your favorite wines?

[Kcwhippet]

OK, time for another little sake primer. There are four basic types of premium sake, graded essentially by how much the rice is milled and whether any alcohol has been added to lighten the sake. Here they are in ascending order.
Junmai - 30% of the rice milled away, no added alcohol.
Honjozo - 30%, alcohol added
Ginjo - 40%, alcohol added
Daiginjo - 50% to 65%, alcohol added
There are also Junmai Ginjo and Junmai Daiginjo which have no added alcohol. Some of the very best are the Daiginjo which have a bit of added alcohol and are very light and flowery. All the above sakes are pasteurized and there's is a sort of fifth type, called Namazake which is any of the types above which have not been pasteurized. So, a sake with 50% to 65% of the rice milled away and no added alcohol and unpasteurized is a Namazake Junmai Daiginjo-shu. All the above premium sakes only account for 20% of the total produced. The other 80% is called Futsu, which just normal table sake. There aren't any minimum milling regs and it can or not have alcohol added. Incidentally, the US taxes sake with added alcohol at the distilled spirit rate rather than the brew rate, so it's rare to find any non-Junmai sakes here. There's actually another type called Nigori which is lightly filtered or non-filtered and has some of the brewing rice residue in the bottle making the sake look cloudy. It tastes a bit sweeter with hints of coconut and honey and goes very well with spicy foods as an alternative to Riesling. As to hot or cold, all the premium sakes are best served chilled, but can be warmed to no more than body temp in the winter. No sake should be served as many restaurants do - close to boiling. Futsu-shu is usually best served warmed at all times to ameliorate it's less than premium qualities. Hope this helps. BTW, there's a US sake producer from Oregon called SakeOne that produces a line called Momokawa, and their product is quite nice. They make four types -
Silver - a nice Honjozo style
Diamond - a Ginjo style that goes well with both seafood and lighter meats
Ruby - this is a light style for pwople who generally drink lighter red and white wines
Pearl - a really nice Nigori sake