Sake-making is widespread across all areas and prefectures of Japan.
That being said, some people don’t know that each local variety has something special to say about the region that produced it.
This article goes out to the sake fans around the world who are still waiting to get here after the pandemic.
Let me take you into the world of sake while sharing the best of the brewery and real, regional know-how from a local sake maker.
Here’s some sake love from this brewery to the world!

Rokkasen is a truly unique sake brewery in Japan where the brewery floor is surrounded by modern machinery. Every drop of their sake is made while keeping the taste and sensibilities of its drinkers in mind. The machines are merely tools to accomplish this. In a way, the machines are used to enhance the thinking process behind production to its fullest, so the makers can re-focus on what they do best. Sake making isn’t about science, its based on “sensibilities”, and that’s what Rokkasen and their craftmade sakes are all about. 

Rokkasen is located in the near center of Yamagata Prefecture. It sits in the city of Higashine, a famous cherry producing region that’s backed by the Ou Mountain Range and the pure stream waters of Mt. Kurobushiyama. These pure waters are blended with Yamagata-brand rice to make sake. The brewery itself was founded together by 5 breweries in the northern Murayama area (encompassing the towns of Higashine, Murayama, Obanazawa and Oishida) in 1972.

All of the Rokkasen brand sake is made with rice that’s polished in-house, which is then checked painstakingly each year before launching production. The large majority of the rice comes from Yamagata. This is what infuses the sake with the taste of its region and climate. The Daiginjo and Junmai-daiginjo varieties are made with rice grains that are polished down over 50% of their original mass, a process which requires both time and skill. Once it’s polished, the grains are aged from two weeks to a month before they entire the next stage of washing and soaking.

Rokkasen integrates machinery into its sake-making, insuring that the tanks are monitored not just by the makers intuition, but by the measured, quantitative readouts used to control the final taste.

Rokkasen uses a soaking process for the rice (to thoroughy rinse the steamed rice and prevent irregularities), which is then transferred to a manmade steamer, as opposed to a traditional Japanese style tank. Doing this allows the grains to maintain a hard exterior and soft exterior, which is the key to producing an especially aromatic malt.

Rokkasen uses a number methods to derive its sake, including the “yabuta-shiki” (standing pressing racks) style pictured here, the “fukuro-tsuri” hanging bag style (a method often used in high-end or competitive sakes where the koji mash is hung inside sake pressing bags ) to naturally draw out the liquid. 
There is also the centrifuge, a method that keeps most of the original taste and aroma as the liquid does not pass through a pressing cloth.

If sake is stored at room temperature it takes on a yellow or amberish tint, but storing it at freezing temperatures allows for a clearer color, along with a smooth, rounder taste. Believe me, it’s definitely cold! But Pres. Matsuoka seems used to it by now. It seems like the cold doesn’t bother him at all. 

I highly recommend you come down for a visit when you next have a chance!