What do I love about sake? I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I think it’s the fact that it’s relatively low acid compared to wine. That comes across beautifully in sparkling sake. But just like sparkling wine, sparkling sake can be fermented junk drenched in sugar to mask the imperfections. This Junmai Daiginjo sparkling sake from Okunomatsu Brewery is sweet (it has an SMV of -25, meaning it’s well into the sweet range), but it doesn’t come off as a sugar bomb, and with those elegant bubbles, it’s what I’m looking forward to this spring.
Why is this sparkling sake unique?
You don’t see a lot of Junmai Daiginjo sparkling sake in Canada (especially in Montreal). I’m not sure about the rest of North America and Japan, but it’s certainly less common than Junmai Daiginjo non-sparkling. Junmai means it’s pure rice, so there’s no alcohol added besides what’s produced naturally as the rice ferments, and daiginjo means each rice kernel is polished to at least 50% of its original size, meaning the impurities in the outer layers aren’t there to create strange aromas or flavours. So you end up with what’s generally a purer, more rice-forward flavour.
If you take a really elegant sake with no added alcohol or flavours and make it sparkling, you have what’s to me the Champagne of sake. For me, that’s what this is. It’s soft and smooth. Low acid, with a lactic acid creaminess thanks to a Champagne-style second fermentation in the bottle, and it doesn’t leave a sugary aftertaste. That elegance alone is reason to buy this, but then I saw the price. It’s $21.95 a bottle! Sure, that’s 290 mL, but you could buy three of these (which would be more than a full bottle of wine, at about the same alcohol percentage – this sake is 11.4 alc./vol.) and it’d still be a steal.
What’s the catch?
To get that price, you’ll need to order it by the case of 12 from Metropolitan Premium Wines and Sake. But do you really think you’re going to have a hard time finding a few friends to split this case with you?
You can find this Junmai Daiginjo sparkling sake from Okunomatsu at a couple restaurants and bars in Montreal where it’ll rotate onto and off of the menu (I’ve seen it at Marusan and Le Blossom, I think), but at those places it’s going to cost you about $60 a bottle. Restaurant markup. At which point, maybe you’re better off popping into the SAQ and splurging on a bottle of Ruinart for $20 extra. Not that that would be a bad things either, but I’ve basically been dreaming about sitting on a patio this spring with a bottle of this since I sat on a patio with a bottle of this last spring.
And it’s almost spring again.
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