In wine making, the grape is the critical element. The majority of the wine’s characteristics come from the grape. “But for sake making, it’s a little bit different. It’s more about technique, about people controlling the process,” says Yoshihiro Sako of Den Sake Brewery in California. Sako was featured in the Los Angeles Times Rice does not include natural sugars like grapes, so a sake brewer must add koji (a specialized fungus) to convert the rice’s starch into glucose, which then gets fermented into alcohol. Sako says weather conditions, too, can affect the flavor. His latest batches — made after the recent California rains — taste different than batches made during the change. Sako says it’s a way sake “expresses the locality.”
Read more (Los Angeles Times)