It was in the late '90s when Grif Frost, the now-retired founding partner of SakéOne in Forest Grove, Ore., informed me that everything I knew about sake was wrong.
First thing I learned from Frost: only poorly made, cheap sakes are served warm; the finest sakes (called hiyazake or reishu ) are best slightly chilled. You would no more heat up a bottle of high-quality sake than you would a cult Chardonnay.
Which brings us to the question: is sake a "wine"? Well, yes and no. Like wine, it derives its alcohol from the conversion of sugars by the action of yeast. But while wine is fermented from natural grape sugars, sake is fermented from steamed rice, finely polished to as much as 50% less than the original hull size. The starchy core is converted into sugar through a painstaking process called koji, performed largely by hand in special warm, steamy, wood-paneled rooms. Although the kura, where sakes are made, is usually translated as "brewery," sake naturally finishes at around 14-17%, closer to the level of today's table wines than to the typical beer.
The more salient question might be: does sake taste like wine? Most certainly, fine sakes are closer to wine than beer in body, flavor, intensity, and complexity‹as I noticed the first time I stood over an open, fermenting vat of ultra-premium sake, breathing in the intoxicating aromas of fresh honeydew, pineapple, passion fruit, jasmine, sweetened cream, and vanilla bean.
Sakes taste best in stemmed, tulip-shaped wine glasses (9-12 ounces). If you want your guests to enjoy sakes at optimal quality, you need to dispense with those square boxes or squat cups that tend to dissipate, rather than enhance, the finer qualities of sake. There is even a Riedel sake-tasting glass, called Daiginjo, that resembles the company's Chablis glass. Not coincidentally, nuances of mineral and terroir are just as critical to appreciating the myriad sakes of Japan's prefectures as they are for authentic Chablis.
I was surprised to find out that in Japan, drinking sake with sushi is considered the equivalent of drinking wine with grapes. The Japanese eat sushi as snack food, before or after main meals, and preferably with tea or beer. But they do enjoy sake with sashimi. Frost has suggested planning sake meals around fuller-bodied foods such as pickled vegetables, pork, chicken, shellfish, and fish (grilled, steamed, or raw), or the heartier, more rustic dishes found in country-style Japanese restaurants.
Over the years, I've attended numerous multicourse sake dinners, including a recent one hosted by SakéOne's current sakemaster, Greg Lorenz, using custom-made products bottled under the Momokawa label. The meal was expertly prepared by chef Moto Nagano at San Francisco's Skool restaurant. Highlights included:
* A smoothly dry and light (14.5% alcohol) Momokawa Organic Ginjo, paired with fennel-marinated Scottish salmon, cucumber, ikura, microgreens, crème fraîche, and herb-mint oil. The oil and cream accentuated the sake's silkiness, while the fennel and greens brought out anise notes.
* The aggressive, densely textured Momokawa Organic Nigori, served with a sea-urchin flan topped with uni. This umami-rich, custardy dish found resounding notes of similarity in the creamy, full-bodied (16% alcohol) sake with tropical-fruit-on-stone flavors.
* The huge (18% alcohol), dry, fleshy, creamy-textured Momokawa G Joy Junmai Ginjo Genshu, served with coffee-marinated Japanese Washu beef, mozzarella, parmigiano, caramelized onions, peppery cress, and creamy aioli. This brawny-yet-lush-textured sake was more than up to the task of absorbing the beef fat and the sweet-spiciness of the onions and cress.
I've found that sakes pair as well as crisp table wines with Pacific Rim-style dishes. Think of sake as a "wine of the East" rather than a separate beverage category. Robust alcohol, multilayered textures, and pervasive fruit-flower-earth aromatics can take you a long way, particularly in tasting menus where sakes alternate with traditional wines.
For the same reasons, fine sakes are versatile enough to be taken out of Japanese or other Asian culinary contexts. Ingredients high in umami respond readily to the amino acids naturally found in these rice-derived beverages. Seafood and sea vegetables; fungi and aged cheeses; complex, slowly evolved stocks based on chicken, veal, and shellfish; the reductive aspects of braising, pot au feu, dashi, nages, and natural essences: any cooking process that elevates umami sensations can make food-and-sake pairing all the easier. If Skool can do it, anyone can.
Source: Sommelier Journal
