Sake Tasting at the Kobe Sheraton Hotel 2009

Back in November of last year I went to my first proper Sake Tasting which was held in the Kobe Sheraton Hotel on Rokko Island (a man-made island just off the coast of Kobe).

I’ve been to informal tastings at sake breweries but I was intersted to see how a sake tasting differed from a wine one (not that I’ve been to many wine tastings though!).

The first thing that struck me was how crowded and noisy it was. The hall wasn’t that big, a few hundred capacity with tables all around the edge, 2 rows of tables in the middle creating a circuit and a stage with live Jazz and Rakugo (more of that later – and a clip is in the video later).


The middle section was taken up nearly completely by local breweries from Hyogo prefecture (which is the prefecture Kobe is in, so that makes sense). Hyogo also has something like 60% of the total number of Sake breweries in Japan.
Then around the edge of the hall were breweries from the rest of Japan.


One thing I noticed was the smaller breweries tended to be much friendlier than the big chains, with the representatives wanting to talk (even to a gaijin!), and happy to offer you their sake.

The larger brands seemed to be less bothered (perhaps they didn’t need to as they have a big market share already).

Throughout the day there was live Jazz playing and towards the end there was a couple of Rakugo performers. Rakugo is a Japanese comedy/theatre performance that basically involves one person sitting in front of the audience telling a story. The only prop they are allowed is a Japanese fan. My Japanese is nowhere near good enough to follow the stories but it seems to be very popular, and got a few laughs from the audience.


I was taking notes of the sakes, at least initially but there were so many and it was so crowded in the end I gave up and just enjoyed the experience.

One sake that did however stand out was a sake called “Gen” 元 (full name Ambrosia Sake Genroku-shikomi) from Katsuyama Brewery which was being promoted by these very friendly sumo-looking guys…

It’s one of the sakes served in the First Class section of ANA flights and for ￥1000 ($10) we could try a (tiny) cup.
Well, we had to give it a go, so we handed over the cash and…wow…glad we did.
Tasted nothing like a sake, more like a sweet white wine, truly unexpected and fantastic. (Just checked their website and the sake is “comparable to the sweet sophisticated wines from Sauternes” – so I wasn’t far wrong. The site has some English translation and is here). Unfortunately at nearly ￥10,000 ($100) it was out of our budget for the day, but one definitely to look out for.

Other highlights were buying an “I am nonbei” badge, which means “I’m a drinker”, although I managed to drunkenly lose it on the way home – the irony, talking to lots of friendly people from breweries and enjoying some nice jazz.

Can’t remember how many sakes I tried but for only ￥2000 ($20) it was a great day out and I definitely got my moneys worth.

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• The Sake Sections in My Local Shops
• Joining a Monthly Sake Club