THE SAKE RESURRECTION
I FELL HARD for sake at, of all places, a London wine fair.
To be clear, wine, and more specifically, natural wine, is my specialty. But in my circle of food and beverage experts by the early 2010s, I had begun to hear rumors of something transcendent called junmai-shu, or “pure sake,” made using ancient methods of production and without the addition of neutral distilled spirits common in most modern sake brewing. I had heard whispers about Terada Honke, a sake producer that shared the principles of natural winemaking: brewery-propagated yeast, organic farming, no additives. In 2012, I discovered that very sake would be poured at the annual London Wine Fair.
So I flew to England, paid my fee, grabbed my glass, and rushed past the tables of wines to the back of the hall. There, a tall bespectacled gentleman loomed over bottles emblazoned with the labels of different producers. I looked for his name in my tasting book: He was Dick Stegewerns of the Holland-based Yoigokochi Sake Importers.
“The Terada Honke, please,” I said, holding out my glass with a smile.
Like a patient teacher, Dick suggested I try some of the more typical junmai-shu before I tasted the sake unicorn I was stalking. First, he poured me a clear, fruity sake. Then came one with age, rich and almost misolike. Both flooded my palate with flavors unfamiliar to me—a language I didn’t yet
