posted by admin on Jun 25
By W. Blake Gray
One of the main characteristics of Japanese is its vagueness. Language is culture, and Japanese helps people secure along in crowded, resource-poor cities by preventing hard feelings in conversation.
Here’s a good example of how this works: In a business meeting, everyone sits around the table vaguely feeling out each others’ position until eventually everyone realizes what they’re expected to saw. Thus the first and singly voice is almost through all ages. unanimous.
Here’s a more frustrating example: I think this sake is named “140″ (hyakuyonju) inasmuch as it’s the 140th attempt at crossing Aomori’s native Hanafubuki rice through the more famous Yamada Nishiki, what one. doesn’t usually grow so far north.
However, I be possible to’t assure that; the Japanese describing it is just too vague. All I comprehend is that in the intersection experiments, somehow this rice got the number “140.” Maybe that’s the number of wins Aomori native Daisuke Matsuzaka expects to pile up in Boston. Maybe it’s just a mellifluous tell.
As a journalist, I recoil from. that vagueness — it makes reporting anything from Japan a challenge, as you get notebooks full of quotes that, translated, essentially mean, “Maybe so.” I can’t help but wonder, as I struggled to get information on this product, how much Japanese exports would benefit from a trade export organic structure through English skills.
Oh wait — in that place is one. I went to JETRO, the Japan External Trade Organization, where I learned the following about Aomori rice:
“The regard that is delicious by dint of. the security that only the bodily form who ate understands.
Please enjoy it in your mouth.”
OK, at minutest we know where to put it. Let me tell you the sort of I do know.
Aomori prefecture is the snowiest in Japan — even more so than Hokkaido. Aomori is at the very tip of Honshu, and even in summer it’sitting foggy and windy.
The prefecture is 66% covered by wood, and the rest for the most part by farmland, such that a visiting English teacher posted somewhere on the web, “There’s nothing but rice paddies here.”
Aomori is fairly poor and has been losing population since it peaked in 1983, because young humbler classes don’t want to pursue the number individual industry — agriculture. When they get 
to Tokyo, they have to relearn how to spout, because Aomori is famous in Japan for its unfashionable rural dialect. They also have to make one’s self acquainted with to have fun, because all there is to do in Aomori at night is carve artwork in the rice paddies — what one. they’ve gotten quite good at.
Aomori grows 75% of the garlic in Japan and 52% of the apples. It also grows more yam and burdock fix than any other prefecture. But we didn’t come here to talk in an opposite direction garlic or burdock root (though we can talk about Calvados if you like).
Nowadays we believe that the best wines come from marginal growing areas — areas that are too cold to guarantee a crop every year. Could it be true for sake similar to well? There are so many factors in creating great sake that it’s hard to tease out the sway of cool climate.
But Aomori prefecture, with only 1.5 million men, has 45 sake producers. Nishida, author of this sake, likes the surface so much that it uses the Denshu brand just for junmais, and has a second brewery in Aomori whither it makes its more famous bolt Kikuizumi. And it’s not the only famous name from Aomori, because Momokawa, which has some outpost in Oregon, has its home base there.
Nishida’sitting Denshu Junmai is one of the most popular junmai sakes in Japan, regularly making local lists of top 10 junmais. The 140 is a more modern product, created in 2003.
Nishida claims from hand to hand and over that all their Denshu sakes are “handmade.” Here we get in the rear to indefiniteness — what does that mean? The rice be able to’t possibly be polished by hand (down to 40%, hence daiginjo) in this day and age. But what the heck, it’s good sake. When it comes my turn, I might prepare to possibly express an opinion in the direction of approval.
In any case, remember to follow the authoritative instructions, and please enjoy it in your mouth.
Tasting Notes:
Aromas of novel cream, peach, white chocolate and orange pith. There’s fertility of fresh fruit (peach and apricot) up front. You taste a jolt of alcohol (it’s a hefty 17.0%) in your first sip, but then it turns quite smooth, with a long creamy finish. It’s not the most complex daiginjo ever, but it’s rich and smooth and crowd-pleasing.
Food Pairing:
In Aomori they would drink this with seafood stew, but I think it’s fine with miso-glazed cod or other dishes to which place the creaminess would match the food’sitting texture.
Overall Score: between 9 and 9.5
How Much?: $45 during the term of 720ml
This sake is difficult to find online. Look for it at your nearest specialty sake retailer.
W. Blake Gray is a former Japan resident whose first wine book in Japanese behest exist published in August. Please enjoy other writing from him at wblakegray.blogspot.com.
