Three quarters of a litre, a flask in the middle of the table and a dinner that runs long. The kind of bottle that is not empty after the starter but stays the course, and that changes character depending on whether it reaches the cup cold or warm.

The expert's description

Choya Sake Gold Label Japan 75 cl 14.5% is a Japanese Sake brewed from rice and water and bottled at 14.5%.

The name on the label belongs to Choya in Osaka, the house that is the world's largest producer of umeshu. Umeshu is made from the ume fruit, a relative of the apricot and the plum with markedly higher acidity, and that experience with acid and fruit leaves a clear mark on the house sake. Gold Label is the soft, dry expression, and this bottling sits at a higher strength than the house's other sake.

In the glass it is pale yellow. The nose is restrained, with melon, almond and red rice, and the palate is fresh with a light sweetness and a fruity character, the dry base holding everything together. There are no heavy fermentation notes or sharp edges, and that is precisely why it can accompany a whole meal without tiring the palate.

The 75 cl bottle is the larger of the two sizes Gold Label comes in. This is the format for the table rather than for two: enough to open as an aperitif, carry on through sashimi and grilled fish, and warm the last measure at the end so you get both sides of it in one evening.

Tasting notes

Nose

Pale and restrained on the nose as well. Melon and almond sit side by side, and beneath them a dry, faintly grainy tone off the red rice.

Palate

Soft the whole way, with a sweetness that is more a suggestion than a statement. The fruit fills out the middle, and a dry base keeps it from turning round and heavy. Served warm, the almond steps forward and the sweetness falls back.

Finish

Clean and fairly short. The dry tone lingers longest, and it is exactly that tone which makes you reach for another sip alongside the food.

Specifications

Name: Choya Sake Gold Label Japan 75 cl 14.5%
Producer: Choya
Region/Country: Osaka, Japan
Type: Japanese Sake
ABV: 14.5%
Size: 75 CL
EAN no.: 4017871800031
Serving suggestion: Lightly chilled as an aperitif or with sushi and fish dishes, and warmed with hot food

Flavour profile

Fresh · Fruity · Lightly sweet · Soft · Dry

Did you know?

Sake is served across a wider temperature range than any other everyday drink, and Japanese has its own word for each step. Hitohada-kan means skin temperature and sits around 35 degrees, while atsu-kan is the hot serve at around 50 degrees.

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Half a litre is enough for two people and a plate of sushi. Pale yellow in the glass, melon and almond on the nose, and a bottle that slots into the fridge door without taking up room. This is the sake you open on a Wednesday, not the one you save for an occasion.

The expert's description

Choya Sake Gold Label Japanese Sake 50 cl 14.5% is a Japanese Sake brewed from rice and water and bottled at 14.5%.

Choya is headquartered in Osaka and best known as the world's largest producer of umeshu, the Japanese liqueur made from the ume fruit. Ume is related to the apricot and the plum, but its acidity runs considerably higher, and that acidity is what the house built its name on. Gold Label is the sake carrying the Choya name, and it sits at the soft, dry end of the scale.

The colour is pale yellow. The nose gives mild notes of melon, almond and red rice, and the palate is fresh with a light sweetness and a clear fruit character. It is an easy sake to get into, because the fruit does the work for you, while the dry base stops the sweetness from turning sticky. This release of Gold Label is bottled at a higher strength than the house's other sake.

The 50 cl format is the smaller of the two sizes the bottle comes in. It suits the evening where you are not pouring for a whole table but do want something cold alongside two servings of sashimi, and it chills right through in under an hour because there is less liquid to bring down.

Tasting notes

Nose

Melon first, soft and lightly watery in the good sense. Then almond, dry and nutty, and behind it a gentle grain sweetness off the rice.

Palate

Fresh entry with a sweetness that never turns tacky. The fruit is clear, the melon carries over from the nose, and underneath it all sits a dry base holding the whole thing in balance. The alcohol is barely noticeable.

Finish

Short and clean. The sweetness lets go quickly and leaves a dry, faintly nutty tone that readies the mouth for the next bite.

Specifications

Name: Choya Sake Gold Label Japanese Sake 50 cl 14.5%
Producer: Choya
Region/Country: Osaka, Japan
Type: Japanese Sake
ABV: 14.5%
Size: 50 CL
EAN no.: 4017871800215
Serving suggestion: Lightly chilled with sushi, sashimi and light fish dishes

Flavour profile

Fresh · Fruity · Lightly sweet · Soft · Dry

Did you know?

In Japan you never pour for yourself. You fill the cup of the person beside you, and they fill yours back. That is also why the cups are so small: there has to be a constant reason to reach for the flask again.

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In the Nada district outside Kobe, where mountain water from Mt. Rokko flows down toward the harbour, Kiku-Masamune has been brewing sake since 1659. This isn't a fresh vintage off a shelf — it's a piece of export history, once shipped to Hamburg and sold through one of the city's oldest delicatessen houses, back when Japanese sake was still a rarity in Europe.

The Expert's Description

Kiku-Masamune Tokusen Sake is a Japanese Sake from Kiku-Masamune Sake Brewing Co. in Mikage, Kobe, bottled at 72 cl under the older Tokusen classification system. The label and original carton carry clear traces of a bygone export era: German text reading "Auslaendisches Erzeugnis" (foreign product), an importer's mark from the Hamburg firm J. Heimerdinger, and a label describing the brewery as purveyor to the Imperial Household.

Kiku-Masamune sits in Nada-Gogo, the stretch of coastline that has been known for centuries as Japan's finest sake-producing region, thanks to the mineral-rich Miyamizu water and generations of skilled brewers. The house still uses the kimoto method, a slow, hands-on way of building the fermentation starter in which natural lactic bacteria do the work instead of added cultures. It's a technique that demands patience, and it's part of what gives the sake its characteristically dry style.

Because this bottle is decades old and was never intended for long-term ageing, we can't guarantee that its contents are still drinkable or have kept their original character. The value here sits mainly in the history, the label, and the rarity — not in a guaranteed tasting experience.

Tasting Notes

Nose

Traditional Nada sake made with the kimoto method is known for a clean, faintly mineral nose with notes of steamed rice and a light tang — but with a bottle this old, expect the aromatics to have shifted considerably over time.

Palate

Kiku-Masamune's house style is historically described as light and dry, shaped by the hard Rokko water rather than sweetness. Exactly how this particular bottle tastes today, we can't confirm.

Finish

Short and clean in the original style — though again, an unverified judgment, as the bottle hasn't been opened and assessed by us.

Specifications

Name: Kiku-Masamune Tokusen Sake
Distillery: Kiku-Masamune Sake Brewing Co.
Region/Country: Mikage, Kobe, Japan
Type: Japanese Sake
Size: 72 CL
Edition: Tokusen
Serving suggestion: Traditionally served either lightly warmed or chilled, in small sake cups

Flavour Profile

Dry · Mineral · Umami · Historic

Did You Know?

J. Heimerdinger, the importer named on the label, was founded in Hamburg back in 1817 and was one of the city's old delicatessen houses — the kind of shop that once introduced exotic goods like coffee, tea, and, in this case, Japanese sake to the German middle class.

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Yuzu grows in the mountainous south of Japan, where the Pacific cools the nights and the sun does the daytime work. The fruit is picked by hand, as it has been for centuries, and pressed the same day. The rest is rice, water and a brewmaster's patience.

The expert's description

Kiyoko Yuzu Aperitif Japan 70 cl 10% is a Japanese Yuzu Aperitif made from hand-picked yuzu juice blended with Junmai Sake and bottled at 10%.

Behind the bottle sits a sake brewery in Kansai on the island of Honshū that has been brewing for more than a hundred years. The brewery's toji, its master brewer, is the one who balances the pure yuzu juice against the sake so the citrus acidity does not run away with everything. The Junmai Sake is brewed on Gohyakumangoku rice and Miyamizu water from Rokkō, the hard spring water the breweries of the Nada district are known for, and the source of the sake's crisp, lively aroma.

Yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit somewhere between mandarin and lime, with a thick, knobbly skin and an aroma sharper and more floral than lemon. The juice in Kiyoko is pure, with no additives and no artificial flavourings. At 10% the bottle sits below ordinary sake and closer to a glass of wine, and it is built to be drunk cold before a meal rather than as a heavy liqueur after one.

Tasting notes

Nose

Freshly grated yuzu peel lands first, floral and sharp at once. Behind it comes a soft, faintly sweet note of steamed rice, and a trace of white flowers.

Palate

Tart and juicy, with the bitterness of the peel working against a mild sweetness. The sake sits underneath with a grainy, almost savoury weight that stops the fruit from turning syrupy.

Finish

Short to medium and very clean. The citrus peel dries the mouth slightly, and what stays behind is a fresh, lightly bitter note that asks for another sip.

Specifications

Name: Kiyoko Yuzu Aperitif Japan 70 cl 10%
Producer: Kiyoko
Region/Country: Kansai, Japan
Type: Japanese Yuzu Aperitif with Junmai Sake
ABV: 10%
Size: 70 CL
Serving suggestion: Cold as a Yuzu Spritz with 8 cl Kiyoko and 6 cl Prosecco, or as Yuzu and Tonic with 6 cl Kiyoko and 10 cl Tonic Water

Flavour profile

Citrus · Tart · Fresh · Floral · Light

Did you know?

Japan has a saying about how long fruit trees take to bear: three years for the peach and the chestnut, eight for the persimmon, while yuzu is the great fool that takes eighteen. The trees are slow, which is why the fruit has never been an everyday item outside Japan.

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In Itami, north-west of Kobe, the Konishi family has been brewing sake since 1550. The water runs down from the Rokko and Nagao mountains, soft and low in minerals, and that is the kind of water that yields a calm, clean sake. Shirayuki means white snow.

The expert's description

Shirayuki Sake Japanese Rice Wine 75 cl 14.5% is a Japanese Sake brewed from rice, water, koji and yeast and bottled at 14.5%.

Behind it stands Konishi Brewing Company in Itami, Hyogo Prefecture. The brewery has been run by the same family since 1550 and counts as the oldest sake brewery still owned by the line that founded it. The family originally sold medicine and brewed sake on the side. Itami was Japan's most important sake town through the 17th and 18th centuries, when production was shipped to Edo, and only later did the neighbouring district of Nada take over as the country's largest.

Sake is called rice wine but is not made like wine. Rice holds starch rather than sugar, so a mould called koji is laid over the steamed rice and breaks the starch down, while the yeast converts the sugar to alcohol in the same vessel. Both processes run side by side, and it is a technique you find almost nowhere outside sake.

The style here is the classic, clean one. No heavy aromatics, no lean towards the sweet, but a dry grainy base with fruit laid over it. Shirayuki takes both cold and warm service, and the brewery itself points to the warm serve, which is the traditional Japanese way with a sake in this style. Warming is done in a water bath or an oven to around 40-45 degrees, after which it is poured into a tokkuri and drunk from small sakazuki cups.

Tasting notes

Nose

Ripe pear first, soft and light. Behind it sits a dry grain character close to the steam off cooked rice, and at the edge a trace of grapefruit peel.

Palate

Creamy and soft with a mild alcohol that never pricks. Pear carries the sweetness, grapefruit cuts in a lightly bitter edge, and a spiced pull arrives towards the close. Warmed, the grain and the spice step forward; cold, it is fruitier and tighter.

Finish

Medium and dry. The spice holds on, the sweetness drops away quickly, and what remains is a clean grainy tone that readies the mouth for the next mouthful of food.

Specifications

Name: Shirayuki Sake Japanese Rice Wine 75 cl 14.5%
Producer: Konishi Brewing Company
Region/Country: Itami, Hyogo, Japan
Type: Japanese Sake
ABV: 14.5%
Size: 75 CL
Serving suggestion: Warmed in a water bath to 40-45 degrees and served in a tokkuri with sakazuki cups, or lightly chilled with fish and Asian dishes

Flavour profile

Fruity · Creamy · Spiced · Dry · Grainy

Did you know?

It was the Konishi family that first made clear sake, and it happened by accident. Ash fell into a fermentation vessel and, rather than ruining the batch, cleared it. Until then sake had been cloudy and milky.

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