Japan's sake day

This is the typical entrance to a small private winery.“Kampa-a-ay!” – you will surely hear if you find yourself in the company of the Japanese celebrating. Campai can be translated as “drink to the bottom”, and this call is heard at all events before the first sip of sake, beer, wine, champagne and almost any other alcoholic beverage.

Today is Japanese Wine Day on the calendar. For foreigners, a huge number of whom know about this drink not by hearsay, the name of the day can be simply translated as “Sake Day”.

Sake Day is neither a national holiday nor a national holiday in Japan. For all their love for various types of sake, most Japanese, in general, do not know and will not remember such a day if the speech inadvertently comes.

Sake Day was established by the Central Wine Trade Union of Japan in 1978 as a professional holiday. It is no coincidence that the day of October 1 was chosen: by the beginning of October, a new rice harvest is ripening, and winemakers begin a new year of winemaking. Traditionally, most wine companies and private winemakers start making new wine from October 1, marking the beginning of the new year of winemaking.

All the technology of making sake you will be willingly and in detail told in any sake museum.

The process of making sake is very time-consuming and long, despite the fact that many production facilities are now automated. The main crop on the basis of which sake is prepared is, of course, rice, which is fermented in a certain way using microorganisms (called coji) and yeast. Excellent water quality is one of the most important factors for obtaining a quality drink. The percentage of alcohol in the resulting sake is usually between 13 and 16.

Almost every region in Japan has its own branded sake, “made according to technology, the secret of which is only we” based on selected rice and water of excellent quality. Naturally, restaurants, beer houses, bars will always offer you a significant range of sake, which can be drunk either warm or chilled, depending on your preferences and the time of year.