Wine Bazar

California’s Anderson Valley remains one of its least known and most under-appreciated wine regions. In particular I believe it to be under-appreciated for its Pinot Noir, in particular, and in some cases, its Alsatian varieties of wine. I offer a slight caveat to the latter because while Anderson Valley is certainly known for producing wines in the style and varieties of those found in Alsace, France, in my experience they are mixed in quality.

But when winemakers manage to get things right, Anderson Valley can produce some stunning examples of wines that might, in the right circumstances be mistaken for their Alsatian forbears.

Such is the case with the newest release from a little outfit known as Handley Cellars. Perhaps the best adjective to describe Handley Cellars might be “quaint.” This small, family-run operation is located in the heart of the Anderson Valley, just up the road a piece from downtown Philo, at the 19th century Holmes Ranch.

U.C Davis trained winemaker and owner Milla Handley has been making wine since 1982. Handley got her start as a winemaker in the Seventies working at Chateau St. Jean and then later at Edmeades winery when she moved her family to Anderson Valley.

These days, with the help of her family and “co-winemaker” Kristen Barnhisel, who joined Handley in 2004, Handley now produces a modest 14,000 cases a year with fruit from the Anderson Valley estate as well as other sources throughout the valley and further afield. The portfolio includes both a number of Alsatian style wines, Pinot Noir, Sparkling, and dessert wines.

This is the first vintage that Handley has made a Pinot Blanc, however. The fruit is grown on mature vines (planted in the early 90′s) in the Hein Vineyard at the northern end of the Anderson Valley.

After harvesting on a cool morning, the grapes for this wine are pressed directly into tanks where it settles for a few days before fermentation begins. After the primary fermentation to dryness, some of the juice (15%) goes into neutral oak barrels, while the rest goes into stainless tanks for about six months. Only a small portion of the wine goes through a secondary, malolactic fermentation before the wine is bottled.

About 400 cases are made.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Light greenish gold in color, this wine has a nose of cold cream, old paper, and surprisingly, jackfruit. In the mouth, flavors of jackfruit predominate amidst silky textures, nice acidity, and a hint of incense and spiciness on the finish. Utterly lovely.

Food Pairing:
This would be a lovely cheese wine in my opinion, especially with saltier hard cheeses like aged gouda or aged piave.

Overall Score: between 9 and 9.5

How Much?: $20

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

One of my favorite punching bags in the world is the sorry state of California rosé. For some reason, winemakers just don′t seem to be able to produce the beautifully dry, crisp, tart rosés that I have come to expect from southern France, southern Italy, and northern Spain. These mediterranean wines are the benchmark for rosé, and most American wines fall quite short.

Which is why I’m so enthusiastic when I discover pink wines that are made well in this country. And when they’re made of exotic grape varieties, so much the better!

If you gave me three guesses as to which winery in northern California would be most likely to grow Touriga Nacional, I’d probably have ended up with York Creek Vineyards before I ran out of guesses.

The York Creek property is one of the largest and most beautiful parcels of land on the crest of Napa’s Spring Mountain. One hundred twenty-five acres of vineyards are surrounded by another 575 acres of woods and orchards, hosting 24 varieties of native trees whose silhouettes make an appearance on the York Creek wine label. The property mirrors the variety of trees in its vineyard plantings of over 14 different varietals including Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Blanc, Carignane, Alicante Bouschet, and Touriga Nacional.

York Creek has been owned since 1968 by Fritz Maytag who purchased the property around the same time he purchased the Anchor Steam Brewing Company here in San Francisco. He always meant to make his own wine there, it just took him a while to get around to it — about 32 years, to be exact.

Maytag is the prodigal son of the Maytag family who decided that he needed to do something instead of appliances or blue cheese with his life. Not that his family ever had any intention of just letting him run the family business. Maytag was encouraged to find his own way in the world without a sense of entitlement. That way included a stint at Stanford as well as a lot of hanging around in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, until the day in 1965 when he fell in love with the Anchor Brewing Company, and decided to save it from going out of business by buying a controlling interest “for the price of a used car.”

Maytag took to brewing like a fish to water, and in the subsequent decades, he has become the Midas of the beverage world. His beer is world-renown and best-selling; his experiments in whiskey and gin have become quick successes. Maytag is a dabbler, a beverage renaissance man if you like, that seems to get it right. From home grown olive oil, to home grown apple brandy, to grappa and port, and now his own wine, Maytag wouldn’t have seemed out of place in the turn of the century village market where farmers eked out an existence from every asset the land provided.

Maytag initially started his winemaking operations in the early Nineties for fun and with the encouragement of his neighbor and friend Cathy Corison, owner and proprietress of Corison Vineyards. In 2000 he moved his operations to a specially designed (by him, of course) winery building across the street from his brewery and made his first commercial vintages. There he continues to serve as winemaker, though now with some help from Tom Holmes, formerly one of the brewers at Anchor Steam who trained as an enologist.

York Creek Vineyards makes a number of excellent wines that I have tasted repeatedly over the years. They are distinctive, well made, unpretentious and often good values. Some of the wines also express what I take to be Maytag’s adventurous spirit for experimentation. I’m quite certain this pretty rosé falls into that camp. Who on earth would have thought of making a rosé in California out of Touriga Nacional, one of the primary red grape varieties that goes into Port and the dry red wines of Portugal?

I don’t know much about the winemaking for this wine, other than what I can guess from what is in the bottle. The grapes were probably harvested ripe-but-not-too-ripe on a cool morning, destemmed, crushed, and then a portion of the fermenting juice was probably bled off from the tank and put into a separate steel tank to finish fermentation on its own.

One of the first wines I fell in love with as a young wine lover was Mateus, a rosé from Portugal that had two important characteristics: it came in a cool shaped bottle, and it was just slightly sweet, not unlike contemporary White Zinfandels — perfect for a beginning wine lover. This wine is quite superior in quality and flavor, but it reminds me fondly of the beginnings of my wine adventures.

Tasting Notes:
Brilliant rose pink in the glass, this wine has a nose of crushed stones, hibiscus, and candied orange peel. In the mouth it is light and smooth with flavors of hibiscus, raspberry, watermelon, and a light bitter earthiness that emerges on the finish. Dry, but not tart, the wine has enough acidity to make it refreshing. A unique and pleasurable rose.

Food Pairing:
I had this wine with cornmeal crust goat cheese pizza with tomatoes and basil, as well as a salad of mixed greens with scallions. It was a particularly nice counterpoint to the scallions, which made the wine more floral in character.

Overall Score: between 8.5 and 9

How Much?: $15

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

We all understand the power of brands. There was likely a time for most Americans alive to day when we used “Reynolds Wrap″ when we meant aluminum foil. Some of us still say Kleenex instead of tissue and Xerox instead of photocopy. When one company pioneers a product that becomes so ubiquitous and common, it’s likely that the name will stick, even when we’re no longer using the original product.

There was a time in Japan’s history when sake was more easily referred to as Oyamazake, for exactly the same reasons. In 1882, the Shogun commanded that a sake brewing operation be established to feed the growing thirst for rice wine at the court, and like most of the time when the Shogun asked for something, he got what he wanted.

At it’s height, the brewing operation that sprang in the town of Oyama occupied almost fifty separate breweries arranged side-by-side on the Shonai plain in northwestern Japan. The amount of sake produced at the height of production is unknown, but it must have been truly staggering.

Today, several sake breweries call he town of Oyama home, but only one brewery can trace its history back to that massive brewing operation begun more than a century ago. Named Ohyama, or “big mountain,” this modest brewery continues to carry on the traditions of sake brewing much as they were established before the turn of the century.

Ohyama makes several sakes, but perhaps one of their best is this very special nigori, or “unfiltered,” sake. Unfiltered in the world of sake means much the same as it does in the world of wine. The process of making sake eventually yields a big soup of mushy fermented rice and alcohol in the same way that the end of fermentation for grapes results in a big tank of grape skins, wine, seeds, etc.

In order to get sake out of the mash, the sake must be pressed off of its lees (the solid bits of rice and yeast that are left). This usually involves putting sake into canvas bags and then squeezing those bags in a pneumatic press so that the sake squirts out and the rice and such is left behind. The resulting sake is a milky, cloudy color as it still contains a lot of rice starch and yeast in suspension.

At this point the sake is usually cold filtered through charcoal or other mediums to clarify the sake, but occasionally, brewers will simply stop here, and this cloudy, sediment filled sake is known as nigori. The rice starch gives the sake a milkier, slightly sweeter flavor which makes nigori a nice aperitif, as well as a good match for stronger flavored foods.

Interestingly, if you were to travel back in time, say, to 1882, when Ohyama was busy making sake for the Shogun, all the sake would have been unfiltered because they hadn’t invented the filters yet. Clear sake is quite a modern phenomenon.

Unfortunately while nigori sake is also an increasingly popular phenomenon, much of it is extremely low in quality. In some sake drinking circles, nigori sake is the equivalent of white zinfandel, an entry level brew that is easy to drink and doesn’t take much to appreciate. As a result most nigori sakes are made from relatively low quality rice, are often fortified with alcohol, and in some cases, are just downright nasty tasting.

Increasingly however, there are some breweries that are making extremely high quality nigori sake, and Ohyama happens to be one of them. This sake is a “tokubetsu” junmai nigori, which means “very special″ junmai nigori. The Haenuki rice has been milled to less than 60% of its former mass (enough to qualify for ginjo status), and no additional alcohol has been added in the brewing process. These two facts, coupled with the extra care taken in its production have made for one of the finest, most delicate nigori sakes available on the market today.

Tasting Notes:
This sake looks like watery, fat free milk in the glass, and it smells very pretty, with aromas of rainwater, flowers, and faint hints of bubble gum. In the mouth it is smooth and creamy, with flavors of…well…cream, wet cedar wood, apple, floral notes, and a beautiful stony quality that lasts through a surprisingly long finish. This is one of the most refined, elegant nigori sakes I have ever had.

Food Pairing:
Even though it is refined in quality, this sake has the robustness of the nigori style, which means it is not so easily overwhelmed by stronger flavors (like many delicate sakes are). I’d happily serve this sake with any non-spicy south or east Asian food. It would go beautifully with a mild Vietnamese curry, for instance.

Overall Score: 9/9.5

How Much?: $15

This sake is available for purchase on the Internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Steve Manik)

It’s hard to believe that in the early 1990’s less than 100 acres of vineyards were planted in Chile’s Casablanca valley. In little more than two decades, this region of Chile has surged in growth and popularity, and is currently producing excellent wines that generally represent fantastic values on the world market. The region is currently home to more than 10,000 acres of vineyards.

Back when the grape acreage was still in the triple digits Agustin Huneeus decided that the Casablanca valley was one of Chile’s most promising wine regions, and that he needed to start making wine there. Not surprisingly, the world took notice. Huneeus was not just any aspiring winemaker. Indeed, by 1990 Huneeus could lay claim to being one of Chile’s first great modern wine pioneers.

In 1960 Agustin Huneeus entered the Chilean wine scene by becoming CEO and majority owner of Concha y Toro, the wine brand that would eventually put Chile on the wine map for the rest of the world. In 1971 the political climate in Chile became unstable and Huneeus left for the United States, where he took over the helm of the beverage giant Seagrams Worldwide for a time, as well as Franciscan winery in Napa. He went on to purchase the Quintessa winery in 1989.

The early 1990’s were calmer times in Chile, and Huneeus was afforded the opportunity to spend more time in his home country exploring the continually expanding wine regions, including the Casablanca Valley. These explorations turned serious rather quickly, and before long Huneeus was the proprietor of a brand new Chilean winery called Veramonte.

Veramonte, by now, is a well established producer of quality Chilean wines, and a recognizable brand for anyone who strays into the global section of their wine shops, as well as those who have a thirst for reasonably priced Sauvignon Blanc, of which Veramonte makes a seemingly never-ending supply.

Veramonte makes primarily single varietal wines with a sole exception: this wine called Primus. The story of this Bordeaux blend goes all the way back to Bordeaux in the 1800s, when a wave of French immigrants were setting off to the new world to try and make their fortunes. Being French, they weren’t going anywhere without their wine, and knowing that they were headed to an unknown world, the only way to ensure that there would be wine there was to bring the vines to grow it themselves. So off they went to Chile with vines representing the best of Bordeaux packed in wet sawdust and paper. Only a couple of decades later these few samples and others like them would be some of the only vines that were not utterly destroyed by the Phylloxera epidemic that ravaged Europe’s vineyards.

When Bordeaux got to replanting their vineyards, they did so carefully and methodically, but for some reason, they pretty much ignored one of the grape varieties that was originally common in their vineyards: a grape called Carmenere. To be fair, they also gave Malbec short shrift as well, and now Bordeaux is mostly Cabernet, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc, while Chile has been trying desperately to turn Carmenere into its signature grape.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, Carmenere isn′t that special of a grape, and the single-varietal Carmeneres I′ve tasted haven′t impressed me greatly. What Huneeus knew, however, and Chilean wineries are increasingly discovering, was that Carmenere is an excellent blending grape, and as part of blends that resemble the ancient wines of Bordeaux, it is beautifully expressive.

And that is why Veramonte’s top wine is a blend of Carmenere, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot. The best grapes from the top vineyard parcels are carefully sorted, destemmed, and fermented separately before blending and aging for 2 years in French Oak barrels, about 50% of which are new each year. The wine spends an additional year in bottle before release.

With the level of care, aging time, and the designation as the winery’s top wine, not to mention a snazzy, heavy bottle, it’s easy to imagine this wine as one of the more expensive Chilean wines around. Hell, it even tastes expensive. But I’m happy to say instead that it undeniably represents one of the best values in the wine world today.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Medium to dark ruby in the glass, this wine has a nose that would make even the most distracted wine taster immediately pay attention: perfumes of chocolate, cherry cordials, and vanilla waft from the glass. In the mouth the wine is beautifully balanced, with a polished feel on the tongue, and the flavors seem to burst in the mouth. Cherries, chocolate, and old wood paneling swirl in a storm of fine grained, dusty tannins and velvet texture. The wine’s finish is long and has beautiful aromas of cocoa powder and confectioners sugar. Surprising, unique, and totally delicious.

Food Pairing:
This is a rich wine, though not one slaked in oak, so despite its brawn, it is quite food friendly. I’d love to drink it with some lightly spiced slow-cooked pork on crunchy bread.

Overall Score: around 9.5

How Much?: $19

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

I drink wine from as many different countries as I can, as often as I can. I firmly believe that the only way I keep learning anything as a wine lover will be through continued exploration.

There are times, though, when searching out new countries, grape varieties, and appellations just takes too much energy. At times like these, usually after a long week, I just want a nice meal and a good glass of wine to go with it. Like most people in these situations of part-exhaustion, I tend to stick to the predictable — the least risky choice that is most likely to yield the most pleasurable result.

So when I found myself dining alone the other night, and not wanting to think much about which white wine I wanted, I reached for a safety wine. I had never had it before, but I knew it was: white, a blend of different grapes, French, and it was from Provence.

There aren’t many sure bets in the wine world. There’s a lot of crap out there to be sure. But if you′re gonna order wine, sight unseen and untasted, I think it’s pretty hard to go wrong with most of the wines in the Cotes de Provence. At least the ones that end up getting imported here.

So there I was, sitting alone at the big communal table, watching the chefs do their thing from behind the pass. I was reading some notes I had taken from a meeting earlier in the day, and only barely noticed when the waitress put the glass down by my plate. I reached out between sentences and took a sip, and in the kind of moment that keeps me drinking wine, I was forced to pause, to savor, and to say a silent prayer of thanks for my luck at living a life in which I get to enjoy good things like this glass of wine.

Don’t get me wrong, this wine was not epiphany-creating-stuff-of-the-gods. It was just darn good, and it really hit the spot.

The family that currently owns Chateau du Rouët purchased the property in 1840 with the intention of harvesting cork from the trees on the property, and selling some of the pine wood that was particularly in demand for shipbuilding at the nearby ports of the Mediterranean. The property encompassed more than 1000 acres of forest, as well as the grounds of a sizable manor that was erected by the new owners in 1880.

Around 1920, a fire ravaged the estate, as well as some of the forest, and the current owner decided to plant a vineyard between the scrubby, fire prone hills and the forest of the estate. Though it was only a secondary consideration at the time, this began the history of wine cultivation at the estate.

Today the descendants of the original three families that purchased the property farm approximately 170 acres of vineyards at the foot of a set of hills known as the Gorges de Pennafort that rise with their red volcanic rocks and ancient caves about 1500 feet above the property. The mostly sandstone terraced vineyards are wedged between the flatlands, the hills, and a swath of Mediterranean forest of cedar, bamboo, cork oaks, maritime pines, and even palm trees. The vineyards run mostly north to south to shelter the grapes from the fierce Mistral winds that whip over the hills at certain times of the year. These winds are not all bad, however. Combined with the warmer breezes off the Mediterranean, they combine to create the cool, dry climate that allows the Cotes de Provence to create wines of great personality.

On the grounds of the winery sits a small chapel that is worthy of mention only because of the unusual doors which adorn its modest facade. These doors were taken from a sailing ship named the Le Belle Poule, which at one time was well known for one of its last voyages — a trip it made to carry home the ashes of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1888, Lucien Savatier, who contributed greatly to the development of Chateau du Rouet’s vineyards, as part of his duties to dismantle the ship, took the doors from the cabin that housed Bonaparte’s ashes during the voyage and installed them on the chapel where they remain today.

In memory of the ship (which adorns the label even today) the winery produces a red, a white and a rose wine, all called “Cuvee Belle Poule.” The white wine is a blend of three grapes: Ugni Blanc (30%), Sémillon (20%) and Rolle (50%) from what the winery refers to as “old vines″ but I’m not clear on just how old they are. 1250 cases are made.

Tasting Notes:
Pale gold in the glass, this wine has an appealing nose of pears, rainwater, and very faint melon aromas. In the mouth it is crisp, and light, and bouncy. Great acidity and mineral qualities underlie green melon and pear flavors that along with the chalky stone quality to the wine make it fantastically refreshing. Everything I want in a white wine with dinner.

Food Pairing:
I drank this with a lobster bisque the other night and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Overall Score: 9

How Much?: $18

The 2004 may be tricky to find, but the 2005 and 2006 are readily available for purchase on the internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Unknown)

The Loire Valley is perhaps one of the most underrated and unexplored (by most Americans) wine producing regions in France. So often eclipsed by the bombast of Bordeaux, Burgundy, and the Rhone, the Loire, if it is known at all, tends to be known for its famous Sauvignon Blanc from Sancerre. Yet the region, which is the largest white wine producing region in France, and the third largest winegrowing appellation (AOC) in the country, also produces many excellent red wines, chiefly from Cabernet Franc.

The most dominating feature of the Loire Valley must be the river itself, France’s longest and the last major river in Europe to remain un-dammed. The river cuts deep through dozens of different geologies spanning millions of years, from limestone and travertine to schist and granite, giving rise to many varied growing regions that spread outwards from the backbone of the river like shelf mushrooms on a tree.

About halfway along the Loire’s meandering march to the sea lies the town of Saumur, which lends its name to the large AOC appellation that spreads southwards from the town away from the river. The town (and indeed, many of its wineries) is build atop what is known locally as tuffeau, a calcareous rock similar to limestone (but more porous) which provides excellent drainage for vines and excellent caves which the locals use for storing their wine, much of which is a sparkling wine made from Chenin Blanc that required extended cellaring similar to Champagne.

One of the other salient features of modern Loire winegrowing involves the unusually high proportion of winemakers using organic and biodynamic winegrowing methods. And one of the two men chiefly responsible for that was a man named Francois Bouchet, who up until his recent death was France’s leading Biodynamic viticulture and winemaking consultant. Bouchet, who wrote what many consider to be the first real how-to guide to Biodynamic winemaking, consulted for biodynamic wineries all over Europe as well as some of the top producers in France, such as Domaine Leflaive, Domaine Leroy, and Domaine de la Romanee-Conti. When he wasn′t flying about helping winemakers remember how many times to stir their silica solution in each direction, he was at home making wine with his son Mathieu at their tiny Domaine de Chateau Gaillard.

The estate consists of only about 12.5 acres of vines, which are farmed, as one might imagine, according to the strictest principles of Biodynamics, which involve, among other things, the complete absence of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or additives of any kind. The estate’s vines, which are some of the oldest in the region (some more than 80 years old) produce naturally low yields, which means that the estate produces only about 2000 cases of wine each year, only about 100 of which make it into the United States.

Mathieu Bouchet continues to run the estate just as it always has been. According to the dictates of Biodynamics, the wines are never racked, fined, or filtered before they are bottled. Bouchet continues to age the wines for several years only in large neutral oak casks, resulting in very little oak influence in the wines.

Tasting Notes:
Medium to dark purple in the glass, this wine resembles many red wines just before they are bottled - deep and shining with grapey color. The nose carries a deep aroma of what might best be described as: mud. Wet, wet earth combined with hazelnuts. In the mouth it is bright, tight, and tart, with excellent acidity and a juicy cassis and black cherry fruit that is married to a drying-chalkboard flavor which lasts long into a finish. This is not a deep, nor a complex wine, but it is no simpleton. Like many of its fellows in the Loire, it is a working-class wine with no pretentions at anything more - a fine dinner companion.

Food Pairing:
This versatile wine will go with a lot of things, though because of its dry, tanginess I don’t suggest it be served with anything spicy. Salty or sweet would be better, and I suggest salty. It might be a beautiful match for this spice rubbed quail.

Overall Score: 8.5

How Much?: $19

This wine is available for purchase on the internet. It is imported by Weygandt and Metzler.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

I′ll admit it right off the bat: I′m a serious sake snob. I don′t mean that in the sense that I believe my taste in Sake is superior to anyone else’s, only that I′m extremely picky when it comes to sake. In particular, I tend to discriminate on the basis of the class of sake. I tend to prefer ginjo and daiginjo sakes, and most often the junmai versions of these. Ginjo and daiginjo are the two top classes of sake, as measured by the degree to which the rice kernels used to make them has been milled or polished down to a fraction of their former size. Junmai refers to a sake making process that does not involve the addition of alcohol during the fermentation process (which tends to increase the aromatics of the final product, rather than increase its alcoholic strength).

My preference for these brews lies in my appreciation and preference for a particular set of qualities possessed by sake: light, ethereal, floral qualities that evoke a flower garden after a rainstorm. My attraction to such flavors, and the types of sake that most often deliver them tends to steer me away from several other types of sake, including the lowest grade of “quality designated” sakes classified under the designation honzojo Honzojo sakes are typically made from rice that has been polished down to at least 70% of its original mass, though technically there is no strict requirement on how much it is milled.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong at all with honzojo sakes (or the ordinary, non-designated sakes which make up more than 75% of the total volume of sake production in Japan), which can have every bit as much personality and appeal as their more “refined” ginjo and daiginjo cousins. Still, it’s rare that I come across an example of a honzojo sake that makes me sit up and take notice, which is why I was quite astonished when, at a recent dinner in Tokyo at a tiny restaurant with some friends, I was told the sake I was enjoying so much was a simple honzojo.

At least, that’s the easiest way to briefly describe this sake from a brewery called Kikusui. The true story of the sake is a bit more complicated. While most certainly a classic honzojo sake, this sake is also a namazake, which means that it is not pasteurized before bottling. Wine lovers can think of namazake like they might wine made from “free run juice,” the wine which pours off of the newly fermented grapes without the aid of a press. Also known as “draft” sake, this type of sake is quite delicate in disposition, and easily affected by age, sunlight, and other environmental factors.

Indeed, the commercial sale of such sake on a broad scale was not possible until Kikusui figured out how to stabilize these sakes enough to get them into a bottle, or as is common these days, a can. At least according to the brewery, Kikusui was the first to commercially package and sell namazake.

The instability and mutability of namazake is part of the appeal for many people. Soon after bottling and release, draft sake has a freshness of acidity and purity of flavor that makes it extra appealing to folks like me that seek more subtlety from our sake. After six months, the flavor begins to incorporate more woody, creamy, and herbal components, and at a year or more, the sake can taste downright mushroomy. Such variation and the affinity for it among sake lovers in Japan has led Kikusui to also release an “aged” version of this sake.

The Kikusui Brewery was established in 1881 after the 16-year-old Setsugoro Takasawa was given a liquor license by his uncle so that he might start his own business. With no knowledge of what was a poorly documented and poorly understood process at the time, it took years for Takasawa to produce a commercially viable product, but in 1896 the brewery was granted the more official designation of an approved sake producer. Three generations later, after relocating to Niigata prefecture, the brewery is still managed by the descendants of its founder.

Tasting Notes:
Colorless in the glass, this sake has a nose that hints at pink bubblegum, rainwater, and pastry cream. In the mouth it is slippery and slightly thick on the tongue, with bright acidity enveloping flavors of rainwater, white flowers, and linalool (think: the smell of fruit loops), with a tiny bit of alcoholic heat on the finish. The overall impression is fresh and bouncy, like an enthusiastic two year old just out of the bath.

Food Pairing:
I had this sake with a chawan mushi — a savory steamed egg custard filled with crab, and it was a delightful pairing — though it also stood up to grilled Kobe beef later in the meal.

Overall Score: 8.5

How Much?: $5 for a can, or about $10 for a 720ml bottle.

This wine is available for purchase on the internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

I′ll admit it right off the bat: I′m a serious sake snob. I don’t mean that in the sense that I believe my taste in aake is superior to anyone else’s, only that I′m extremely picky when it comes to sake. In particular, I tend to discriminate on the basis of the class of sake. I tend to prefer ginjo and daiginjo sakes, and most often the junmai versions of these. Ginjo and daiginjo are the two top classes of sake, as measured by the degree to which the rice kernels used to make them have been milled or polished down to a fraction of their former size. Junmai refers to a sake making process that does not involve the addition of alcohol during the fermentation process (which tends to increase the aromatics of the final product, rather than increase its alcoholic strength).

My preference for these brews lies in my appreciation and preference for a particular set of qualities possessed by sake: light, ethereal, floral qualities that evoke a flower garden after a rainstorm. My attraction to such flavors, and the types of sake that most often deliver them tends to steer me away from several other types of sake, including the lowest grade of “quality designated” sakes classified under the designation honzojo Honzojo sakes are typically made from rice that has been polished down to at least 70% of its original mass, though technically there is no strict requirement on how much it is milled.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong at all with honzojo sakes (or the ordinary, non-designated sakes which make up more than 75% of the total volume of sake production in Japan), which can have every bit as much personality and appeal as their more “refined” ginjo and daiginjo cousins. Still, it’s rare that I come across an example of a honzojo sake that makes me sit up and take notice, which is why I was quite astonished when, at a recent dinner in Tokyo at a tiny restaurant with some friends, I was told the sake I was enjoying so much was a simple honzojo.

At least, that’s the easiest way to briefly describe this sake from a brewery called Kikusui. The true story of the sake is a bit more complicated. While most certainly a classic honzojo sake, this sake is also a namazake, which means that it is not pasteurized before bottling. Wine lovers can think of namazake like they might wine made from “free run juice,” the wine which pours off of the newly fermented grapes without the aid of a press. Also known as “draft” sake, this type of sake is quite delicate in disposition, and easily affected by age, sunlight, and other environmental factors.

Indeed, the commercial sale of such sake on a broad scale was not possible until Kikusui figured out how to stabilize these sakes enough to get them into a bottle, or as is common these days, a can. At least according to the brewery, Kikusui was the first to commercially package and sell namazake.

The instability and mutability of namazake is part of the appeal for many people. Soon after bottling and release, draft sake has a freshness of acidity and purity of flavor that makes it extra appealing to folks like me that seek more subtlety from our sake. After six months, the flavor begins to incorporate more woody, creamy, and herbal components, and at a year or more, the sake can taste downright mushroomy. Such variation and the affinity for it among sake lovers in Japan has led Kikusui to also release an “aged″ version of this sake.

The Kikusui Brewery was established in 1881 after the 16-year-old Setsugoro Takasawa was given a liquor license by his uncle so that he might start his own business. With no knowledge of what was a poorly documented and poorly understood process at the time, it took years for Takasawa to produce a commercially viable product, but in 1896 the brewery was granted the more official designation of an approved sake producer. Three generations later, after relocating to Niigata prefecture, the brewery is still managed by the descendants of its founder.

Tasting Notes:
Colorless in the glass, this sake has a nose that hints at pink bubblegum, rainwater, and pastry cream. In the mouth it is slippery and slightly thick on the tongue, with bright acidity enveloping flavors of rainwater, white flowers, and linalool (think: the smell of fruit loops), with a tiny bit of alcoholic heat on the finish. The overall impression is fresh and bouncy, like an enthusiastic two year old just out of the bath.

Food Pairing:
I had this sake with a chawan mushi — a savory steamed egg custard filled with crab, and it was a delightful pairing — though it also stood up to grilled Kobe beef later in the meal.

Overall Score: 8.5

How Much?: $5 for a can, or about $10 for a 720ml bottle.

This wine is available for purchase on the internet.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)