Dreamsake Daiginjo No. 1 Smooth Japanese Sake
£22.25
The wine
A silky-smooth and effortlessly refined sake, revealing delicate notes of honeydew melon with a light, crisp finish.
Daiginjo is the highest grade of sake, requiring the rice to be polished until at least 50 per cent of each grain has been milled away, removing the proteins and fats that sit in the outer layers and leaving the pure starch at the centre. That polishing is what produces the clean, fragrant, delicate style. Yamada Nishiki is the rice variety universally regarded as the finest for brewing, and Hyōgo, where it grows best, is home to the mineral-rich Miyamizu spring water prized for sake since the seventeenth century.
The producer
Dreamsake
View all Dreamsake winesDreamsake is brewed in Hyōgo, Japan's most celebrated sake region, at a brewery founded in 1889. In 1913 it was chosen as a supplier to the Imperial Household, an honour of considerable weight in Japan, and it continues to supply sake for imperial ceremonies today.
Hyōgo matters for two reasons. It grows Yamada Nishiki, the rice variety universally regarded as the finest for brewing, and it has the Miyamizu, a mineral-rich spring water at Nada that has been prized for sake since the seventeenth century. Together they account for why the prefecture produces roughly a quarter of all Japanese sake.
The Dreamsake label was created to bring high-grade sake to a wider international audience. The brewery follows eco-conscious methods, managing water sustainably and reducing energy use, and the range concentrates on the cleaner, more delicate styles that suit drinkers approaching sake for the first time.
