*KAWATSURU JUNMAI GINJO OLIVE

Limited availability

This sake was developed to embrace a true regional style of sake through a joint collaboration between the Kagawa Prefectural Sake Brewery Association and the Fermented Food Research institute based in Kagawa’s Industrial Technology Centre. It took four years to isolate yeast from the fruit of local olive trees and be able to consistently achieve successful alcoholic fermentation, so that sake breweries could then use this olive yeast (K018) to brew sake. Kagawa is the epicentre of olive oil production in Japan, accounting for 95% of country’s total, because of its warm, sunny “Mediterranean-style” climate.

This Sanuki Olive sake has a gentle fruity aroma of pear, prince melon and tart green apple. On drinking the initially light-bodied sake broadens and flips from fruity to give a “green” impression, think grassy / pandan and basil notes with a crisp, dry mineral finish and a distinctly saline edge. It is a satisfying, refreshing sake which works particularly well with vegetable-based cuisine and due to its cleansing acidity will be a great sake with creamy sauces or croquettes, Thai or Malaysian coconut milk curries or carpaccio with olive oil and truffle mayonnaise or the famed Vitello Tonnato. A very easy to drink, hyper-quaffable sake and is a gift to pair with asparagus.