I’ve yet to hear great reasoning in particular types of sake working well with particular types of sushi as enhancements.
This being said, I also think most wine pairings are bullshit (and this is as a very advent wine collector) outside of a couple limited pairings.
And when I say pairing, I mean the pairing enhances each other.
For example : people often say champagne with spicy food or champagne with fried chicken as a pairing. But I don’t think spicy food makes champagne better or vice versa. It’s just the least obtrusive combination.
If you have a particular sake combo that goes particularly well with any particular high end sushi spot’s particular dish in LA where they both taste better because of the pairing, I’m all ears to try it.
Some do. Hitakami Yasuke junmai ginjo, for example. But there are a lot of wines that would pair better with many kinds of sushi than most mainstream sakes, expensive or not.
Shibumi’s drink pairings were way more interesting than those of any sushi place I’ve been. Mostly outlier sakes.
As an avid champagne drinker I am starting to think that no food can make champagne better than it already is!
I do agree, while there are some magic food/drink pairings, most of the time pairings are questionable. With sushi when you look at omakase meal the progression of fish types and seasoning can be quite diverse, and some sake/wine that pair great with lightly seared toro might not work so well for the hikarimono and so on.
Nothing can pair with everything, but some things can go nicely with a wide variety, for example, for me, most real Champagne, Ermes Pavese Blanc de Morgex et de La Salle, soju, old Spätlese or Auslese Riesling.
Same here. I love champagne on its own, and with a great bottle I don’t necessarily want to pair it with anything. Just drink and enjoy. That said, I drink solid, “every day” chanpagnes (and they do exist --many small grower champagnes are excellent values) with all sorts of food, and it is rarely a miss. And the range of foods that pair well with mature Riesling always amazes me. I recall a solo dinner at Commander’s Palace in New Orleans where I asked the sommelier to recommend a bottle that would work well pretty much beginning to end, and it ended up being a Riesling with some age, not crazy expensive, but full flavor with a firm, not especially sweet finish. It went well with everything, maybe because every dish, whether beef or fish, had some creole profile, which apparently matches up with this particular Riesling.
to me these aren’t examples of alcohol that pairs well with a variety of dishes. They don’t enhance what you’re eating and what you’re eating doesn’t enhance these things. They are just things that don’t get in the way of the food you’re eating and the food doesn’t get in the way of the alcohol.
I’m not trying to be combative on this topic, i truly believe alcohol/food pairings are vastly overrated and like @beam said - there really are so few truly magical pairings. So when someone says X is a good pairing to Y, I am always curious why.
So why does the sake mentioned above make X sushi taste better and why does X sushi make that sake taste better?
And why isn’t beer (in particular a lager since it’s the least abrasive) or sparkling water a perfectly good substitute?
I tend to think certain sakes are enhanced by some sushi. For example, a nama muroka genshu tastes better and the flavors really open up (the fruit, the funk, the umami) when you eat lets say a noduguro or a fatty fish nigiri with akazu seasoned rice. I don’t think any sake makes the sushi taste better, but “pairing” them together psychologically might make one think the overall dinner is better.
All good, I wouldn’t call it outlandish, but I do think that sake can indeed pair very well with sushi. Many say simply green tea or beer is best with nigirizushi overall, and those are safe choices.
But here are some ingredients for otsumami or neta that I personally think probably pair best with sake:
ankimo - awesome with the right kijoshu
hamaguri, in part because of the stronger tsume. other (raw) clams can work well with wine.
same goes for eel, unless it’s shirayaki. compared to wine, whose acidity may be a challenge for sansho on top anago.
otsumami such as karasumi or some tsukudani style chinmi
innards or items with funk, like hotaruika, particularly when with a piquant sauce like su-miso or something with kasuzuke
hikarimono (kohada, aji, saba, etc.) - w/ a yamahai or elegant kimoto, hard to see a better alcohol pairing because of the stronger vinegar and fish oil flavors
good quality toothsome whitefish, like kochi, hirame, matsukawa karei, etc.
crab - awesome with many sakes, especially if it’s served, as crab often is, with some sort of vinegar, in this case perhaps a tosazu-gelee, sake is the best choice imo. you can do Jikon, Juyondai, Aramasa, Kikuhime, very expressive with crab, had this at multiple places in Japan. you can also go shizuku - Stella is a decent option, Kokuryu makes a good one too. yes, you could do a very nice blanc de blancs with some age or malo or a good Mosel here, but it’s also sake’s texture and umami with crab’s that augment each other to me. even delicate and fruity junmai daiginjos work well here.
Maguro or katsuo can work with Vosne, Chambolle, etc. I’ve had these pairings recently in Japan and I’ve tried several times to pair a blanc de noirs (Egly, Laval, Roses de Jeanne) with maguro as well, to varying success. Modori katsuo works better, but for hatsu katsuo, it can work well with some toasted element like char on the skin (e.g. hay smoked) or with nori. In the right hands, good akami with aka-shari and a touch of nori underneath can be really nice with pinot noir as well.
But overall I think that wine is generally a challenge to pair with the rice’s vinegar and the soy sauce brushed on top the neta (though a good nikiri will be more generous). I don’t think that good reds work well with a lot of neta just because of the flavors. Many good whites may too much structure or acidity.
For me, pairing a bottle of wine with sushi really depends on the character of the rice. And of course, there’s a diverse array of neta at a sushi meal, and of course sauces/marinades make all the difference. Kind of like pairing duck, volnay can be a no brainer but if it’s peking duck, then the hoisin sauce changes the direction for me, maybe go riesling. So there won’t really be a one-size fits all.
Sake has more rounder, expansive umami and slightly sweet flavor that bridge the vinegar/salt combo in good shari and the umami of the neta. Apart from with some shellfish like crab or items like anago, I’d generally opt not so much for junmai daiginjo with nigiri, but rather a junmai or junmai ginjo - you don’t want too much fruit fragrance with nigiri. I think it’s the sweetness from koji, less overt fruity notes, that makes a harmonious finish with sushi. It’s not that sake isn’t precise, rather its a bit more generous in pairing various seafood than wine, imo, partly because of texture.
Sake also has a texture that works well with slightly thicker or slipperier sauces be it ankake sauce, uni sauce, etc. or servings like chawanmushi that I think others can’t do quite as well. A slippery sauce, for example, botanebi with uni sauce, or lobster with its tomalley aged in xiaoxing wine, is just perfect with sake.
Agreed on most wine pairings.
Recently, here are two unique pairings in sushi meals I had recently (in Japan) that were incredible:
More to your point, they are pairings where both the food and the sake tasted better because of one another.
Braised ankimo with Aramasa private lab “Hinotori” kijoshu. At Nihonbashi-kakigaracho Sugita.
A kimoto kijoshu sake aged in Mizunara barrels. Mellow vanilla sweetness with tropical and fresh mochi notes that were incredible with the ankimo’s round dashi braising liquid. The body and the sweetness were close to the ankimo’s braising liquid, that it made the sauce taste more complete. It also amplified the umami of the ankimo overall to new heights. The key to the pairing here was twofold: 1) the kimoto method adding lactic acidity, so it was not just a sweet kijoshu with honey yes but also sour cream and white pepper. 2) the incredible Gotemba wasabi (used a lot, as instructed) for a “sweet” ethereal lift, not a ton of actual spice, and a fine grained, not-too-dry texture. Great also with the misozuke hotaru ika that was served along side it. Both the ankimo’s creamy texture and the hotaru ika’s slipperiness made the sake’s mouthfeel and finish so good. Really hard to imagine a better alcohol pairing than this. Others try to use a little more direct spice like sansho on top of ankimo as a counter to the sweetness or a vinegar miso to counter hotaruika’s funk, but rather here it was the fine kimoto’s acidity the quality of the wasabi that were gentle ways to balance the dish.
I get your point about pairings simply “not clashing” at times, but here it was a case where the ingredients were augmented, and their essence came forward but was balanced gently, not so much with a stark contrast but rather with a harmony.
Admittedly, this is for otsumami and not for nigiri.
Murasaki uni roll with Aramasa “Invisible Pink Unicorn” (2018). At Sushi Shunji, Motoazabu.
Fat roll of creamy, ethereal murasaki uni (lots of it) with a very fine kijoshu, aged two years. Kijoshu was actually not super sweet, but rather it also had some ethereal lift that extended the uni’s finish. To note: Sushi Shunji does uses akazu in the shari, but you couldn’t tell from the look of it. So, there is a bit of taste there without being too strong, and that worked well with both the uni and the gentle sweetness of the kijoshu. With less uni (a normal sized maki) or a stronger tasting rice, and the pairing doesn’t really work that well, in my opinion.
Also, I do recall quite liking Jikon tokubetsu junmai with sayori (kannuki-size) and a bunch of other nigiri at Sushi Sho in Waikiki. And Kikuhime Daiginjo BY has worked very well with some other sushi meals (it works better at say Yoshizumi than at Sushi Ginza Onodera).
I also recently had Aramasa 2022 Direct Path X-Type (at Sushi Saeki) and S-Type (Sushi Shunji). X-Type was with ika, kohada, toro, and uni. S-Type was with (raw) kurumaebi, kohada, then sayori. I think I liked the S-Type pairing better because the rice at Saeki had stronger akazu flavor. S-Type worked very well with sayori and did admirably with the kohada.
Sorry, I can’t recommend a specific sake pairing in LA right now
at the end of the night, with enough alcohol and good friends, the dinner always ends up better
The joke we make when writing wine tasting notes is that the wine isn’t actually opening up over the course of the dinner, just we are from the wine ha
Aramasa seems like it’s own animal when it comes to pairing due to prevalent tropical sweetness notes that I don’t normally find in other sake. It certainly livens the palate more to me and makes food more receptible than other sake. Kinda like drinking higher acid white burg or chenin.
Yes, and their kimoto style is rather sophisticated, with a nice touch of sourness and even a little bitterness with a lively palette. The No. 6 and Private Lab series are excellent. Less refined than the X, S, or R-types, the Cosmos (Colors seres) is perhaps a bit much for some sushi but I had it with some fatty horse sashimi last month.
4 animals perhaps for the Private Lab
Another Private Lab sake that might do well with pairing is Amaneko Spark might be an excellent choice for appetizers with its effervescence and good acidity. Amaneko is the Flax Cat symbolizing the Egyptian goddess Bastet (Hinotori is supposed to be Horus). I had it a while back with uni, grilled shirako, nori, and kogomi, and then a sashimi dish of isaki kissed with bincho coals. The key being the toasted / grilled elements and the crisp vegetal taste of the fiddlehead fern, and the refreshing liveliness of the Spark. Very unique - like sake (with white koji normally for shochu) x secondary fermentation. I’ve had Gangi several times go-to for some some starter pairings with effervescence, but the Amaneko Spark was much nicer.
Good point about Aramasa’s lively palette and acidity.
Another brewery worth looking into is NICHI NICHI, from Kyoto. I had the junmai daiginjo it with simmered pregnant spear squid with yuzu and the bright lift of the sake and yuzu was glorious.
Too bad you don’t get to enjoy that as much as I do. I can’t give many specific pairings because I don’t take notes, but countless times I’ve had several wines or sakes on the table at once to compare what goes with what. Very often for me some combinations will be synergistic, the food tastes better after a sip of wine and vice-versa.
A lot of wines are best with food, or even not very nice without it.
yeah - I get it. I’m usually a group of 5-6 people at a restaurant and we have anywhere from 6-10 bottles of wine open, so I’ve had ample opportunity to mix and match.
I’ve tasted every notable wine under the sun and tried every food pairing from fried chicken in a parking lot with magnums of Salon to 3 star mich spots with aged DRC and I can remember clearly ONE time where I felt there was incredible synergy and it’s never happened again.
1993 Domaine Leroy Beauxmont with a mushroom truffle risotto by Jeremy Fox when he did a pop up at Animal (pre rustic canyon).
Rest of the time, I’m perfectly content drinking sparkling water in between food/wine bites/sips.
@clayfu whether ordering off a list or bringing your own bottles what is your thought process? Or I guess if you were sharing further thoughts about drinking wine with food what would you say?
If these questions are redundant as you’ve said your piece in the thread I get it.
Usually I’m choosing one, maybe two bottles of wine if I go out to eat so I definitely try to think like first half/second half or what carries through the whole meal
so it’s interesting to me that even when opening multiple bottles you’re still not so concerned about making pairings, or at least it’s not a concern now and maybe it was moreso before
You’ve mentioned in the past not finding pairings crucial and for me that caused a welcome shift in the way I look at a wine list
I’ve had lots of epiphanic pairings. One of my favorites is drinking lousy Frascati from carafes at the wnery with the funky local pecorino with too much lactic acid and grassy raw favas. They compensate for each other’s flaws and weirdly become delicious. I’ll do that this week with the favas from my garden but it won’t be quite as good without the crappy wine and cheese.
Another favorite is a ripe Reblochon or similar with the kind of rustic Bordeaux that’s almost as hard to get here as raw-milk cheese.
Or any mature Bordeaux with good dry-aged beef simply roasted or grilled.
Or some duck confit and fried potatoes in Paris with a carafe of Beaujolais.
Or an old-school jammy Zinfandel with good full-cut Memphis-style barbecued spare ribs.
Or a 1959 Ch. Gruaud-Larose with charcoal-grilled giant Hawaiian prawns (though you’d really need a time machine for that).
