Momokawa Pearl

What it is

Pearl is a nigori, which means it was pressed through a loose mesh so some of the rice solids stayed in the bottle. Pour it and it comes out white. It is also genshu, so no water was added after pressing, and the rice was milled down to 58 percent, which clears the threshold for ginjo. The tasting notes SakéOne publishes run to coconut, banana and vanilla, and the room did not argue with any of that.

The part worth knowing

Nigori is not a grade. It describes filtration, and it can sit on top of any grade at all, which is why a nigori can be anything from a cheap sweet novelty to something like this. The other thing to know is that SakéOne brews in Oregon rather than Japan, so it is not bound by Japan's National Tax Agency labeling rules. “Junmai ginjo” on this label is a designation the brewery applied to itself, held to its own standard. Given how it did in a blind pour against four Japanese breweries, the standard appears to be a real one.

What the room said

It won on overall impression, and it was not close. It also finished ahead of a kimoto from Nagano made by a four week starter method that only about one in ten Japanese breweries still uses. Nobody knew any of that while they were scoring. If the labels had been showing, it is hard to believe an Oregon nigori takes first place.