Welcome to Issue 6 of Sake Today!
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Sake culture around the world continues to gain momentum. Here in Japan there are significantly more events happening. These include regional and prefectural tastings, as well as events put on by various ensembles of brewers that focus on consumers rather than stodgy trade types. There is also much more press coverage of the younger generation of brewers that continues to boldly go where no brewers have gone before. Expectations are appropriately high.
Recently there has been a spate of articles about how the Finance Ministry in Japan, through coordination with the National Tax Agency, will give geographical status to sake made in Japan using local ingredients. In other words, like Scotch whiskey for Scotland and champagne for France, the words “nihonshu” in Japanese and “Japanese sake” in English (according to the article that I read in the Asahi Newspaper) will only be applicable to sake made in Japan using Japanese rice and water. Member countries of the World Trade Organization would then be obligated to observe this.
In Japan, all sake is legally labelled as seishu, which means refined sake, or alternatively nihonshu. The word sake itself can actually refer to all alcoholic beverages in Japanese. As such, it would be inappropriate to try to assign such status to the word sake, but nihonshu is certainly ripe for such action.
I do not expect these moves to have much of an effect initially. The truth is that outside Japan, almost no one calls our beloved beverage nihonshu; it is pretty much universally called sake. And I have never heard of anyone brewing sake outside of Japan that called their product “Japanese sake.” If anything, they are proud of having made it locally! In all practicality nothing will change.
In fact, it may cause a bit of confusion as first, since the nascent sake market, um… nihonshu market overseas will need to learn one more term. People will want to know the difference between sake and nihonshu, and some may seem befuddled for a moment by the new term. They’ll get over it in due time, and the sake world will likely be at least a bit better off in the long run.
Why does the government want to do this? Certainly part of the reason would be to prevent brewers from importing rice from overseas, making sake with it in Japan, and calling it nihonshu. Since several years ago, the list of ingredients for sake must indicate whether or not the rice used was domestically grown. In other words, the ingredients on the label do not just say “rice,” but rather “domestic rice,” 国産米 (or otherwise, if imported). This labeling law seems like an extension of policy. In reality, very little of such sake exists in Japan. There are only a couple of brewers practicing this and I don’t recall having ever actually seen the brands. It does not appear with the sake I purchase, nor the ones most of us do in all likelihood.
Also, industry data shows that there is sake imported to the US that was not made in Japan. Again, I have never once come across these brands–I guess I am just not drinking at the right places–but records say it is there. If and when this law passes, producers will still be able to call such products sake, just not nihonshu or Japanese sake. While this law may prevent us from inadvertently drinking supposedly inauthentic nihonshu, that is not likely a big problem for most of us.
In the end, I think that it is likely designed to promote image and awareness. It is part of the “Cool Japan” initiative, after all. This government campaign was launched several years ago with the aim of extending Japan’s so-called soft power, or cultural appeal, around the world. Raising the ‘coolness’ of nihonshu over just any sake made anywhere is a good and positive thing for the country, and aligned with what the initiative is trying to accomplish.
I am all for this kind of designation! It will likely prove to be great PR for sake in general, even if it doesn’t change the way most of us drink sake or talk about it.
In this issue, learn about sake from Hiroshima and its historical significance, sake’s ties to the Shinto religion, where to drink in both New York City and in the Ginza area of Tokyo, and how to begin to read sake labels. Remember that all of this plus the rest of the issue’s material is best enjoyed with a glass or three of summertime ginjo.
John Gauntner
