There is no shortage of wine tasting events in Vancouver, including the big annual Playhouse Wine Fest every spring. And beer tastings are increasingly popular, with next month’s Hopscotch Festival showcasing hundreds of beers from around the world.
But did you know you can also do a sake tasting in Vancouver?
Down a side street on Granville Island, you’ll find the city’s only artisan sake maker: Osake. Operated by sake connoisseur Masa Hiroki, Osake offers a whole line of handcrafted rice wines for sale. And the best part? You can sip and sample to find out which you like best.
I stopped by on a recent weekend. Osake makes a nice quiet escape from the usual madness of Granville Island on a sunny day. Once inside, you can do a single tasting for $2 or pay $5 for a tasting of three different styles.
Being a sake newbie, I decided to try three different varieties. But, first, I was given a brief lesson on sake etiquette. First and most importantly, sake is traditionally not served hot. Doing so destroys a lot of the subtlety in the flavour. Second, sake is most often consumed before the meal, not after.
Armed with that new knowledge, we started off with a clean, crisp sake with a hint of fruit, Junmai Nama Genshu. This was selected as one of the top 100 wines of 2009 by Vancouver Magazine, and it’s easy to see why. It’s refreshing and accessible even to non-sake drinkers.
From there, we moved to Junmai Nama, which was a bit more acidic, with a slight lime flavour and creaminess. We finished with Junmai Nama Nigori, which was much cloudier and tart and requires a bit more sophisticated sake palate to appreciate.
I’ll have to admit that a lot of Hiroki’s sake mastery was lost on me. But the experience was definitely unique. The sake is brewed on-site in stainless steel tanks from rice mash, water and yeast. It’s unfiltered and unpasteurized, which gives it a much different flavour profile than typical, store-bought sake.
Anyone else been to Osake on Granville Island? What did you think? Share your comments below.
