meal. Back home, Denny’s is a regular stop for a quick meal on any extended road trips. Since this can be considered a road trip of sorts Denny’s?? Sure.

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Without listening to the entire podcast, I would take that theory or approach with a grain of salt or MSG. It may work with Junmai or Honjozo that was aged prior to release. It is obvious he didn’t try it with Dassai
 try opening a bottle of Dassai 50, consume half the bottle or 3/4, then once it reaches room temperature put it back in the refrigerator. Taste it again 3 to 4 days later and judge for yourself.

It’s also very misleading because he doesn’t inform (or perhaps it’s in the podcast somewhere, I didn’t listen) of the storage temperature (very critical here, most home and even restaurant refrigerators would fail this theory quickly), the types of brews that in theory would work (and why), the amount of time the sake is exposed to oxygen even with the bottle cap removed and placed back, and other factors that could have affected the structure and integrity of the sake in the first place (even prior to opening the bottle).

There may be very rare oddball exceptions to this rule. I think something like Yuho Junmai (Ishikawa) would withstand something like this, and maybe Shinkame Junmai (it’s aged 2 years at room temperature before release) or their Hikomago lineup which is aged 3 years. Tamagawa’s Junmai Muroka Nama Genshu nama’s I’m told Philip Harper is perfectly fine if you leave them to sit at room temperature and it will still be ok (after opening I don’t know, it will mellow out quite a bit so it will not taste the same and the brashness is gone for sure with exposure to oxygen, so refrigerating it just slows down the quality change/deterioration a bit).

People wouldn’t do that to wine
especially decanted or aerated wine, put back in a bottle, then put in the refrigerator, and say the quality is still the same a month later, right? I do think oxygen can be a big threat to sake (especially over exposure).

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That doesn’t sound right. @beefnoguy just confirmed it. I saw Heritage had the episode up and was going to listen this weekend. Should I bother? Misinformation and carelessness is damaging when you’re trying to learn something.

So, this perked my ears (?) up, as well.
I had to listen for myself.

I transcribed the following of Cioletti speaking during the podcast.

They do have a huge wine culture out there (in Portland), but sometimes that has gotten in the way because you have people that are so incredibly well-versed in serving wine they think sake has, for lack of a better term, the same shelf life that wine does. So for instance, if you open a bottle of a red wine, you are opening a fast-mover. You’re gonna sell that bottle before the end of the night because you can’t really keep it that long or it’s not gonna be good.
.
But with sake, you can open a bottle, and as long as you’re keeping it at the right temperature, you can have that bottle open for like three months and it is still gonna taste exactly the same. So restaurants don’t have to worry about, “Oh no, if we open this we have to sell it by the bottle because we’re never going to be able to finish this bottle off if people are buying it by the glass.” But, you know, you open it and if people are buying the glass of a 720 ml bottle over the course of three months, you can easily empty that bottle.

With the same caveats mentioned in @beefnoguy’s post (some styles) this goes against everything that I have ever learned about sake and against my personal experience with sake.
I think Cioletti would concede that this certainly does not pertain to nama, shizuku, daiginjo or even ginjo sake. You simply lose all of the characteristics that distinguish the sake and are left with alcoholic saccharine water if you keep a bottle for three months.

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He does go on to “concede” that “nothing ever tastes the same twice.” Hmmm

Maybe his book has a more qualified and extensive discussion on this topic?

Just from personal experience, even if I keep a sake at refrigerator temp and use those wine vacuum stoppers (of questionable value), most always seem to loose something the next day. Did this with the Tamagawa Junmai Muroka Nama Genshu, and it was not the same.

Wines, especially tannic or high acid wines, seem to hold onto their aromas longer after opening.

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worth listening to but as beefnoguy said, take with a grain of salt


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I was in Tokyo last month and also last September. The places that offer by the glass that were very solid were freshly purchased bottles and opened (at most several weeks for some unsold items), and even when they were opened, it was within a week or so for some bottles I tried from. The owners are either sake geeks and/or certified, and they know how to handle properly. Plus they are dealing with product that was handled carefully from the brewery to delivery/transit, unlike sake that is exported to the USA subject to transit/weather/storage conditions/temperatures/and more unknowns. These places turn around sake often enough that they are able to preserve quality to some extent. They usually buy 1.8 L (magnums) and pour from them/open. But they also have specialized magnum storage refrigeration units. Not three months, but at least for the most part, even with magnums that only had 1/2 or 1/3 remaining they still tasted great to me (including nama).

I suspect the author is trying to calm fears of scenarios where this fast turnaround doesn’t happen for the USA, especially for some Junmai and Junmai Ginjo sake. Though it’s still misleading.

I also tasted two sake by the glass at a Ginza sushi restaurant (non Michelin star)
and I could tell one of the sake had pretty much turned to sugar water (and they still served it) although it still had a little complexity (but brief) with dryness in the finish. The other sake I’ve had 3 to 4 times from new bottles, and their BTG version lost so much character that it made the experience less enjoyable. The sake was pretty chille though, so I guess they did everything they could and attempted proper storage. So something went wrong already and they probably violated one of the theorems.

Some sake are brewed and matured at low to sub zero temperatures (degrees C) , but the moment they get exposed to oxygen and cooled down to room temperature the drinking experience degrades significantly.

The cult chaser sake Aramasa is so delicate that if you let it sit past a sweet spot temerature, it turns into sugar water. Sawaya Matsumoto feels that way too. But Aramasa is a bit of an exception because most of their sake are nama, kimoto, and lighter alcohol content (light bodied sake), not built to last
you could age them unopened at sub zero temperatures but once you opened, the quality nose dives exponentially past the short sweet spot window.

The only other outlier I can think of is aged sake / koshu, the brown / golden/ amber liquids aged for at least 5 to 20+ years in low temperature. Still not going to be same as a fresh bottle, but at least those won’t turn into sugar water as easily and won’t lose as much aroma exponentially.

If I were the author I would totally re frame that statement. For example something like: if you have a super brash, funky, masculine, balls to the wall sake that only geeks like but you want to serve it to the general public in hopes they will consume it, open the bottle, pour some out, and put the rest back in the refrigerator at low temperature, and maybe experiment with that so the character changes to a point where it still has value, taste, enjoyment, and can be embraced more widely. A friend and I tried this with a new bottle of a Super Dry +15 or +16 Junmai and it was harsher than the last 3 bottles I had, but after a week from opening and putting it in cold storage it tasted really good. Again, not a rule, just an exception and something fun to try with best judgement.

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Another head-scratcher :thinking: from later in the podcast:

In response to “What do you think about sake breweries in the U.S?”

I think there’s some amazing stuff happening here and it’s a very recent phenomenon. I think, with the exception of Sake One that’s always been making amazing stuff. I truly believe that Sake One is the sake brewery that, uh, it’s the gold standard of American sake breweries. I think everybody should be striving to be as good as they are.

Sake One makes G, Momokawa, and Moonstone and are not usually raved about in the sake nerd community.

image


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I keep resisting to use the caption, “Ain’t nuthin’ but a g thang” for the g sake


But maybe the lyrics are telling of the sake lineup.

“It’s like this and like that and like this and uh”

“You know, and I know, I flow some ol’ funky shit
To add to my collection, the selection
Symbolizes dope, take a toke, but don’t choke
If you do, you’ll have no clue”

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Ok. So, I just finished listening to the whole podcast.

My opinion is that, while I have no doubt that he has true passion for sake and (presumably) wrote a well-researched book, he is not a sake expert. He is a sake fan–just like I am.

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As a fledgling sake fan, I would agree with your assessment.
He says he’s a certified “sake sommelier." So he isn’t presenting himself as just a sake fan.