Sake Styles – The Theme of Akita Sake

I often get asked, “Is there terroir in the sake business?” Meaning, like wine, do different prefectures or areas make different flavored sakes because of the natural elements needed for making wine or sake? My answer is a big fat “Not really.” Most breweries buy their raw materials from some other prefectures and only use their local water. There is a movement to using local ingredients such as brewing rice and cultivating their own house yeasts etc, but on the whole the “concept’ of terroir does not really exist in the raw materials aspect. But there is a certain terroir-like element in the way that sake makers produce sakes in different regions.

One of the perks of being in the sake biz is that the owners typically escort me around their brewery. I am eternally grateful for this because I get to learn so much more about the each kura and I get to ask the millions and millions of question that burn within my enquiring mind. I usually ask the same questions at some point during the meetings before the actual tours. And one of the more difficult questions revolves around the “generalities” of the prefecture in terms of flavor and taste of their sake.

Each brewery owner who I met with said basically the same thing about what Akita sake used to taste like over 10 years ago. They mentioned that on account of the fact that Akita cuisine tends to be salty the sake was made sweeter and with more viscosity. (Basically fatter and sweeter sake that was heavy and had a lot of body) Today they said almost to a person that Akita sake still has good body – good feeling – but does not have that heaviness. I heard the word body a lot. They like sake that covers the palate and is not super thin or water-like. I heard the word “structure” a lot as well and both of these words came before flavor, which was interesting.

To generalize I would say that most of the owners who I spoke with would say that Akita sake focuses on feeling as much as flavor. They would say that their sake is full in the palate and would edge toward a sweeter flavor. They would also add that their sake tastes like it has more body but drinks light. If I had to compare a prefecture’s sake to Akita’s it would probably be Yamagata. I think that Akita focuses a little bit more on how the sake feels on the pallet as in more body, but it has similarities to the flavor profiles of Yamagata sake.
Key Words To Describe Akita Sake:
- Body
- Rich
- Structure
- Round
- Sweet
- Ricy
- Velvety