Kurosawa Junmai Kimoto

What kimoto means

Fermentation needs lactic acid early on to keep the wrong microbes out. Nearly every modern brewery adds it from a bottle, which takes about two weeks and is called sokujō. Kimoto is the old way. The mash gets rammed with poles, and the lactic acid arrives on its own from bacteria already living in the building. It takes about four weeks. Yamahai is the middle path, natural lactic acid without the pole ramming. The brewery's own description is that kimoto takes twice as long and produces thick bodied sake with great depth.

The brewery

Fifth generation family, brewing at Yachiho in Nagano since 1858, with the son now serving as tōji. They contract farm their rice from neighbors and do all their own polishing in house, which very few breweries this size do. The water comes from two wells into the Chikuma River aquifer, at 50 and 80 meters. Skurnik has imported it since 1998.

What the room said

Fifth of six, and this is the score worth arguing about. Kimoto sake is rustic on purpose. Skurnik's note is black walnuts and cacao nibs, which is not what most people expect a glass of sake to taste like, and a blind pour punishes anything unfamiliar. The serving instruction is the part to take seriously: cold it reads lean and acidic, but warmed past 100°F it turns sweet and chocolatey. We poured it cold. That may be the whole story of its fifth place.