Nishinoseki 1988 Super dry aged sake (Nishinoseki 1988 Jozo Cho Karakuchi Koshu)

Description

While I’m not a great fan of aged sake (koshu), I liked Nishinoseki 1988 Super Dry. It’s called super dry not without a reason. I tried a few aged sake before and quite often they are quite sweet. Not sweet as port or other dessert wines but still on the sweeter side of things. Although I like sweetness in sake, it might become a bit overpowering in koshu. Nishinoseki koshu started as a super dry honjozo more than 30 years ago making it less sweet than some other aged sake. Aged at room temperature in magnum bottles, it developed an amazing honey colour, mellow but intense taste of dried fruit and honey and a distinctive aroma with mushroom and wood notes. It’s a very rounded sake which could be paired with hard naturally sweet cheese or delicate not very sweet desserts. I tried it with pieces of traditional Japanese yuzu cake and it was a very good match.