Editorial of December 15, 2020

Editorial of December 15, 2020

Brewing Year or vintage?

As the year draws to a close, a question is on my mind ... I wonder how to represent the seasonality of our sake production on our bottles.
Indeed, the sake brewing season begins in October and ends in June. In Japan, the BY (Brewing Year) even officially starts on July 1st and ends on June 30th.

Before we can start producing sake, we have to wait for the rice of the year to be ready; harvested in September/October, it has to dry before being polished. It then becomes available to breweries in early November. The harvest period is virtually the same in Japan as in France, so we're in the same hemisphere and comparable latitudes. Admittedly, in southern Japan, there may be two harvests a year, but shochu (distilled alcohol) is produced there rather than the usual sake.

Thus, sakes brewed between November 2020 and June 2021 use mostly R20 rice (harvested in 2020), but also R19 or even R18 rice. We are obliged to use rice from the previous year at the start of the season to give the current year's rice time to prepare.
At KŪRA we tend to brew the highest quality sakes in the depths of winter (December to February - right now) as temperatures are lower, but this also allows us to use the last rice harvested (in October). By the way, what's true for rice and sake is also true for soy, barley and wheat, and therefore for our misos, our future shoyu (soy sauces) and even our beers.

Wine is made with the vintage of the harvest. A 2020 wine will be made from grapes harvested in autumn 2020. On the other hand, a BY2021 sake means that it is brewed in the 2020/21 season, so it could have been brewed at the end of 2020 with R19 rice!

This is why it's not easy to label a sake vintage. On ours, the year of production is clearly printed on the main label. But we're thinking of adding a BY2020 or AB2020 sticker for "brewing year" soon on our sakes brewed between September 2019 and June 2020!
 
Enjoy reading and tasting!

Hervé André Durand - Chairman and founder of KŪRA

Made in Burgundy

In Varennes-Sous-Dun and matured in our chains

Artisanal factory

Practicing traditional Japanese methods

Organic and non-GMO

100% of the ingredients come from local and organic sources

shipping-fast

Free Shipping

Dès 150€ partout en France via Chronopost ou Mondial Relay