By John Gauntner. I recall a picture I recently saw of a wedding celebration. The couple was involved in the sake business somewhere outside of Japan, and clearly had access to a wide range of good sake.
I appreciate the push-back and the grounding of this topic. As a (mostly red, more Bordeaux/Rhone than Burgundy) wine-drinker, I frequently find affinity with junmai and tokubetsu junmai nihon-shu: there's complexity and weight on the palate, usually some mild acidity, and for me a good concentration of flavour. Not to say that I don't enjoy a lighter and more fragrant ginjo or daiginjo on occasion too. However, my question is how to pick out good honjozo and tokubetsu honjozo. I don't have the liver or financial capacity to wade through oceans of sake trying to identify what I like in these categories. I'm a big believer in the integrity of Japanese producers, which means that price is often a reasonable index of quality up to a certain point. Are there other indicators that the naive consumer might use to gamble on a bottle of honjozo?
I appreciate the push-back and the grounding of this topic. As a (mostly red, more Bordeaux/Rhone than Burgundy) wine-drinker, I frequently find affinity with junmai and tokubetsu junmai nihon-shu: there's complexity and weight on the palate, usually some mild acidity, and for me a good concentration of flavour. Not to say that I don't enjoy a lighter and more fragrant ginjo or daiginjo on occasion too. However, my question is how to pick out good honjozo and tokubetsu honjozo. I don't have the liver or financial capacity to wade through oceans of sake trying to identify what I like in these categories. I'm a big believer in the integrity of Japanese producers, which means that price is often a reasonable index of quality up to a certain point. Are there other indicators that the naive consumer might use to gamble on a bottle of honjozo?