Trader Joe’s Junmai Ginjo

The Details:

• Brewery: unknown
• Prefecture: unknown
• Designation: Junmai Gingo
• Seimaibuai: 55%
• SMV: +4
• ABV: 13-14%
• Rice: unknown
• Price: ~$7.00

The Basics

As a junmai-shu, this saké is made only with water, rice, koji, and yeast (i.e. no added distilled alcohol to enhance flavor/aroma). This is made with a polish rate of 55% – rice variety is unknown to us.

Initial Impressions

The aroma is overall pretty mild, with a touch of astringency and some herbal quality. No floral or rice notes detected. The initial taste comes across as watery, slightly bitter and finishes with a tart and mildly acidic quality. At times, the finish was reminiscent of the aftertaste of aspirin tablets

Conclusions

Under ordinary circumstances, we probably would have walked right past this bottle at the store without a second thought…but we’re doing this budget saké quest, so it only seemed appropriate to give this a go. Even at Trader Joe’s, masters of purveying reasonable quality groceries for astoundingly low prices, a $7 bottle of Junmai Ginjo with a 55% polish rate seems too good to be true. As far as grains go, saké rice is pretty expensive – and that’s before you take into account that 45% of the grain will be milled into dust. Before continuing with this review, it seems germane to share some wisdom from the world-renowned sake expert, John Gautner. Firstly, John asserts that “90% of all sake is fairly priced” – in other words, you are very likely to get exactly what you pay for. Secondly, John asserts in his book Sake Confidential that: “Let’s face it: there is almost no bad sake out there anymore. Nothing properly cared for will make you cringe. After drinking this Trader Joe’s brew, we are left with no choice but to agree with John’s assertions. Firstly, it was drinkable – and that’s kind of amazing given the price point. Secondly, this $7 bottle of sake held up against the ~$30 bottles we drank prior to this exactly how you might expect it to. It’s not bad and it is drinkable, but it is not terribly refined, balanced, or exciting – and it has some fundamental flaws. Ultimately, the low alcohol percentage is probably the fatal character flaw of this saké (see our prior musings on the topic), and the extremely watery taste was hard to get past.

So, the quest continues…

Our Rating

1.5 out of 5 masu cups – drinkable, but the very watery taste and medicinal finish were major flaws