A Record of a Glass | Episode 80: Kikuhime Yamahai Junmai Muroka Nama Genshu (Hakusan, Ishikawa)

Tracing the land through a single glass of sake.

Hakusan, Ishikawa.
A land where the clear, cold water of the sacred peak and the pride of the Kaga Hyakumangoku breathe.
What Kikuhime depicts is an overwhelming, unchanging outline that refuses to be swayed by the times.

No matter how much trends may seek lightness,
this brewery simply does not fear being profound.
Seventy percent—not polished away.

Contained within that number is the resolve to seal the entirety of the rice into this single drop.

Now, to the main point.

The liquid poured is a pale gold.
It is a radiance as if time itself had settled with gravity.
The aroma is powerful.

Ripe grains mingle with a scent reminiscent of winter soil.
When taken into the mouth, it has a surprising mass.
Sweetness, acidity, and umami do not rush in as a single entity.

They simply 'exist' there.
The deep, profound acidity brought about by the Yamahai method

is an absolute, thick line that can never be rewritten.
A journey of stripping away, melting, and rewriting.
What has been reached at the end of it is this richness, like a giant rock that never wavers.

——


Returning here.

The outline that exists there.
I record this sake as such a glass.