Lisa and Bob in San Francisco and Napa Valley:
Saturday, October 13th



"The beginning of art -
a rice planting song
in the backcountry"
--Basho

This poem opens the brochure that Hakusan puts out about their sake. I’ve run a feudal Japan newsletter for over 10 years, and love Japanese food - especially sushi and sake. With Hakusan sake being so easily available, this was definitely first on our list for Saturday morning.

The day was another warm, lovely one as we drove onto their grounds. There is the tasting building, the manufacturing building, and then a zen sand garden between the two. While normally we did the tour and then the tasting, in this case we began by going into the tasting building, with a nice indoor seating area plus the wood tasting bar.



We first talked a bit about sake in the US. There are only 6 sake makers in the US, compared with over 2000 in Japan. Hakusan gets its rice from Sacramento, and creates 8 varieties of sake. Sake is made by milling rice down - removing the outer, impure parts - and fementing the inner core with koji . The more you mill off impurities, the finer the sake. A bottle of sake made from 80% milled rice (with 80% removed) can go for $100/bottle or more!

Hakusan makes 8 varieties of Sake; here are the ones we tried.

"Napa" Sake
This is 13% alcohol, 40% milled rice. It has a banana scent, with a smooth light taste. Recommended with spicy food.

"Premium" Sake
This is 16% alcohol, 50% milled rice. A green apple sort of flavor, nice and smooth. Goes well with seafood.

"Mild" Sake
This is 15% alcohol, 40% milled rice. It's dry and crisp, and is great in saketinis.

"Sake" (plain)
This is 30% milled rice, and is often served warm, where the others are served warm or cool. It's a gentle, comfort sort of sake.

"Plum" Sake
This sake has plum extract added to it for a fresh, fruity flavor. It goes well with light dishes, like lemon chicken. Also good as a dessert wine.

"Raspberry" Sake
This has raspberry extract added, and is the only sake in the set with sulfites (5 ppm) for color stabilization. Because none have much sulfites at all, the sake can't age and must be drunk within a year. This has a fresh, raspberry flavor.

The final two sakes they have are a sweet blossom, which they don't do tastings of, and their Mirin, which is a cooking sake.

Done with the tasting, we next went outside to walk through the guided tour.

Touring at Hakusan

Lisa's Trip to San Francisco & Napa Valley
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