IWC 2025 medals announced!

It’s always interesting to see what happens at the IWC sake division, and even more so for me this year as I was an associate judge!

I was going to do a breakdown by prefecture and comment on anything unusual… but there are two entries for Gunma (one spelled Gumma) and I was shocked to see absolutely nothing from multi-Brewer of the Year-award-winning Niizawa when I searched filtered for Miyagi Prefecture… they have 20 medals and commendations but none of them are showing up under their prefecture. I’ve reported it to the IWC team but for now it’s a bit hard to say anything. It might explain some of what looked like odd showings from certain prefectures! 

Kyoto, for example, shows as having zero gold medals, a bit embarrassing for one of the big sake centres. (It could also be an issue with filtering by prefecture.) Fukushima had 50 medals and commendations, but only 5 gold medals, and Niigata have 75 medals and commendations but also only 5 gold medals. (Which feels odd, but we’ll see when the filtering is fixed.)

I quickly scrolled through all the results for Japan, and there seems to be 153 gold medals, 368 silver, 337 bronze and 439 commendations. 

So if the usual big hitters don’t seem to be winning the gold medals, who is? Nagano have 12, Hyogo 11, Gifu and Yamagata have 9, and Mie and Tochigi have 8. Once you add Niizawa back in to Miyagi, they have 19–all from Niizawa!

Heiwa Shuzo is also responsible for all gold medals for Wakayama… unless I see something different when the filtering is fixed!

Algo, the new low-alcohol (5%) sake from Gekkeikan scored a silver medal despite some rather disparaging comments from industry experts (although one likened it to a sports drink and the tasting notes say “cream soda” so maybe not that far off).

Miwa Shuzo in Gifu, best known for their Shirakawago nigori–and the overwhelming majority of their production is nigori–won gold for their non-nigori Kessen Sekigahara junmai daiginjo.

There was also a smattering of non-Japanese sake this year, with one Chinese sake commended, two from Kanpai London commended, two bronze medals and one commended for Brooklyn Kura, one commended for SakeOne in Oregon, a few commended for US outposts of the biggest Japanese breweries (Gekkeikan, Ozeki, Takara) and a solitary bronze for Takara USA for their MuWa Bourbon Barrel Aged Junmai. And two commendations for Vietnamese sake brewery Mua!

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I couldn’t believe Niizawa wouldn’t have entered anything, and I’d say they’re a strong contender for at least one trophy and also for taking Brewer of the Year again for 2025. Nagano also made a strong showing, so they could also end up with a few trophies – trophy results are announced on 27 May!

The judging was a fantastic experience, both in testing my own skills and seeing how other judges evaluate–plus how the panel chairs coax a consensus out of a group made up of one senior judge, one judge and two newbie associates!

It wasn’t too bad in the first round where we had to agree on whether a sake was out, commended or went through to the medal round, but there were sometimes stark differences of opinion in the second round where each sake was evaluated as out, commended or given a gold, silver or bronze medal.

It was also interesting to see the gap between Japanese and non-Japanese judges (the IWC aims to have a roughly equal mix of both) and also between non-brewers and brewers–there were several brewers among the judges and they were the harshest of us all!

Fingers crossed I was good enough to get invited back next year, and in the meantime waiting for the trophy results next week and the announcement of Brewer of the Year, Sake of the Year and Great Value Sake on 9 September!

(My personal highlight was seeing the divisive Kikusui Funaguchi Ichiban Shibori yellow can win a gold medal in the honjōzō category… “This elegant and complex sake has white flowers, meringue, mint, and a caressing sweetness, followed by a long, mouthwatering finish. Serve it with grilled Hispi cabbage or sprouting broccoli.” Not my tasting notes, in case you were wondering!)

International Wine Challenge site