Does your family have a Christmas wine tradition? For us there’s always sparkling shiraz at the table and Rutherglen muscat poured with the pudding.
This year, I’m going to change the pace a little and serve sake with one or two of the Christmas Day courses. Sake is a great option with food, complementing and highlighting elements rather than competing with them as some wines can.
“When you drink sake you should eat. In Japan, you’ll order food and sake – every round of drinks has a little nibble with it,” says Melbourne-based sake importer and sommelier Leigh Hudson.
Just like wine, different sake styles are suited to different dishes, from oysters and salmon to charcuterie and even steak – pretty much anything you might find on the Christmas table.
Try karakuchi with oysters, oni koroshi with cured meats, and nama with prawns on Christmas Day.
While there are different styles and a host of brewers with names that are hard to remember, let alone spell, sake’s actually a really approachable drink.
“Sake is where beer and wine meet – in flavour and how they are made,” says Hudson. “I think beer drinkers can find something familiar with sake and wine drinkers will find something very familiar, too.”
There are common characters that wine and beer lovers will appreciate, from the citrus and minerality of a riesling and stone fruits of chardonnay to the tropical aromas and caramel flavours of a beer.
“Sake’s made from rice that’s specifically grown for sake; it tends to be a bigger grain with a starchy centre. There are many breeds and some are better than others: just like grapes, price is a good indicator for quality.”
Sake producers mill the rice grains down to take the husks off, before milling them down further to get to the starch and remove proteins on the outer grain, which add impurities to the finished sake. It ends up being a rather expensive process.
There’s a strict classification system regarding how far the grains are milled down – or polished – too. When 50 per cent or less is polished off, it’s called daiginjo; up to 60 per cent is ginjo and between 60-70 per cent is classed as honjozo. The more the grain is milled, the more expensive the sake is.
After it’s polished, the rice is steamed and inoculated with koji, a mould that converts starch to sugar. Water and yeast is added and fermentation takes place in an open fermenter. As the process progresses, more steamed rice and yeast is added to trigger a parallel fermentation, in which the yeasts feed on the sugars as they are converted by the koji.
The mixture is pressed, just like fermented grapes, then the extracted juice pasturised and left to settle in tanks for a few months before being bottled. Some sake is fortified with alcohol, others are broken down with water or left unadulterated.
Sake is at its best up to a year after bottling and will last a week in the fridge after being opened.
The tradition
Ever wondered why sake is drunk from small porcelain cups, known as an ockoko?
“Small glasses are based on social reasons but people do drink from larger vessels at home,” says Leigh Hudson. “If you’re drinking with colleagues, you pour for the other people and never fill your own – it’s very rude if you do.
“The small glasses allow you to finish your drink quickly. At the end of the night everyone will have poured for each other.”
Sake is not aromatic like wine, so serving it in a glass with a large bowl does not improve its enjoyment. A smaller vessel, known as a tokkuri, is used to pour sake at the table. Tokkuri come in portion sizes, starting with a measure for two people. Porcelain tokkuri help the sake to be warmed and sit in hot water to stay warm.
Leigh Hudson owns Chef’s Armoury at 422 Church Street, Richmond, and he is hosting a free sake tasting, matched with Christmas dishes, on December 14 from 1pm. If you can’t make it, visit www.sakeshop.chefsarmoury.com.
