Hououbiden 鳳凰美田 Wine Cell 2021 瓶燗火入 Junmai Ginjo 純米吟釀55% Seimai Buai

Rice - Hyogo Yamadanishiki 山田锦 🌾
Prefecture - Tochigi 栃木県
Brewery - Kobayashi Shuzo 小林酒造
Alcohol - 16%
Color - Light Yellow
Aroma - 🍌, 🍏, Muscat, 🍑
Taste - Light
Umami - Light
First impression - Lively
Body - Medium
Sweetness - Medium
Tail/length - Short
IG: @mitsui.sakenoob
🍏 🍏 🍏 🍏
Notes - This is a very special 🍶 brewed with wine yeast (instead of the usual sake yeast) from Friendship Warehouse wineries in France. It is smooth and delicate in the mouth with fruity aromas of muscat and 🍌 circling on the nose with every sip. Medium acidity with a slight bitter aftertaste resembling that of a full body Chardonnay.

This was enjoyed over at dinner @longjizichar where we indulged in their all time famous 🦀 bee hoon (vermicelli), bamboo clams, blood cockles, 🥗, hot plate tofu, spicy pork and crispy 🌽 kernels. Some of the dishes that went really well with the 🍶 was the 🦀 bee hoon and spicy pork. This is largely attributed to the wine yeast used which makes the 🍶 resembling a medium full bodied white wine which always goes very well with heavy tasting seafood. The ripe fruit like sweetness of the 🍶 also adds another layer of sweetness to the 🦀 which is already bursting with sweetness on its own that can only come from it being very fresh.

Recently I noticed an increasing number of breweries that are experimenting with using wine production methods to produce 🍶. It could be that breweries are trying to present a different way to reach out or penetrate the wine drinkers to get them to try 🍶 or even promote 🍶 to be something that is relatively similar to white wine. Nonetheless, the effort of the breweries will not go unnoticed and at the same time present a different approach to 🍶 which will always be welcomed by avid drinkers like myself.