If I ever feel better, remind me to spend some good time with Tatenokawa Phoenix Junmai Daiginjo. If you haven’t heard of the Grammy Award-winning French indie pop band, Phoenix, then that reference might not make much sense. But we highly recommend familiarising yourself with “If I Ever Feel Better” off their United album, released in 2000. The band, whose lead singer is married to Sofia Coppola (random aside, but we found it interesting), collaborated with Tatenokawa to create a tribute to their late friend Toshiro Kuroda. Kuroda was a Japanese restaurateur and sake expert who ran Workshop ISSE in Paris. The band’s rhythm guitarist lived in the building above Kuroda’s shop and so they all became friends, eventually visiting the brewery in Yamagata Prefecture together while on tour. Sadly, Kuroda died in 2017, so in honour of a man who did so much to promote sake in France, the band created Takenokawa Phoenix, also known as “Rainbow Label”. A portion of the sales from the sake are donated to the Japanese Red Cross Society, and if you look at the back of the label from inside the bottle, you’ll find a caricature of the band. Tatenokawa’s sakes are usually bursting with tropical fruit, but Phoenix is something a little different. Far more savoury than the usual house style (despite having the same rice polishing ratio as Tatenokawa 50 Stream), it’s robust with notes of mushroom, walnut, poached pear, crunchy fresh pear and nutty gingerbread spices. Serve lightly chilled while listening to Phoenix with friends. Tatenokawa (meaning “Castle Brook”) is a sake producer with a long and illustrious history, going back almost two hundred years. What we love about them is that they don’t get bogged down in all that tradition though, leaving them free to innovate and spread the word of sake culture throughout the world. So, expect a very modern style of sake aimed at a younger audience, and also one or two very exciting celebrity collaborations. Located in Sakata City, Tatenokawa was the first brewery in Yamagata Prefecture to make only Junmai Daiginjo – the most refined kind of sake. They focus on locally grown rice and particularly one called Dewasansan, a sake-specific rice that creates complex, slightly sweet and wonderfully aromatic flavours that remind us of top-quality Pinot Gris.
£6.53 per 100.00ml
