Sake News from Japan / Sake Muse

The Mainichi newspaper site (I swear it's not the only thing I read) reports on the upcoming International Wine Challenge (IWC) sake division rounds, hosted this year in Japan for the first time. Yamagata rolled out the red carpet for a group of IWC visitors earlier...

The Mainichi newspaper reports on a town in Yamaguchi Prefecture that filled in the missing link to allow it to produce its own sake from harvest through to brewing.The Abu region around the city of Hagi grows sake-specific rice, specifically the legendary Yamada...

The Nikkan Spa site has an intriguing theory about the popularity of Dassai, plus a look at developments in milling ratio. The default assumption might be that Dassai's popularity is a result of outstanding aroma and flavour, but what if it was something else? Like...

The Minyu Net site has a story on not one, but many, "official" sake for the northern town of Aizu in Fukushima Prefecture.Seven breweries in and around the town have been chosen to represent it for PR purposes with sake brewed from locally produced rice. The "brand"...

The Niigata Nippo More site has an update on a previous story about sake classes being held at Niigata University.The first lecture held on 11 April 2018 was a great success, with the 600 students attending showing the level of interest in sake. April is the start of...

The Japanese TV Asahi channel site has a short segment from their news programme about a sake made from rice from all 47 Japanese prefectures (they're not all prefectures, but let's let that one go for now).The project also aims to make onigiri rice balls from the...

PR Times advertised an event held on Friday 13 April 2013 in Asakusa, Tokyo where you can not only sip sake but also come away with a custom masu.Japanese is a fairly modular language and happy to stick prefixes on words even if they come from different languages. As...

A short but interesting piece from the Nikkei financial newspaper about Niigata Prefecture providing some active support for its sake breweries.The support is for sake PR directed at overseas markets and foreigners visiting Japan, with the paying a portion of the...

The Chunichi newspaper site reports on a collaboration between a tōji and a sommelier to create four new lines of sake that can match non-Japanese food - which to their minds means acidity.Based in Kanazawa, Fukumitsuya is a venerable brewery found in 1625 but it...