Zankyo 'Super 7' Junmai Daiginjo Sake

Prefecture: Miyagi • Brewery: Niizawa Jozoten • Rice: Kura no Hana milled to 7% • Sake Meter Value: 0 • Acidity: 1.5 • ABV: 16%

• Tasting Notes: Citrus nose like freshly expressed grapefruit peel, young pear tones.  Incredibly light and delicate structure, very fleeting textures, flavors and aromas that characterize the very best sake: always just beyond your reach.  
• Pairs well with: Seafood forward dishes, an unexpected pairing; dried figs, and dried apricot
• Item Description: With two major brands- Atago No Matsu and Hakurakusei- under the Niizawa brand umbrella, the founder created ‘Zankyo’ which literally means ‘Reverb’ or vibration’ to push the bounds of sake brewing. Spending 350 hours to polish their own rice, Niizawa Brewery was the first to achieved 7% rice polishing ratio.   

The Zankyo Super 7 started as a challenge from Niizawa-san and his team to push rice polishing to the absolute limit and see just how refined a sake they could make. While the threshold for getting to the highest qualification of Junmai Daiginjo/ Daiginjo is polishing away 50% of the rice, some producers have experimented with higher polishing rates, down to 40% or 35% remaining. The more you polish the more delicate the center of the rice grains get, and the danger of them cracking or burning grows higher, meaning even more time must be taken to preserve the rice.

In past years this was released as “Super 8” when they were able to get enough rice down to just 8% of its original size. In 2015, after 350 hours of polishing, they surpassed themselves and made it to 7%. The result is a sake that earns the name Zankyo, literally “Reverb” or “Vibration”, with an incredibly light and delicate structure that creates delicate and fleeting textures, flavors and aromas that characterize the very best sake: always just beyond your reach.

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