HAMAMATSU--Brewmaster Akira Yamaguchi is conjuring up an intoxicating initiative at a long-established sake brewery: crafting rice wine products from wine yeasts.

He is one of the two brewmasters at Hananomai Brewing Co. in Hamamatsu’s Hamana Ward, which boasts more than 160 years of history as well as the highest production volume across Shizuoka Prefecture.

Yamaguchi, 35, is tasked with developing and pitching new sake products, in particular.

Last spring, Yamaguchi successfully launched the top-quality “junmai daiginjo” Hananomai Bize sake in an unorthodox collaboration with the prestigious Domaine Simon Bize in Burgundy in France.

Finished without filtration, pasteurization or dilution with water, Hananomai Bize has received rave reviews from discerning sake lovers due to its fruity flavor and elegant acidity.

Yamaguchi hails from Hamamatsu. After graduating from college, he found employment at a mass liquor retailer and spent every day chasing sales.

After about six months, Yamaguchi came across a job advertisement and went to tour a rice wine maker. He watched the pressing process of Japanese sake up close and brought home an unpasteurized, undiluted bottle as a souvenir.

“I was stunned at the time because it was the first time that I experienced what freshly brewed sake actually tastes like,” Yamaguchi said, referring to when he returned home and sipped the beverage.

Although Yamaguchi decided to join the brewery, he soon realized the difficulty of being part of Hananomai Brewing.

Staff members at the brewery start their daily tasks at dawn and continue working until dusk, with some breaks in between. At times, they had to monitor temperatures overnight through the process of making the "koji" starter culture.

“Working here was pretty hard during bygone days but the work environment has improved dramatically since that time,” said Yamaguchi, looking back.

Yamaguchi, despite all that, knew all too well that he preferred producing something to engaging simply in clerical duties.

A challenge faced by Yamaguchi in those days was the growing tendency of young Japanese consumers to turn away from the traditional tipple.

Hananomai Brewing, which had historically devoted itself to crafting sake with a select few varieties of rice and water from Shizuoka Prefecture, had no choice but to take a new approach for survival.

In 2016, a project team consisting of young employees was set up in particular to discuss the issue. What they came up with in the end under the program was the idea of brewing sake from wine yeast.

The time-honored brewery purchased commercially available wine yeast from France via a trade house. Hananomai Brewing eventually rolled out an unpasteurized bottle of rice wine in 2019 following many twists and turns.

COLLABORATION WITH FRENCH DOMAINE

Yamaguchi came across the opportunity some three years ago, when he was thinking of how to “create a much higher-quality product that was different.”

Chisa Bize, a Japanese woman who had married the fourth-generation owner of Domaine Simon Bize and relocated to France, returned temporarily to her father's hometown of Hamamatsu. She happened to visit Hananomai Brewing during her stay.

Learning about the sake producer’s endeavor to utilize wine yeasts, Bize promised to provide red and white wine from barrels in the storage facility of her domaine in the world’s most renowned wine-producing area.

Hananomai Brewing received samples shortly thereafter but still needed to isolate yeasts from the liquid specimens.

Yamaguchi asked for the assistance of the Numazu Industrial Technology Support Center of the Industrial Research Institute of Shizuoka Prefecture.

As the request was rejected on the grounds that the samples were not from the prefecture, Yamaguchi decided to make his own and sought technical advice from the center. The institution allowed him to use its facilities as part of the wine yeast project.

Yamaguchi traveled from Hamamatsu to Numazu, a distance of more than 140 kilometers, by car on numerous occasions. He ended up succeeding in extracting a pair of natural yeasts from the white wine specimen.

Testing one of the collected yeasts, Yamaguchi promptly discovered that it could not ferment under the conventional method to the degree required to brew sake.

Yamaguchi thus took into account the differences in sugar content and proper temperature between rice and grapes, so that he would add the yeast in accordance with appropriately adjusted conditions.

As a result, the starter yeast was finally completed to serve as the basis for new sake.

“I was stricken by the lovely grapefruit-like aroma the moment the lid of the brewing tank opened,” Yamaguchi said. “I realized once again how much of a difference yeasts can make, as I had not been fully aware of that obvious fact until then.”

Yamaguchi said that he has two philosophies in sake brewing.

He makes every effort to pursue the highest quality of sake, while aiming to create bottles that will remain in the memories of people who try them.

For now, Yamaguchi has set his sights on brewing a new Japanese rice wine product by utilizing the other yeast strain separated from the wine sample.