Noguchi Naohiko Junmai Daiginjo (720 ml)

Naohiko Noguchi began brewing in 1949 at age seventeen in Noto Town, Ishikawa — the same hands that drove Japan's Daiginjo revolution in the 1970s and 1980s (27 Gold Medals at the Annual Japan Sake Awards, including 12 consecutive) founded NNSI in 2017 at age 85, expressly to break the industry taboo against aging namazake. The brewery sits at the foot of Mt. Kannon in Kanagaso-machi, Komatsu City, drawing medium-hard snowmelt from Mt. Hakusan through underground strata via an on-site well; that mineral-rich water drives clean, high-toned fermentation in the cool-cold Hokuriku winters that slow the mash and concentrate aromatic precision.

This Junmai Daiginjo is built on single-varietal Hyogo-grown Yamada Nishiki, fermented without added alcohol. The house's defining practice — Nama Jukusei, extended low-temperature aging of unpasteurised sake in stainless-steel tanks — applies here, allowing the liquid to develop umami architecture that conventional heat-pasteurised ginjo cannot achieve. Bottled as Muroka Nama Genshu (unfiltered, unpasteurised, undiluted; ABV ~16–18%), it arrives with no processing intervention between tank and bottle.

What no peer in the premium Daiginjo category does: NNSI positions this as a cellarable collectible, designed to gain depth over time in the bottle — a direct transgression of the drink-young orthodoxy that governs virtually all namazake. Ripe white peach, muscat, and quince aromatics carry a long mineral finish shaped by Hakusan water, with the Nama Jukusei aging adding a savoury umami undercurrent that lifts the finish well beyond the clean-neutral ginjo mainstream.