What Is Ginjo Sake?

Series Summary

Sake is produced from the fermentation of rice. Initially, sake was produced by people chewing a combination of chestnuts, millet, acorns and rice and spitting this mixture into a large bowl. Since these ancient origins, the fermentation of this popular alcoholic beverage has advanced significantly, to what is now a sophisticated and scientifically advanced industry which produces many different varieties. The Japanese government opened research institutes in the early 1900s to streamline the sake brewing process. By 1988, Japan had almost 2,500 sake breweries. The drink has also become popular all over the world. Traditionally, sake is served in a shallow ceramic cup called a choko. In this informative video series, a sake sommelier discusses ginjo sake. Learn what ginjo sake tastes like and how it differs from other sakes. This expert also discusses storage of ginjo sake, serving temperature and the proper way to drink it. What foods go with ginjo sake? How much does it cost? What are the most popular brands? Watch this free video series and become a ginjo sake expert.

Video Transcript

"I'm Beau Timken, master sake sommelier, and in this segment, we're talking about Ginjo Sake. What is Ginjo? Well, in the wine grape world, you categorize wine by the grape varietal itself, Chardonnay, Cabernet. But in the sake brewing world, you do not categorize by the varietal of brewing rice. There are about sixty really good in use, in play varietals and brewing rice including things like Gohyakumangoku, Omachi, Yamadanishki, Sasanishki, you don't categorize by the varietal. You actually categorize by how much you mill or polish rice. Now, there's no such thing as white rice. Again, if you've every seen white rice out in the wild, take a picture of it, I'd love to see it. All rice is brown rice. The more you mill, the more you polish, the more you ground away the outside of each grain of rice, that's the different category. When you have consumption rice, food rice, typically that's white rice that's called sushi rice. They've taken off about ten percent off each grain of rice. For premium sake, the premium categories, Junmai Ginjo and Daiginjo, in the Junmai category, they're removing thirty percent of each grain of rice. They're polishing away thirty percent with the remaining figure, seventy percent remaining each grain of rice. Likewise, for Ginjo, the Ginjo category, they remove forty percent of each grain of rice with sixty percent remaining. And for Daiginjo, they remove at least fifty percent of each grain of rice with fifty percent remaining. Now, what the heck are you removing? You're removing fats, minerals, proteins, vitamins, everything that's good for your body, nutrients, but just bad for making sake. It just doesn't help in the fermentation process. What you want is more clean starch tones void of all those other elements. Now, the Ginjo category is a category that is really celebrated as really getting up there in the really premier drinking categorization of sake. Junmai of the premium category is sort of the pedestrian one. Ginjo is kind of the meat and potatoes of it. And Daiginjo is kind of the extreme of the premium sakes. The Ginjo category is probably one of the most popular premium sake categories in the business of sake."