Tedorigawa Yamahai Jikomi Jyunmaishu (720 ml)

Tedorigawa has brewed along the Tedori River in Ishikawa Prefecture since 1870, drawing on snowmelt water filtered through the Hakusan mountain range — exceptionally soft, low-mineral water that the brewery deliberately pairs with the yamahai jikomi method to coax complexity that soft water alone cannot deliver. Hakusan's snowpack feeds a water table that keeps fermentation temperatures low and slow through winter, concentrating lactic character and amino acid depth in the moromi mash.

Yamahai jikomi abandons the modern sokujo starter in favour of a weeks-long, open-vessel wild lactic acid cultivation — a process that takes roughly twice as long as conventional brewing and produces a starter dense with indigenous microflora. The result is a junmai (pure rice, zero distilled alcohol addition) with a pronounced savouriness and a naturally high acidity that stabilises the wine without additives. Rice variety and seimaibuai for this specific expression are polished to ≤70% (junmai grade), preserving the outer rice layers that feed umami-forward amino acid production.

What sets this expression apart within Tedorigawa's range is the yamahai's deliberate wildness: the brewery accepts batch-to-batch variation as evidence of authenticity rather than a flaw to engineer away. Drink now through five years; exceptional warm at 45 °C where the lactic backbone opens into mushroom and aged rice complexity.