Yukinobousha Yamahai Jyunmai (720 ml)

Saiya Brewery's toji Takahashi Toichi — recognised by the Emperor of Japan in 2015 as a national artisan — built his reputation on a counterintuitive premise: that yamahai, a method notorious for wild, barnyard character, could be coaxed into something precise and mellow. The result is this Yamahai Junmai, where a low-temperature yamahai moto (yeast starter) allows natural lactic-acid development to proceed slowly enough that the native microflora never tip toward funk.

The kura sits on a natural 6-metre slope in Yurihonjo City, Akita — a Nobori-gura (climbing brewery) where rice polishing begins at the hilltop and gravity carries the sake downward through fermentation and pressing, eliminating mechanical agitation. Water is drawn from a mineral-rich underground spring fed by Mount Chokai (鳥海山), whose cold, clean profile reinforces the sake's structural clarity. Rice is Akita Sake Komachi, over half of it employee-farmed by the brewery itself — a level of paddock-to-bottle control almost unheard of in premium sake production.

The 'San-nai-zukuri' (three-no) philosophy governs bottling: no paddle-mixing, no charcoal filtration, no water addition — making this a genshu (undiluted) expression at natural ABV, preserving every textural layer the yamahai starter built. What is unusual here: most genshu yamahai from Tohoku reads rich and rustic; this reads clean, with lactic depth and a firm acid spine that lifts rather than weights the palate. Drink now through three years; slight chill (10–12 °C) opens the umami register.