In an industrial eco-park in West Oakland, Yoshihiro Sako is brewing genre-defying sake. His target? Wine drinkers.
About a year ago, Sako moved into O2 Artisans Aggregate, Ippuku co-owner Paul Discoe’s maker complex that also houses Soba Ichi and The Perennial’s aquaponics farm. In March, he started brewing under the name Den Sake Brewery. And a couple of weeks ago, he started peddling his first batch — and he’s already almost sold out.
Among pure rice sake styles — where the sake is made only with rice, water, yeast, and koji — there are three classifications: junmai, junmai ginjo, and junmai daiginjo. Junmai is typically the most basic, with the rice milled down so 70 percent of each grain remains. Junmai ginjo is a little more refined, and junmai daiginjo is the most polished at 50 percent. What Yoshihiro is doing is making junmai sake — by definition — that tastes like more aromatic and delicate ginjo or even daiginjo sake.
“I don’t put ‘junmai’ on the label,” Sako says. “A lot of people think daiginjo is automatically better because it’s usually more expensive. It doesn’t mean daiginjo is always the best choice.”
But Sako is doing more that’s unusual. He’s also ramping up the acidity so his sakes can cut through rich, fatty foods in a similar vein as wine made with grapes. “What I’m trying to do is make sake that pairs well with Californian food, not only Japanese food,” he says.
His next batch of sake illustrates this goal — it’s tart with a sharp finish, intended to drink alongside pizza, red sauce pastas, or a seared steak. He says wine connoisseurs who normally don’t drink sake have been converted.
Sako, a Japanese native who has been in the Bay Area for almost two decades, was most recently the sake director at Yuzuki in the Mission. In a quest for more sake knowledge, he apprenticed at breweries in Japan and started brewing on his own in 2015. At his West Oakland brewery, he makes his own koji, uses Sacramento Valley rice, and brews small batches with old-school methods in a cool, 40 degree room. He can make 1,000 bottles every 45 days. As a one-man operation, he’s more focused on getting bottles in a range of restaurants than on increasing volume. “I want to put a lot of care into each grain of rice,” he says.
For now, folks can pick up Den Sake’s bottles at Bi-Rite Market, Umami Mart, and True Sake, or order them with meals at Delage, Yuzuki, Ippuku, Soba Ichi, Tsunami, and his first non-Japanese entry, Inner Richmond wine bar High Treason.