discovery was made that was paramount for future ginjo sake. In 1953, the yeast that later became known as association yeast No. 9 was isolated at the Kumamoto Prefecture Sake Research Center; the Brewing Society of Japan began selling the yeast in 1968. No. 9 made modern ginjo possible: its fermentation is robust at low temperatures, which results in a balanced brew with low acidity and signature fruity ginjo aromas of apples and bananas. No wonder the yeast and its derivatives are still widely used for ginjo.
Kokuryu Ginjo Icchorai is made from Gohyakumangoku rice that’s been polished to 55 percent. It’s a pleasant, easy-drinking ginjo with nice astringency, good complexity and subtle floral nuances. The name Kokuryu has become synonymous with ginjo.
According to a 2002 Japan Times article by sake writer John Gauntner, a small Chiba brewery released a ginjo-marketed sake in 1947 under the Fusa Masamune brand. The brewery, Ishino Shoten, isn’t currently operational and phone calls for confirmation went unanswered. “We don’t really know who released the first ginjo to the general public,” says author Jiro Shinoda, Japan’s leading expert on ginjo-shu. In 1958, Hiroshima brewery Kamotsuru released Tokusei [special quality] Gold Kamotsuru labeled with the word daiginzo (大吟造), which means “daigin made,” as the term daiginjo wasn’t yet part of standardized parlance. According to Shinoda, Oita brewery Nishinoseki also released a ginjo koshu aged sake in 1961, but it seems it was sold as a niche product at airports. Ginjo brews weren’t widely sold because the general public had no idea what the word meant. It was an industry term, reserved for sake entered into competitions. “The word ‘ginjo-shu’ wasn’t commonly known until the 1980s,” says Shinoda. Examples of “ginjo” appear in Japanese dictionaries as early as 1935, when the most complete dictionary of the day, Daijiten, defined it as “carefully brewed using selected ingredients.” In the decades that followed, some dictionaries mentioned it, while Kojien, the Japanese dictionary held in highest esteem, did not define the word before1980. Dai Kan-wa Jiten, the most comprehensive postwar kanji dictionary, did not include it in the 1984 edition. In 1975, the year sake production reached its postwar peak, the Japan Sake Makers’ Association released its “Standards for Description of Ingredients and Production Methods.” These labeling and production standards, which were voluntary, defined ginjo-shu, including its polishing ratio. That same year, the Kokuryu Sake Brewery in Fukui released one of the first modern daiginjos, Kokuryu Ginjo Icchorai (icchorai being a local expression for clothing, similar to “one’s Sunday best” in English). It also released Kokuryu Daiginjo Ryu, which was one of the first daiginjo sakes. Ryu is Japanese for “dragon” (the brewery’s name means “black dragon”) and “dai-ginjo” was proudly written on the label. This sake had a polishing ratio of 50 percent (today’s Kokuryu Daiginjo Ryu is polished even further, having a ratio of 40 percent) and was made from the highest grade of Yamada Nishiki rice. Kokuryu had sold its daiginjo locally prior to this release. But in 1975, Kokuryu launched this premium sake nationally, selling it at 32 Takashimaya department stores across Japan. Daiginjo Ryu was one of the most expensive sakes of the day. One 1.8-liter (4-pint) bottle was 5,000 yen. The painstakingly made brew was a forerunner of future super-premium sakes made by brewers with relentless dedication to perfection. However, it would be another five years until the first mass-market ginjo was launched and Japanese sake drinkers went gaga for ginjo.
The Kokuryu brewery in Fukui uses soft water sourced from the evocative sounding Kuzuryugawa or “River of the Nine-Headed Dragon.”
“Prior to that, ginjo-shu was made for the national brewing contest,” says Shotaro Nakano, who, with his wife Akari, is the future of Dewazakura Sake Brewery in Yamagata Prefecture. “Even our brewery made ginjo-shu before 1980.” The reasonably priced Dewazakura Oka went on sale in 1980, marketing ginjo-shu to a public that still didn’t quite know what it was. The “ginjo boom” happened in the mid-1980s. According to Nakano, “Dewazakura Ouka ignited that fire.”
For a rice to be daiginjo, it must be polished to 50 percent or less. Pictured are grains of Yamada Nishiki polished to 40 percent.
Shinoda theorizes that the reason why the floral ginjo brews suddenly became popular was due to Japanese people’s diet. “Before 1970, Japanese people were eating on average 18 grams (½ ounce) of salt a day,” claims Shinoda. Foods like yakitori grilled chicken, tsukemono pickled vegetables and umeboshi pickled plums all have a high salt content. According to Shinoda, salty food makes people want to drink sweeter-tasting alcohol, which is why the heavier, richer sakes of Nada were so popular. “But that much salt isn’t good for you, and mothers started complaining to elementary schools, and school lunches became less salty,” says Shinoda. “This changed the Japanese diet.” In adulthood, these children continued to eat less salty food, and therefore preferred the floral, drier sakes of the 1980s to the sweeter brews popular in the past. “Sake is always connected to food,” says Shinoda. “This is why in the last 10 years, with more people eating salty takeout food, sweeter sakes have seen somewhat of a resurgence.”
But ginjo sake was a game changer. “Compared to previous sake, the scent of ginjo—what’s called the ginjoka—was quite different,” says Nakano. The sake world was never the same.
Some breweries have their workers directly touch their rice with their bare hands, while others worry how that will impact flavor and require their brewers to wear gloves.
One of the most important aspects not only in ginjo sake making but in all sake making is cleanliness, which helps avoid unwanted flavors.
Two brewers at the Dewazakura Sake Brewery take a breather as they remove hot rice from the steamer.
“Wataribune is a resurrected rice, so perhaps it might be better to use more of the grain,” says Tomita. “But we wanted to offer a contrast and allow people to compare sake made at the same brewery with the same water, the same yeast and the same rice, but with different polishing ratios.”
Tomita Shuzo’s results are fascinating. The 77-percent polishing-ratio bottling has fatter flavors, but the richness of the rice comes through in the more-polished daiginjo version. Yet the brewery’s less-polished version doesn’t feel top-heavy, and it has a nice, clean finish.
“The more rice is polished, the more essential the brewing technique is for the final characteristics,” says Tomita. “The less the rice is polished, the more important the flavors of the rice become.”
Cloudy and Undiluted Sake
These types of sake are closer to the uncut tipples either freshly pressed at breweries or made at home before do-it-yourself brewing became illegal in the late 19th century.
Nigorizake にごり酒: “Nigori” does not mean “unfiltered,” as it’s sometimes incorrectly translated; rather, it means “cloudy.” Since nigorizake is seishu (refined sake), it is filtered—though not to the same degree. Created in the 1960s by Kyoto’s Masuda Tokubee Shoten, it’s a modern version of doburoku, or unfiltered
