Osake Granville Island Junmai Nama Nigori, Craft Sake
Well, this is the first Sake write-up for my site. For me – like many of you – Sake brought to mind warm and fume-y concoctions served from pretty containers in sushi restaurants… That is, until recently.
Earlier this year, a corner of the Vancouver Playhouse Wine Festival changed all that. I tasted some beautiful variations of Japanese rice wine, including a few from the artisan Sake makers based right here in Vancouver, Osake.
After trying their wines at the festival, I resolved to making a trip to their studio to try more of them… and I hadn’t until last weekend. We were out doing the tourists-in-our-own-town thing – having a wander around Granville Island – when I remembered that the Sake studio was located in Railspur Alley. You know what happened next – we went, we tasted… and I grabbed a couple of bottles to take home. It won’t be the last time.
In their words, “Osake is the first ‘fresh premium’ Junmai Sake [Namazake] of its kind produced in Canada.” I’m glad they’re here in town. 🙂
They have three Sakes: the fresh and brightly flavoured Junmai Nama, the cloudy and fruity Junmai Nama Nigori and the full and round Junmai Nama Genshu. Tonight, I popped the Junmai Nama Nigori open to have with some sushi.
This is a pretty cool drop. It’s unfiltered and has a cloudy sediment that mixes into the wine with a little movement. In the glass it looks like watered-down skim milk. A sniff brings up lychee nut and sweet rice. A sip gives up a medium-bodied bunch of that juicy lychee along with honeydew melon and a bit of tannin and booze on the finish (it clocks in at 14%).
It went pretty bloody well with some wasabi-laden sushi tonight and I can also see it going really well with some spicier Asian dishes. It’s really tasty stuff.
I won’t pretend to be anything of a Sake expert… Hell, I’m just getting into the stuff, but this isn’t a bad place to start. Go try some, especially from a quality maker. You’ll be glad you did.
~$30 at Osake on Granville Island.
