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Sake Professional Course Alumnae Newsletter #6 October 09
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The Sake Professional Course Alumnae Newsletter
A Medium To Keep in Touch - For the Sake of Sake
October 2009
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In This Issue Greetings
Announcements
Sake Brewery Tours!!!
Sake Tidbit
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Mid-fall Greetings to all,
Greetings to all SPC graduates, where ever you might be. I am sure you are all aware it is Sake Day on October 1, and even more significantly, the industry is gearing up for the start of the H21 (yeat 21 of the Heisei era, i.e. this year) brewing season. Until I get a grip on all that is happening (that should happen in about 2025) I might not get this out exactly every month, but will do my best. Please enjoy both the announcements and what industry tidbits I can cull for you. Note, if you know someone that has taken SPC and is not getting this nl (and wants it), please let me know.
As usual, this will be posted on the blog as well at spcgrad.wordpress.com/.
Warm regards,
John |
Sake Professional Course Las Vegas
On November 2, 3 and 4 in Las Vegas, Nevada at the MGM Grand Hotel I will hold  the second Stateside Sake Professional Course of 2009. This is the first time I will hold more than one a year outside of Japan, and the first one to be held ever in Las Vegas. The MGM Grand is also offering discounted room rates for November 1 to 4 for attendees. If anyone you know or work with is interested in taking the course, by all means please have them email me at sakecoursestateside@sake-world.com. The cost for the three-day course is US$775, and includes certification testing as well. More information can be found at http://www.sake-world.com/html/spclv.html. It is, as you know, simply the best and most thorough sake education on the planet, during which no sake stone remains left unturned.
As of now, October 1, there are a few remaining open seats. Please send anyone remotely interested to me by email.
Level I Sake Specialist Exam: TESTING FOR ANY GRADUATES INTERESTED!
Note, at the end of the course in Las Vegas, I will be offering the Level I exam. If any graduates of SPCI would like to take the test at that time you are welcome to do so. If you are interested in this or have any questions related to it please feel free to contact me at the above address or at sakeguy@gol.com.
Las Vegas SPC Graduates Get-together
On the last night of course to be held next month in Las Vegas, there will be an informal get-together of all Sake Professional Course graduates in the area. Details are not fully hammered out, but it will likely be at a restaurant off the strip a bit, with sake and food. Nothing big, nothing uptight, just a chance for the relatively large number of people in the LV area that have taken the course to get together and ...well, drink sake. And talk. i will send another note to this list when the details are confirmed.
Sake Professional Course in Japan, 2010
The Japan-based version of the Sake Professional Course will be held January 25 to 29 in Japan. The fee is 170,000 yen (about US$1700) and includes the three days of seminar content, plus two days of brewery visits to four kura of different scale, and note too that the evening meals (and tons of sake along with them) are included in the tuition as well. I have not yet announced this seminar to the public, but have four or five attendees already, and attendance will be strictly limited to 20. If you or yours are interested, please let me know as soon as you can.
II 2010: Level II of the Sake Professional Courses PLEASE NOTE!
Following that, during the week of February 15, 2010, I will hold SPCII 2010 in Japan as well. SPCII  builds on the “no sake stone left unturned” foundation of Level I, and focuses on advanced material, lots of tasting exercise designed to hone and improve your tasting and recognition skills, and also includes two guest lectures by Haruo Matsuzaki (“the sake palate from hell”) on regionality and how to improve your tasting skills, and one more on the economics of sake vs. those of wine. Naturally, evening meals and kura visits are a part of the experience too, although for SPCII we stay in Tokyo and branch out to day-trip-distance kura from there. SPCII finishes with the Level II (Intermediate) Sake Specialist exam, which includes essays and a tasting component and is significantly more challenging than Level I. The cost for Level II is 150,000 yen.
NOTA BENE: I initially thought that there would be enough interest to justify a second Level II course this year, but I have not yet seen that need. However, if enough folks express a strong interest then
a chance exists that I will do a second Level II here in March, but I am not sure if that is needed or feasible yet. As such, if you are interested in taking Level II here in Japan, please do take a moment to let me know. It is not a commitment on your part yet, but I need to know if I need to think about setting up a second Level II course as well. I would greatly appreciate your help and support on this. Thanks in advance.
SPCFacebook
Note,
there is a Sake Professional Course Graduate group on Facebook for
those of you that are interested. I do think that some members have discussed and shared employment information, so if you are seeking sake-related work it may behoove you to at least sign up for that.
The Sake Executive Council
Thanks to the support of many I am actively putting together the legal entity that will be the non-profit organization The Sake Education Council, and in fact will definitely have something to announce next month. Please keep posted.While I mentioned this last month, I have received confirmation that non-profit status is on its way and is just a matter of time.
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Sake Brewery Tours: we are live NOW!
Sake Tourism has begun!
Want to visit sake breweries in Japan? Now you can!
I am pleased to announce the starting of the Sake World Sake Brewery Tours program. Now, anyone can access the inner workings of the sake world. Visit Japan, start off with a bit of formal sake education by yours truly, then you are off to see several sake breweries while under the care of an experienced sake-savvy interpreter. Events include sake-centered meals and other cultural sight-seeing options - and even a bit of free time. This brewing season, there are two tours planned:
Tour I: February 23 to 27 in the Kansai (Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe) area
Tour II: March 15 to 19 in the San-in (Shimane and Tottori) area For more information, pricing and reservations please go to www.saketours.com. Participation is extremely limited this season for the two tours that are scheduled.
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This Year's Rice
As many of you may know, I love sumo. It is, behind sake, my second favorite thing in Japan. (My wife  is a distant third.) I dunno...something about two large guys blasting into each other at point blank range while half naked on a hard clay surface.
Silliness aside, it is a brillant and fascinating sport. And I was standing in front of the Kokugikan, the official sumo stadium in Tokyo, with Mr. Yoshida, the president and owner of Ume no Yado in Nara,
waiting for the 3rd and 4th members of our party.
Naturally enough, the conversation gravitated toward sake, and more specifically, this year's rice. As we stood there in the autumn sun, I asked him half out of interest and half to make conversation, “So, how’s the rice looking this year?”
“Hm,” he replied thoughtfully, “It’s a bit too early to tell. Regular rice is being harvested now, but sake rice won’t be ready until late October so we still have another month.”
“Any inkling or indications at all?” I persisted.
“Well, the prognosis is not good, that’s for sure. Too much rain in the early summer, not enough sun in the early fall. There still is some time, but rice like that ends up being too soft, without the hardness that makes it suitable for brewing.”
Why hardness? One, it is easy to mill down to higher levels (smaller sizes) without having to worry as much about cracking or breaking. There are other reasons too related to dissolving in the tank too fast and how the koji grows on it, but for those aspects while too soft can be bad, too hard can be as well. It is not all that clear cut (imagine that in the sake world!).
“The other thing,” Yoshida-san continued, “is content, as in protein and starch. Not enough sunlight means not as much starch, and the corresponding protein content is just as much a part of the problem.”
He went on to explain that this can be assessed by how “fat” the grains of rice are, since they get fatter when the shinpaku (the “white heart” of starch) becomes enlarged. So fatter is better since it means more starch and usually correspondingly less protein.
I have been growing Yamada Nishiki in a big tub in my yard now for two years. In fact, this year’s Kamakura (my town) Yamada was made from last year’s seeds, so it is likely the worlds first Kamakura-native Yamada Nishiki. Yeppir. All 300 grains of it. But my advisor on all of this is Ni-ichiro Marumoto of Chikurin in Okayama. I send him pictures of it regularly and this year’s came out remarkably well. But we are getting in to the homestretch now, and he advised me NOT to add any more fertilizer (organic or otherwise) or nutrients to the rice any more. Why not?
“At this stage, any nutrients just get turned into protein. You don’t want that. Just keep the soil moist and it’ll be fine.” Marumoto-san, by the way, felt much more positive about his Okayama Prefecture based Yamada Nishiki rice than Yoshida-san did overall.
So, like the brewers themselves, we will just have to wait and see. Let’s hope it ends up being a good one.
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The above is what I had intended to write this month. Then, between writing it and sending it, I went to a tasting yesterday where I heard some very interesting and relevant information.
I was tasting near the Tatsuriki table, and Honda-san (the owner inherit son) was talking about this year's rice. He was explaining that different strains of sakamai are harvested at significantly different times. For example, Gohyakumangoku (Niigata, Fukui, Sea of Japan side) is a rice that is ready for harvest early, as much as a month earlier than, for example, Yamada Nishiki. While the former might be ready at the end of September, the latter is not harvested until the end of October, at least not in the region where it grows best (Hyogo, Okuyama, Fukuoka, Tokushima).
Honda-san explained (as if it were common sense) that this year, the rice harvested early was not going to be good as there was too much rain and not enough sun in the summer. But the stuff harvested late was good, as things got hot and bright later in the summer and in the early fall, conditions that continue now (the typhoon bearing down on us as I write this notwithstanding).
And, so, he summarized, “It comes down to the variety of rice. We cannot expect much from Gohyakumangoku this year, but on the other hand, the Yamada Nishiki is looking quite fine.” He did note, however, that it was still early.
“We will be fine as long as something huge does not happen, like a direct-hit by a typhoon.” When asked about the one heading toward Japan now, he said, “It doesn’t look like that one is going to make landfall, though.”
Well, that was yesterday. As of last night they were talking a direct hit. If you read this newsletter immediately, you can check that path here.
For those that care, early-harvest rice is called “wa-se” in Japanese, and the late-harvest stuff is called “oku-te.” Note, though, these are not words that pop up in daily conversation. ;-)
In the end, though, we will have to wait to see how the rice ends up. Stay tuned for more.
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Finally
If you are no longer involved with sake, God forbid, or for any other reason you prefer to not receive this email, then please let me know. Also: if you know someone that has taken the Sake Professional Course and has a new email address or is otherwise not getting this, or you prefer another yourself, please let me know that as well.
Regards,
John Gauntner
Sake World, Inc.
www.sake-world.com |
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