Sake - ordering or buying guide

It's fun and interesting coming to Japan and delving into something with as much history as their sake. Understanding sake is difficult enough that classes lasting several days are offered to guide you through its complexities.  Even the Japanese have complained about the numerous and difficult to understand sake grades or designations.  With the popularity of the plum wine buying guide I decided to do one for sake.

My goal here is to boil it down and keep it simple.  How to order or buy good sake without the need to carry around a guide or attend a course.

Luckily, the Japanese have an official rating system by which sake is graded, thus providing you a semi-reliable method of choosing a quality sake.

Couple of points before we get started. A lot of sake is sold in giant bottles that you'd have to dismantle shelves in your refrigerator to get it to fit. But you can also find small bottles to buy that will allow you to become accustomed to the different grades and try different flavors if you will (dry, sweet, rice varieties).  Good sake can be found in most supermarkets and even in convenience stores.

By looking at the label below can you tell if it is any good? Is it a "quality" sake?

There is no right answer to that question unless you are really good at Sake labels and brands. This could be a good sake or it might not be. But with a few clues you can narrow it down and increase the chances of ending up with something you like.
Same goes for ordering sake in a restaurant. If you can set your eyes on a bottle label and pick out a few key things, you'll be able to make an intelligent order.  Some restaurants list the key indicators on the menu as well, allowing you to make an educated choice. A menu example that does this is below (the sake selections are on the top left area): Even without a menu or being able to look at a bottle, you can ask simple questions in Japanese to find out what they have, and then ask for a recommendation.

Sake section is upper left

To keep this at the simplest levels, we look at two basic things (at first, then venture into just a bit more detail):

• The degree of rice milling
• Whether any alcohol is added as an ingredient (as opposed to coming all from the rice "brewing").  

Knowing these two things will get you a long way. This is no sake professional course here keep in mind, just enough to be able to look at bottles rapidly and know what you are ordering.

Just about all sake is categorized by the degree of rice milling and fall into three categories.
The three are:
- Junmai Dai Ginjo/Dai Ginjo
- Junmai Ginjo/Ginjo
- Junmai/Honjozo

Each category depends on the amount of rice that is left remaining after milling. That last statement is almost true, but not exactly (remember I said this was complicated).  The ones on the right of the slash will all have a small amount of brewers alcohol added. The ones to the left have no added alcohol. The ones at the top have more rice milled away, and the ones at the bottom, less.

Honjozo　本醸造酒 - generally has at least 30 % milled away. So you'll have 70% of the rice grain remaining.  In the picture below, the last three characters of the green Kanji are honjozo (本醸造). You can see that this particular bottle of Honjozo used rice that had 40% milled away leaving 60% remaining. Honjozo always has a small amount of grain alcohol added, and you can see that in the ingredients listing (Rice, rice koji, and alcohol). The experts say that Honjozo is a sake that is OK to be served warm. 

Other things we can tell from the label below is that the alcohol content is 18%, the sake meter value (discussed later) is +6.2, and the san-do or acidity is 1.5.  On the bottom right side of the label we see that it was brewed in December of 2012. Japan counts years by the number of years the emperor has had the throne. A simple way to find the year is to take the Heisei year (24 in this case) and subtract 12 and add it to 2000 to find the year the sake was made. For things made after 2000 it's simplified by just subtracting 12 (24-12=12 therefore 2012). Generally you want your sake fresh.

There is another category of sake out there called Futsuushu which comprises all of the non-premium sake. It is even lower than Honjozo. So don't be afraid to try Honjozo sake as it is still better than about 75% of the sake out there.

A Honjozo sake

Lets move on to the Ginjo sake.  If you have Ginjo or Daiginjo sake you are at the top of the sake quality scale. They represent somewhere between 7-9% of all the sake made, so you are buying a premium product. By being able to recognize these sake you will be able to make a good sake choice just about all the time.

A Ginjo sake will be recognizable by the Kanji 吟 which is the "Gin" part of "Ginjo." Ginjo sake has a degree of rice milling of at least 40%. That means that at least 40% of the rice is milled away and 60% or less remains. You can see the Kanji for ginjo in all of the pictures below. If you buy a Ginjo or order a ginjo-shu from a restaurant, you should be a satisfied customer.  In the menu shown above you can see the ginjo Kanji in the left two sake (top left of the menu). The left most one being a Dai Ginjo. You can also see that those are priced the highest. The menu also displays the sake meter value or sweetness factor.

At the very top of the sake world is the DaiGinjo. Dai means big. The Kanji for DaiGinjo is 大吟. The rice for preparing this sake is milled to at least 50%.

The amount of rice milling will be shown on all sake bottles. The number shown is the amount of rice remaining after milling. So you are looking for lower numbers in general, but remember that the top 10% of all sake is milled to 60% or less remaining.

The last thing to talk about is whether the sake is Junmai or not. Junmai means "pure rice. A Junmai sake does not have any added alcohol.
純米 - this is the Kanji for "Junmai" which literally means "pure rice." Junmai's of old had to have their rice milled to at least 70% (remaining). But that is no longer true. Junmai can have any degree of rice milling, but it  must be listed (the amount of milling) on the label.
In Junmais', all the alcohol comes from the "brewing" of the rice itself. A large proportion of the Ginjo and Daiginjo labels that I've come across are Junmais. If there is added alcohol it does not mean that it's not a good sake. Many brewers add it for good reason and supposedly it brings out additional flavor if done at the right time.

Sake meter value or Nihonshu-do (日本酒度）measures the sake specific gravity which measures how sweet or dry the sake is. A sweeter sake will have a lower number or even negative, while a dryer sake will have higher numbers up to 20.  The sweetness or dryness of a sake is also affected by the acidity of a sake. Acidity will be noted by 酸度 and is normally between about 1 and 2. You may also see on some labels the amino acid value noted by アミノ酸度

The best way to learn is to look at some labels.

In the above picture you can see in the purple kanji that this is a Junmai DaiGinjo.  

Below that, it used rice that was polished to 50% remaining. 

The ingredients are only rice and rice koji

The alcohol content is between 17 and 18 %. Alcohol is spelled out in katakana - アルコール

The sweetness or nihonshu-do 日本酒度 is +5.2 and the acidity is 1.7

On the bottom right we see it was made in February of 2013 (H25.2 - 25th year of the Heisei era,  second month)

For the above bottle we have a Junmai Ginjo

Ingredients are just rice and rice koji (remember that Junmai means no added alcohol)

Alcohol content 17%

Rice milled to 55% remaining 

Although the picture is blurry, the red dot tries to show you where the sake is in terms of sweetness. 

Just below the red dot you see a circle and some "X"s. The circle is on the left Kanji which means it should be served cold. 

The above bottle is another Junmai Ginjo
Rice milled to 60% remaining
Alcohol content 15-16%
Sake meter value of 2.5 (so it's sweet compared to some of the others)
Acidity is 1.6
Brewed in November of 2012 (this one uses the normal calendar we're used to)

This picture is fully labeled. Here you also see the year is a normal year (2013) instead of the Heisei era year designation. The 1.5 sake meter value tells us it is fairly sweet. The degree of rice milling is very low at 30%. That means 70% of the outer rice kernel has been milled away. This is likely a very good sake.

In the picture above the Sake meter value is +14. This is a fairly dry sake.

We looked at this bottle above, but here I've "labeled the label."

This is a nice sight to see - a sake bottle labeled in English. A Dai Ginjo sake. Would you guess that this picture was taken at 7-11 Japan? There is nothing wrong with it. A Dai Ginjo is a Dai Ginjo.

This is that back of that dai ginjo bottle at 7-11. We can see the rice was milled such that 50% is remaining, the sake meter value is +3, and the acidity is 1.3.
Below this we see a graphical representation of some properties. The top one says it is middle of the road sweet, and that is light (not concentrated) flavor.
Below that it recommends drinking it cold.

So where can you buy some of these smaller bottles that will fit into your refrigerator or buy a nice gift for someone without buying a huge bottle of sake?
Well 7-11 of course! But your selection will be relatively small. Please remember that this blog focuses on the Yokosuka, Japan area so the locations I'll be discussing are there.

Here is a One Cup sake from AVE I think. Pretty sure 7-11 has them as well. This particular one is a Dai Ginjo and the rice is milled to 50%, the minimum necessary to make the dai ginjo grade. I did have some a few weeks ago at a restaurant that was milled to 33%. Very smooth.

The Saiyu shopping center (map here) has a specialty grocery store on the first floor (towards the back) and they have a very good selection of good sake in small bottles.  Another place is AVE grocery store, Daiei, or the basement of More's City. Out in town (Blue street and surrounding) are several small liquor stores where you should be able to find smaller quantities. Some of the larger basement food places in Tokyo will have excellent selections.

The picture below is from the specialty grocery store in Saiyu shopping center.

The above picture show just part of the "small bottle" section of sake at AVE grocery store. A lot to choose from.

Lastly, if you want to order sake at a restaurant and the menu is in Japanese and you don't want to look at bottles - you can simply ask questions like "Ginjo Nihonshu ga arimasu ka? Do you have Ginjo sake? or Junmai Dai Ginjo ga arimasu ka? Do you have Junmai dai ginjo?  If the answer is yes then you can ask for a "little sweet" or a "little dry" depending on your taste likes. Little sweet would be "chotto amai" and little dry would be "chotto karakuchi."

Final quiz. Going way up to the first photo - is it a Junmai or not? What grade is it?