It was the turn of the millennium, with much anticipation abound about what the next 1,000 years of the world would bring with it - of course, much of that anticipation would crest just within the first year alone, before it became life as it was pre-millennium. But that anticipation and tenseness certainly was palpable, it almost felt like change was necessary - it just had to happen, surely things had to be different. And at the Daitokuji temple in Kyoto, the seeds of big changes were just being sowed in one Richard Geoffroy - big changes that would have to wait 18 more years, but would certainly prove to shake things up in a category that carried with it two millenniums of heritage. Dining on a fare of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine, Richard would be served what he calls "the most extraordinary Sake from a jar", an experience that would stir a deep curiosity and passion in him that would stick for the next two decades. Yet somehow, he never quite found out what the Sake was in the jar, nor which brewery made it.

A life in three acts for Richard Geoffroy.

Richard (pronounced Ree-shard, as it is in French) had just been appointed chef de cave (equivalent of Head Winemaker or Cellar Master, and who helms a Champagne house) of arguably Champagne's most prestigious name - Dom Perignon - just 4 years prior. Rather predictable even for Richard's liking even. He had been born in Vertus, of the Cote de Blancs region of Champagne, France, to a family of winegrowers - his father had even served as the President of the Champagne Growers' Union. And so a path in Champagne, the world's beloved bubbly, seemed alittle too pre-destined and orchestrated. With the blessing of his father, who had really much preferred his children take on more conventional jobs, Richard would thus pursue his studies in Medicine. Yet, it wouldn't last long. Within months upon graduating, Richard would make a sharp U-turn back into what almost seemed in his blood, and would thus join Moet & Chandon as a winemaker. He never even got to practice as a doctor. 

Richard would thus spend much of his young adulthood travelling the world to gain as much winemaking experience as possible to make up for his rather unconventional medical background - he would take on harvests in California, US, France, Australia, New Zealand, Spain and Portugal. He did so at an unbelievable intensity, running four vintages a year for six years straight. By 1990, he would return home to Champagne, to apprentice directly under Dominique Foulon, Dom Perignon's then chef de cave. By 1996, Richard would take on the mantle.

The next two decades (and 23 vintages) would see Richard spend much of his life embodying the very essence of Dom Perignon. When he wasn't in the cellars, he was on the road, travelling from market to market promoting the Champagne whose name is taken eponymously from the late-17th century Benedictine monk of the same name, and who was said to have made significant strides in the realms of winemaking as the Cellar Master of the Abbey of Hautvillers. It was during those years that Richard would regularly find himself landing in Japan - he counts over 100 visits during the period - where he would of course constantly be exposed to Japan's Sake. By 2015, having now served the legendary Champagne house for a full two decades, Richard would begin to seriously think about the third act of his life (as he says it, Medicine was a brief first, and Champagne a prolonged second). Having reached the highest echelons of winemaking, he wanted nothing to do with wines, and yet at the same time wanted to be sure that whatever he had set his mind and energy to would be a good and unique match to his skillset - it was certainly not going to be a matter of force-fitting. 

"I was ready to take on a new project that would keep me stimulated and inspired. I couldn’t imagine spending my life dedicated to winemaking anymore and I was hoping to move on to something different enough. I wanted to work on something close enough to be wine without it being wine. And voila! Sake is it in so many ways.”

Come 2019, Richard was ready to announce his highly anticipated decision - it would have to be Sake. The transformation was profound yet quick for Dom Perignon's longest serving chef de cave - in June 2019, Richard would take one last bow at a farewell ceremony in the very spiritual home of Dom Perignon, the Hautvillers Abbey (where the monk Dom Perignon himself had lived, worked, and was buried), and by November of the same year, he would be graced as a newcomer to the world of Sake-making at a Shinto ceremony held at the foothills of Japan's Toyoma Bay as he broke ground on his new Sake kura (or brewery).

Yet this moment was far from easy to make a reality - once Richard had decided that his third act was to be Sake (he had considered Spanish Sherry, which he believed shared the same drinkability and versatility with food as Champagne and Sake, and yet ultimately decided that Sake and Champagne had more in common), he had set out in search of any means by which he could quickly gain hands-on experience working with Sakes, to which he could find none. Exacerbating that was the fact that Japan had not granted a new Sake brewing license in over 50 years, as it sought to ensure that an oversupply would not occur; a serious possibility given Sake's declining local popularity and population - the past 50 years would see 2,500 brewery closures, with now just 1,200 Sake breweries remaining. Visits to numerous breweries was met with rejection, that was until a night out with friend and once-collaborator from Richard's time at LVMH (which owns Dom Perignon), acclaimed Japanese architect Kengo Kuma (famed for designing the Japan National Stadium and the Suntory Museum of Art, both in Tokyo, and also the LVMH Group's Japan HQ, amongst other notable works), who offered to connect Richard with Ryuichiro Masuda, the owner of Toyama Prefecture's highly regarded Masuizumi Brewery. Masuda is the fifth-generation owner of his family's 132 year old Sake brewery, and was himself a big wine lover and collector, and who embraced innovation and new ideas. "We visited Masuda for the weekend, and surprisingly, he was pretty easy to convince. I realised he had a really clear, analytical view of his own industry, which can come across as a little complacent." says Richard.

Ryuichiro Masuda.

Belying the seeming ease by which Richard had found a partner in Masuda was as well worked out a thesis as you'd expect from a who had spent close to half his life at the helm of one of the world's greatest wine producers - Richard had spotted a niche in the practice of Sake that posed a gap too compelling to resist. In the decades that Richard had engaged with Sakes, not the least of which was under the guidance of Shinya Tasaki, crowned Best Sommelier in the World in 1995, who had introduced Richard to the world of Sakes via various stylistic flights, Richard had encountered a disjoint - on the one hand, Sakes, like Champagne, was immensely drinkable, and on the other, was almost entirely produced in a single batch, thereby resulting in the production of a single style for any particular expression.

“Sake making has been the project of perfecting a single brew for one thousand years or so. Early on, I humbly figured out that one had to push the envelope further to achieve greater balance and complexity; that blending IWA 5 was the one answer, alongside the existing levers of rice polishing and bottle maturation,” says Richard.

In Richard's journey as a Sake drinker, he had observed that he would often find a Sake offering much in aromatics and yet not possessing the body or finish to keep up that high point. Sakes were also often too sweet or bitter for his liking, which he believed came down to simply lacking in balance. With the popularity of karakuchi style (an extra-dry) Sakes that emphasised a clean taste and crisp finish, Richard had begin wondering how he would instead create a Sake that could offer a worthy length as it ended off. A blender at heart (Richard was quoted as saying "If you give me water, I’m pretty sure that I’d start blending water: it’s a compulsive thing. I blend my orange juice at breakfast."), he had "looked at the liquid and saw it could be possibly [his] signature. Assemblage is the answer." Richard would go on to explain "The name of the game in assemblage is balance and complexity. Balance is a magical thing, allowing richness, intensity and substance to levitate." For Richard, it seemed like a match made in heaven, that his penchant for blending could perhaps produce the very Sake that he had idealised.

Even putting aside production traditions, Sakes were also largely shaped to be paired with Japanese cuisine in mind, with therefore an equivalent focus on the domestic market (95% of Sakes produced in Japan is consumed locally) - if interest in Sakes was declining in Japan, why shouldn't Sakes be made more international? After all, the demand for Sakes outside of Japan was gaining new heights every single year! To add to that singular focus on the home market, Richard had found that most Sake brewers had a deep cultural inertia towards self-promotion on a global stage, which inevitably (and perhaps unintentionally) has led to a situation where customers outside of Japan were clamouring for Sakes, whilst Sakes remained elusive and foreign to the world outside (most Sake bottles hardly contain a single line of English text, and are almost always entirely worded in the Japanese language).

The argument was a deeply convincing one that resonated with Masuda. Richard would thus propose the creation of a premium Sake, larger than a boutique yet smaller than commercial production, that would be designed for worldwide appeal, and would tap on Richard's experience in utilising assemblage - the traditional method of blending wines in the building of a Champagne cuvee. The resulting Sake would be one that carried a depth of the body that would persist beyond the initial aromatics, with also a long and memorable finish, with a flavour profile that could be paired internationally with any cuisine. "I want an equilibrium, a balance between nose and palate. I want more fragrant, vibrant, luminous, radiant aromatics. The finish is crucial. I spend so much time working on the quality of the finish, integrating all the components of taste and sapidity and umami together." says Richard.

Acclaimed Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and Australian industrial designer would share in the project, adding to the collaboration their expertise in designing the brewery and the IWA Sake bottle.

Masuda had seen the vision and the promise and was on board. And just like his wines (and now Sakes), Richard would have to proverbially just as much create an assemblage of stakeholders who could together realise this dream. He would enlist the expertise of Kuma in designing the kura's building, whilst Marc Newson (famed Australian industrial designer who worked alongside Jony Ive in shaping Apple's designs) would set about creating the Sake bottle to be used, with the goal of being a Sake open to the international arena and forgoing the traditional Japanese character labels - ultimately this culminated in a unique matte black bottle without a label and simply emblazoned with the brushstrokes that spell out IWA 5 Sake of Japan, with finally Charles-Antoine Picart (who worked alongside Richard at Dom Perignon as Business Development Director for Asia Pacific) who would serve as CEO of the project.

Whilst the search went on for a suitable site for the brewery, Richard would immediately delve headfirst into working closely with Masuda in creating the various components of the Sake blend, and then piecing it together. They would conclude on the use of Sakes made from 3 primary rice varieties - Yamada Nishiki (the best known and most prestigious of Sake rice, or sakamai), Gohyakumangoku (the second best known sakamai), and Omachi (a fast gaining, more artisanal and ancestral sakamai), brewed with two different yeast starters (the classic Sokujo, and the ancestral Kimoto) and 5 different yeast strains (two of which are wine yeasts), with the rice all polished to a ratio of 35% (that is, 35% of the original rice grain remains after polishing). Explaining the deliberate choices made, Richard would explain, "Yamada Nishiki brings a ‘spine’, a drive to the sake; Omachi brings a lush mouthfeel; and Gohyakumangoku wraps everything together", whilst also adding that he had wanted to keep rice polishing at 35% to qualify the Sake as a Junmai Daiginjo (the highest tier of Sake classification) to bring out maximum aromatics, and yet refuses to go any lower which he deems as being "overpolished".

The first impressions of the Sake-making practice came in hot and quick - "At Dom Pérignon, I thought Champagne making was the most complex process in wine, but I think sake beats it." Richard was quoted as saying. This certainly did not go down well with his once fraternity of Champagne-makers. And yet Richard would press on in saying "There are more technical options in making sake than in making Champagne, from microbiology, yeasts, the bacteria, koji, to water. This is not something you can argue. It’s a fact. Coming from a science and medical background, I’m used to stating things as they are, and I feel comfortable with making such a statement," further stating that "There are so many variables. It is an option game." and that "You couldn’t do it out of a book", resigning himself to the likely possibility of having to "keep experimenting forever". 

By 2020, the site of the brewery would be finalised, with the team deciding upon the serene countryside of Shiraiwa in the Toyama Prefecture of central Japan. According to Richard, beyond the fact that his Sake brewing partner, Masuizumi, was located in the Toyama Prefecture, the team had also wanted a place that was "a lesser-known part of Japan - rural and pastoral, connected to nature." They would thus call their Sake, IWA 5 Sake of Japan (or simply IWA Sake), having taken its name from its location, Shiraiwa, which itself can be translated as "White Rock" (with "Iwa" itself translating as "Rock"), whilst the "5" in the name is a reference to the 5 types of yeasts used in the Sake assemblage, signalling its character as one of many components.

Whilst Richard had initially thought that perhaps he would makes the first iterations of IWA Sake at a partner Sake brewery up until it had proven its worth, and then perhaps the team would be justified in taking it to the next level and giving the project it's own brewery, Richard had ultimately believed that a blank canvas was indeed necessary. Touching on the concept of terroir, Richard had remained unconvinced that the terroir of Sake had as much to do with the land the rice grains came from as perhaps the making of the Sake itself. "Some people talk about terroir but polish the rice to the utmost extent and remove any terroir. The pure starch element of the rice can’t be fermented until it has been converted to fermentable sugars. I don’t see an element of terroir in this. [Yet] there is no such thing as two identical layouts in Japan’s sake breweries, and when you add the macrobiology of the place, the bacteria in the preparation, the wild bacteria - a lot of this is terroir. The microbiological ambience of the brewery has a big impact. I’m sure there’s an impact of rice variety, but I’m not sure about weighting the elements of terroir." explains Richard. And thus with the backing of several local financiers and the help of Masuda, the IWA Sake team was able to gain a license to brew Sake in its own dedicated brewery, even going so far as to own nearly 10 hectares of land which has then been leased back to the original farmers from whom the brewery purchases its rice from. 

With its back facing the Tateyama Mountains and the front facing Toyama Bay, the IWA Sake brewery resides amidst fields of rice.

Whilst famed architect and founding partner Kengo Kuma set about bringing the kura to life, reinterpreting the traditional Japanese gassho-zukuri farmhouse (particularly of those at Gokayama, a UNESCO World Heritage Site) as a sleek, modern and minimalist communal space where diversity could thrive, Richard would go on to produce the first three expressions of IWA Sake (Assemblage 1, Assemblage 2 and Assemblage 3) at Masuizumi Brewery, with the second and third cuvee having to be done from his home in France due to the Covid pandemic. Each Assemblage was kept small, totalling just around 1,000 cases. Incidentally, the onset of the pandemic had resulted in a second major stylistic realisation for Richard - he had observed that contrary to the traditional freshness effect that is desired by Sake-makers for their consumers, which sees Sakes typically enjoyed young, the IWA Sake had instead aged well in the bottle, creating deeper and better married flavours. Whilst aged Sakes were once popular some one hundred years ago, and continues to exist in a small niche even today, it is by and large not the norm. "Blending and bottle maturation are not really traditional to sake-making, and yet in the end, the goal is to achieve something within the sake orthodoxy. I’m trying to push the parameters through what I would call rather unconventional means, yet to achieve a grand sake." says Richard, even going so far as to tout the possibility of IWA's Sake being able to be aged for possibly up to 10 years.

By 2021, the IWA Sake brewery was complete. Just under an hour's drive out from the nearest Toyama Station, the brewery sits at the foothills of where the Tateyama mountain ranges meet the coastline to Toyama Bay. From afar, the kura looks somewhat nondescript, mirroring the traditional Japanese thatched roof farmhouse aesthetic, yet up close, it exudes an intensity when it becomes obvious that the roof is made entirely of steel, along with floor to ceiling glass panes that allows one to see directly into the inner workings of the brewery.

The layout inside is furnished with charred cedar, with the walls covered in traditional washi paper incorporating rice grains from the surrounding rice paddies, and is designed to prioritise horizontality, seeking to meld numerous activities all under a single roof. Its most prominent feature is the central Doma - inspired by the traditional Japanese irori which takes the form of a sunken hearth where communities gather around to socialise. The central Doma is where Richard does the work of assemblage, selecting from over 40 different Sake components to isolate 12-15 Sakes which are then blended in specific proportions in the steel tanks behind the Doma. These steel tanks are even said to resemble the Buddha statues of Kyoto's Sanjusangendou. On the second level are the wooden Shubo, Motobeya and Koji rooms where the yeast starters are made, and the various varieties of rice are inoculated and fermented, before they are subsequently brewed in the tanks on the first level. Living quarters flank these essential rooms on the second floor providing the team a place to rest during the laborious brewing season where constant monitoring is required - adhering to traditional Japanese Sake-making practices, IWA produces Sakes only once a year during winter.

From inside the brewery, one can feel the deep contrast between the human activities taking place inside, focused on heavily manipulating the raw ingredients harvested from nature, and then on the outside, the uncontrolled and larger than life wilderness that is nature. For Richard, this ability to view both sea and mountain, whilst also being surrounded by the raw ingredients the kura relies upon was exactly what was needed.

And thus it is here that Richard has crafted the Assemblages since the initial three done at Masuizumi Brewery - thus far Assemblage 4 and Assemblage 5 - and has since also worked out the top end IWA Reserves, which is only bottled in 1.8L bottles and holds a blend of aged Sakes, much as a Champagne house would hold back reserve wines each harvest. Today IWA's Sake-making is led by seasoned Toji Masato Yabuta, who is part of the Tamba Toji Guild, whilst Richard focuses on the assemblage.

"The most difficult part of blending is to know exactly what you can expect from each individual element and then to realise that some elements are out before you even start. The frustrating thing is that sometimes these elements can be bloody good, and still they’re out. If they cannot fit into the scheme, they don’t belong."

IWA Sake has made clear its goal of exporting up to 80% of its production, with Richard explaining that "If I can bring it gastronomically, culturally, and geographically out of Japan and attain success abroad, and feed back into the domestic sake industry in Japan, I would feel a level of achievement. [Yet] I don’t want IWA to be just an export brand. It has to be appreciated by the Japanese, too - and we are recognised in Japan. I would be very embarrassed to sell a sake to the world without first having the stamp of recognition by the Japanese."

On the topic of international competitions - and oft strategy used by new brands to establish their credibility, Richard had this to say, "It’s a work in progress. I’m dipping a toe into 1,200 years of history, with all due respect to the existing world of sake. My intention is not to be a troublemaker; I’m following my own path. I don’t want to be misunderstood. Judges’ references are too strict and don’t allow expression outside that framework. Things will evolve. As I gain acceptance, I will start being confident enough. I have to be very focused, and not try to please judges. In all of this, I’m taking risks. Whenever you experiment, you take risks. I want to be experimental forever, continually experimental. We will never come up with a fixed recipe. I want to keep inducing variations; I want them to be different. I don’t want a steady state and to say, “Here we go, we’ve got the formula, and I don’t even need to come to Japan anymore, I just prescribe the thing by email.” No, no, no. This project will keep experimenting forever."

And it is for that reason, every IWA Sake Assemblage thus far has proved to be radically different from the previous iteration. 

"I feel I’m on a journey, clearly pursuing something. Pursuing a note of beauty, an idea of beauty that could be unusual enough, embracing enough, uniting countries, people—the conundrum of being local and universal. At Dom Pérignon I was not building the brand; it was in existence long before me and will continue long after me. Whereas now I have the sense of starting off, of building something new.”

Yet, if one were to wonder if a seasoned professional such as Richard felt the least bit out of place in this totally new land and venture, it's worth pointing out that even Richard holds curiosity as to what his peers and fans have to say about his new endeavour. "It’s definitely a new life for me. But it’s funny – it’s as if a little voice was telling me what to do. I never had any hesitation. It’s not very rational, but I’m tired of rational; rational is very limiting. Great things are not rational; there’s something beyond that. So I’m following my instinct, and people are following me. People who do something different aren’t always liked. I am curious about how the Japanese will perceive this. Not anxious, but curious. I ponder the fact that people might want to be conservative guardians of the temple, of orthodoxy—I’m sure there are some, but I haven’t run into them. However, some people have said, “At last, a gaijin is coming in and stirring the pot.” says Richard.

Today IWA's Sakes are represented in over 130 Michelin-starred restaurants (of whom 40 hold a 3 Michelin Star), with more than half of them outside the Japanese cuisine - a feat no other producer has achieved in the span of just 18 months.

"The future of sake is tremendous - so bright. Sake well could be the next big thing in the wine and spirit industry. The potential is immense. My vision for IWA is to crack the current mold of sake – predominantly a domestic affair – and express its immense potential out to the world. IWA is deeply and proudly rooted in Japan, and yet it is embracing and meaningful to the diversity of the cultures of the world and their cuisines. IWA has a unique ability to step outside the traditional Japanese moments of consumption.”

Kanpai!

@111hotpot