Which Sake Should a Wine Lover Choose?

Start with LABEL AZUR, our Junmai Ginjo, if you enjoy fresh, mineral white wines: green apple and fresh mint, with pear and white grape on the palate. Made in Japan, it is our composition with Dewazakura and Régis Camus, our Cellar Master. For a wine lover discovering sake, it is the bottle we would open with seafood or a plate of spring vegetables.

what will a wine lover recognize in assemblage?

The familiar idea is composition: several finished sakes, chosen in particular proportions to create one expression.

Régis Camus was Cellar Master at Piper-Heidsieck and at Rare Champagne, and was named Sparkling Winemaker of the Year eight times at the International Wine Challenge. In Champagne, a Cellar Master composes a cuvée from selected base wines, often including reserve wines from earlier years. Régis brings that method to sake.

Each partner brewery makes the sakes, drawing on its own rice, water and brewing craft. Régis and the brewery taste those sakes together, exploring proportions until the aroma, texture and finish form the expression they want. That shared work is Assemblage, which we explore in The Sake Made by a Champagne Cellar Master.

LABEL ORANGE offers a specific example: Régis and Urakasumi compose several of that brewery's sakes into one. The result is slightly rich and dry, with a silky texture. Its fruit is layered over umami, a savory depth that grounds every sip.

which bottle suits the wine you love?

Take the wines you enjoy as a direction to explore, not an equivalent; each sake has a character of its own.

For someone drawn to rich or oaked white wines, our suggestion of LABEL ORANGE rests on its texture. Smoothness and fullness are the connection. If the attraction is an expressive nose with refreshing acidity, we would suggest LABEL NOIR instead. Its ripe fruit aromas and mineral palate offer a different balance, even though both are Junmai Daiginjo.

The grade on each label describes how the sake is made. Junmai means no distilled alcohol is added. LABEL AZUR is a Junmai Ginjo, made with rice polished to 60% or less of its original weight before a slow, cool fermentation; LABEL NOIR and LABEL ORANGE are Junmai Daiginjo, polished to 50% or less.

Bottle	Taste	Food	If you enjoy…
LABEL AZURJunmai Ginjo, composed with Dewazakura	Pear, apple, white grape and a hint of mint, fruity and mineral	Seafood, salads and goat cheese	Crisp, mineral whites such as Sancerre, as an aperitif or with a light dinner
LABEL NOIRJunmai Daiginjo, composed with Niizawa	Cantaloupe, tangerine, lychee and ripe apple, with a mineral palate, refreshing acidity and a lingering finish	Caviar, Ibérico ham and Parmigiano Reggiano	Aromatic whites with a long finish
LABEL ORANGEJunmai Daiginjo, composed with Urakasumi	Pineapple and melon, smooth and rich	Lobster, fatty tuna and roasted duck	Rich or oaked whites with a fuller texture
PRESTIGE Icomposed with Noguchi Naohiko	Yellow peach, mango and iris, complex and delicate, with a lingering finish	Chu-toro, a rich cut of tuna, and charcoal-grilled wagyu	Champagne, and the art of Assemblage behind it

what will a collector find in prestige i?

Régis Camus and Noguchi Naohiko, known as the God of Sake, composed PRESTIGE I from unreleased sake in Noguchi-san's archive. It is presented in handcrafted Arita porcelain.

Our suggestion to a Champagne lover rests on that shared interest in Assemblage. PRESTIGE I offers an opportunity to explore Régis's approach through another maker's work, with Noguchi-san's sake as the material. Régis and Noguchi-san share no common language. After three days and some forty or fifty trials, each wrote down the final combination independently, and they had written the same one.

how do we serve them?

We serve them as we would a fine white wine: chilled, at 7 to 10°C (45 to 50°F), in a white wine glass, whose bowl gives the aromas room to gather. We explain why in Why We Serve Sake in a Wine Glass.