Wine Cell Junmai Ginjo (Muroka Hon Nama) (720 ml)

When Masaki Kobayashi took the helm of the 1872-founded Kobayashi Shuzo, he made a decision that nearly broke the brewery: eliminating every non-ginjo SKU and staking the house entirely on labor-intensive premium sake. The Wine Cell expression is the result of that gamble in its most uncompromising form — muroka (carbon-unfined) and hon nama (completely unpasteurized), bottled without any heat treatment and stored under refrigeration from pressing to sale.

The brewery draws on pure underground spring water fed by snowmelt from the Nikko mountain range, irrigating the flat paddy fields of Oyama City — historically called Mita Village, 'beautiful rice paddy village.' That soft, mineral-low water supports the delicate fermentation chemistry that ginjo demands. Gohyakumangoku rice is polished to 55% seimaibuai, and koji is built entirely by hand in a humidity-controlled multi-tiered room. Fermentation proceeds at low temperature using the house proprietary yeast, coaxing volatile ginjo esters without heat shortcuts.

Pressing is exclusively by fukurozuri gravity drip — cloth bags hung to drip under their own weight, with zero mechanical pressure applied. The muroka hon nama designation means no charcoal filtration and no pasteurization at any stage, preserving every aromatic compound intact. What makes this expression singular in the range is the combination of all three: unfined, unfiltered, and fully unpasteurized — a triple-raw commitment rare even among craft kura. Drink within the vintage cycle, kept cold throughout.