Rustic, somewhat awkward, yet pleasant overall, and good at the table; rare beef brings it around.

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By W. Blake Gray.

I’m so frustrated, I’ve got drinkus interruptus. Or more accurately, blatherus interruptus.

Here’s what happened: I went to Japan, drank a bunch of sake and took notes. Then I went to the Joy of Sake event; ditto. The idea, beyond maintaining a rice buzz, was to find Vinography readers some cutting-edge sakes that you just can’t read about anywhere else in English.

Well, I succeeded. But then I started floundering around trying to find out where you can buy these great sakes, and discovered it would be easier to get a first-edition copy of my first favorite book: The Blueberry Pie Elf. (This elf won’t settle for cherry pie when he wants blueberry, and why should he?)

OK, I know, you want to hear about this week’s baby — the product of a brewery started in 1716 by the family of a “ronin” (masterless samurai) who settled down to become a merchant; his descendants wanted to diversify from the canola oil business. The family histories in the sake world make Bordeaux chateaux proprietors seem like a bunch of grasping nouveau riche.

But it’s the Internet; let me whine about my labor pains a little more. I emailed breweries in Japan and had conversations so excruciatingly polite that I couldn’t understand them. (”Thank you respectfully for your pleasant inquiry, which, though we are unworthy, we are pleased to receive warmheartedly.”) I contacted US distributors, some of whom weren’t much better. (”Yes, that’s right what you said about that sake you can’t find being delicious.”)

There’s a lesson in this, and it’s that the premium sake world is not so different from the world of Pinot Noir. You might be able to come up with a sake from the producer you’re seeking, but that’s not really good enough. If I want a Siduri Sonatera Vineyard Pinot Noir, a Siduri Russian River Valley Pinot Noir just isn’t the same. Ditto sake: If I want a producer’s junmai ginjo, that brewer’s plain junmai or plain ginjo — much rarer — might taste completely different.

Which brings me to this week’s sake. In Japan, non-junmai ginjo sakes aren’t rare at all. US tax laws make this sake an oddity here, but fortunately an easily buyable one.

For ginjo sake, at least 40 percent of the rice has been polished away, removing impurities. That’s expensive. Junmai (”pure rice”) sakes are made with no added brewers’ alcohol. Sakes can be both; in the US, ginjo sakes are usually also junmai. But they don’t have to be.

Sakes that have brewers’ alcohol added are taxed at a higher rate by the US government, discouraging importers from carrying them.

But adding alcohol is not inherently bad. Japanese drinkers prefer honjozo sakes — these have alcohol added, and are not at the ginjo level of quality — because they’re lighter in body, drier and often more food-friendly. Junmai sakes are more wine-like, for better and worse, which is why wine drinkers like myself respond so positively to them.

Tasting sake at a brewery in Japan is interesting because they offer so many more choices: sesshu (the lowest level), honjozo, junmai, ginjo, junmai ginjo, daiginjo (at least 50 percent of the rice polished away) and junmai daiginjo, and they’ll all taste different.

Many also offer several junmai sakes made from different types of rice, so you can compare.

Here in the US, most importers narrow each brewer’s product line to two of those choices; usually both are junmai.

Perhaps Pacific International Liquors in SoCal made an exception for this sake because of its hardware. The Okunomatsu Ginjo won first price in Japan’s 26th national sake contest in the non-junmai ginjo division.

That’s interesting to me because this sake doesn’t have the lean profile I expect of a non-junmai ginjo (see tasting notes below).

Perhaps this creamy sake seduced the judges in that category the same way a super-ripe red wine can impress palate-weary wine tasters.

Why is it so smooth? Brewers usually credit the water, and Okunomatsu takes its water from springs from snow-covered Mt. Adatara.

Okunomatsu is in Fukushima prefecture, about 300 km north of Tokyo, and directly east of two prefectures far more famous for sake: Niigata and Yamagata. Those two border the sea of Japan, while Fukushima faces the Pacific Ocean. Fukushima doesn’t have the sake reputation of its neighbors, but just looking at a map, it’s hard to say why. Perhaps it’s the agricultural tradition: Niigata and Yamagata have remained farming-first communities into the 21st century, while Fukushima has a strong electronics industry.

Anyway, it’s a soothing solution for drinkus interruptus — though obviously my blatherus problem isn’t going away.

Tasting Notes:
This sake is creamy on both nose and palate. The aromas are of fresh cream, yoghurt and green melon with some floral hints. It’s very clean and smooth in the mouth; accent on the “fresh” part of fresh cream. You taste green melon initially, along with hints of lime and pear. I got a little astringency on the back of my tongue, but that was fine in contrast with the medium-length creamy finish.

Food Pairing:
The smoothness of this sake calls for equally smooth cuisine, if you can imagine that: pasta with salmon cream sauce would be an interesting pairing. We had it with sashimi and liked it best with the fattier fish. Stay away from vinegary dishes that would emphasize the astringency.

Overall Score: 9

How Much?: $28 for 720 ml

This sake is available for purchase on the internet.

About W. Blake Gray: Sake and wine writer W. Blake Gray’s all-time favorite Japanese dramas are “Odoru Daisosasen,” “Sori to Yobanai De” and “Kimi Ga Ita Mirai no Tame Ni.” E-mail him: oira79 at hotmail dot com.

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Like many wine lovers, I enjoy exploring the wine regions of the world from the comfort of my own kitchen table. Night after night I open a bottle or two and experience little bits and pieces of the world — snapshots of places and times captured in flavors and colors and aromas. Some of these explorations don’t offer much return on the investment. There’s a lot of wine out there, and much of it is below ordinary in quality, especially from wine regions that often carry labels such as “up and coming.” I take extra care and effort to try wines from such regions because every once in a while I get the pleasure of experiencing a wine that hits my palate like a ton of bricks and demonstrates definitively the potential of a region to do great things.

I had to search for a while, for instance, before I found such a Malbec from Argentina. I stumbled around some good wines before I found greatness in eastern Washington state. I’ve had glimmers of greatness from the North Fork of Long Island in New York, but I’ve only just now had a wine that proves to my palate unequivocally that Long Island can make some kick-ass wine.

I did not discover this wine, or its producer Raphael Winery, on my own. Quite the contrary, I’d still have no idea that they existed had my friend Lenn not brought this very bottle with him on a trip to California a couple of years ago. He handed it to me with a glimmer in his eye that told me I should tuck it away in my cellar for a little while, and open it with the proper reverence.

And that’s just what I did last night at dinner with some friends, and we all got a chance to experience what a perfect harvest on the North Fork of Long Island has the potential to taste like.

Raphael Winery was started in 1996 by John Petrocelli, and has rapidly become one of the regions top producers. Named after Petrocelli’s father, Raphael was founded to produce wines in the style of the greatest houses of Bordeaux, and if this wine is any indication, they are well on their way. Winemaking (as well as general operation)is overseen by Richard Olsen-Harbich, who works very closely with vineyard manager Stephen Mudd, who just like his last name suggests, enjoys getting his hands dirty whenever possible. Additional advice on winemaking is also provided by enologist Paul Pontallier, who, when he’s not tasting through blends with Olsen-Harbich and Mudd, spends his time being the managing director of Chateau Margaux on Bordeaux’s Left Bank.

The Raphael estate sits only 2000 feet from the water of Peconic bay, and slopes gently up across a plain of fine soil deposited by glaciers that covered the region millions of years ago. On this silty, loamy soil, the estate has a bit more than fifty acres under vine, with the majority of it planted to Merlot, the grape that seems to thrive best in these soils typical of the North Fork. Mudd and his vineyard crew work the vines meticulously, and only by hand. There are workers in the vineyards year-round, pruning, leaf-pulling, training, and weeding. The winery also significantly reduces yields (by about 50% at times) by dropping fruit in an attempt to make sure every remaining cluster ripens to its fullest (sometimes a challenge amidst the region’s chill).

The 2001 vintage on Long Island was one of the most perfect that anyone can remember for at least three decades. The fall was long, warm, and sunny, and not a drop of rain fell between September 1st and the harvest, which at Raphael took place on November 6th. The winery hand-harvested a mere 4 tons from its two acres of Cabernet Sauvignon, but all of it was perfect fruit.

I don’t know the particular details of its making, other than it was aged (for at least 18 months, I would guess) in 100% French Oak (of which a large percentage was probably new) and then blended with 5% Merlot before bottling. Four tons of fruit yield only about two barrels of wine. Only 50 cases of this wine were made.

Tasting Notes:
Medium to dark ruby in the glass, this wine has a beautifully elegant nose of classic wet slate with some steely undertones that have been dusted with sawdust and cherry fruit. In the mouth it is gorgeously balanced with a purity of mineral and earth that yields at the edges to cherry and some leather flavors, but remains a stony monolith through the expansive finish. In a blind tasting, you’d never guess this elegant aristocrat was from the new world. Fantastic.

Food Pairing:
We drank this last night with dry-rubbed, thick-cut rib-eye steaks off the grill. I’d be hard pressed to find a better match.

Overall Score: 9/9.5

How Much?: $40

This wine is generally just impossible to find in this vintage. More recent vintages may be available online.

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