Today is going to be good one!  I have been waiting for this morning for weeks. It is the day when the first of the spring namas arrive. I have been anticipating these unpasteurized sakes all winter--spring is one of my favorite times for nama sake. This year, the first one to arrive happens to be one of my favorites: Koshi no Homare "Pride of Koshi" from Niigata. This nama is beautiful with notes of marzipan, bitter melon and pear. Since it is brewed in the mountains of Niigata, it contains a lovely mineral quality on the mid-palate. The goyagomangoku rice used contributes to a clean, dry finish as well. I am looking forward to seeing what people think about this sake tonight at Hana.

I begin my night by arriving before service to make sure all the sake is properly stored, and I taste all of them to make sure they still retain their fresh quality. This helps me determine which sakes I need to sell first tonight. I usually get about two weeks from an open bottle of sake before it starts to change. The older a sake gets, the more brightness and fruit notes it loses. The sake will become earthier and have a more alcoholic bite to it. This is not always a bad thing but it is not what the brewer intended. By that point, we will have to use it for cooking sake, which breaks my heart.

We open at 5:00 PM for dinner service and Hana usually starts getting busy right away. Lucky for me, most guests are very interested in sake. My first table is a couple who has never tried sake before. It is my chance to educate these people and introduce this beautiful beverage to them. I usually start by explaining that all my sakes are dry. In my experience, I feel most people want to put sake into two groups; dry or sweet. I try to explain that it is as complex a beverage as any beverage they have had. I attempt to make more it understandable by asking if they prefer an earthier style or a style with more fruit to it. They look at me like I am crazy. They tell me they have never heard of a sake that has fruit notes. Perfect--I now know what sake to choose: Dewezakura Dewa San San Junmai Ginjo. Produced in Yamagata, this sake has bright notes of green apple and pear, subtle floral notes, a round mouthfeel, nice acidity and a clean dry finish. My guests can't believe that sake can taste like this! Two more converts.

My next guests are local winemakers that have heard of the sake program at Hana and are skeptical that sake can be so versatile as to pair with several different courses. They have only drank hot sake in the past and to them it all tastes the same. These are my favorite customers. It gives me an opportunity to really change perceptions. They decide on the omakase, or chef's choice tasting menu, with a sake pairing. I love it when educated beverage professionals come in asking for the pairings. I really have to be on my game because they are educated in this field and ask the hardest questions so, it makes me work harder and continue to study so I can answer them. I love a challenge! While chef Ken San decides what he wants to serve for the first course, I get called to a new table that is interested in sake. They ask me which sake I recommend for sake bombs. This is the question that bothers me most because these people have absolutely no education about sake.I feel that it is my job to teach them about this wonderful, complex beverage and (ideally) change their sake bomb habits. After discussing what flavors they enjoy in wine, I get an idea about what kind of sake they might like. But I hear Ken San's voice calling me back to the sushi bar as the first course is ready for the omakase table: sake-steamed monkfish liver with ponzu. The monkfish liver has a sweet, ocean-y quality and rich mouthfeel.  I pair Jozen Mizunogotoshi junmai ginjo from Niigata with the course; it has a round mouthfeel to stand up to the monkfish liver as well as a dry mineral finish to help cleanse the palate. For the sake bomb table, I pour a taste of the Yuho junmai from Ishikawa . Dry on the finish, it is full of dark plum stonefruit, and blood orange with umami in the mid-palate. They taste it, they like it...but they are really in the mood for sake bombs. So...I give them the least expensive hot sake I have because it doesn't really matter what it tastes like if you are just going to dump it in a beer. Can't win them all. 

From across the restaurant, I see one of Hana's regulars--a favorite customer of mine--come in and sit at the bar in front of Ken San. who is busy getting ready for the next course of the omakase. He makes a Japanese dish called nutta, a cold dish that traditionally contains a mix of raw shellfish. At Hana, we usually use octopus, cuttlefish, scallop, and clam that has been tossed with a vinaigrette made from white miso, spicy mustard, and rice wine vinegar. I pair Yuki no Bosha junmai ginjo. It is full of fruit like strawberry and peach notes, it stands up to the miso, and has a white pepper finish that is perfect with the spicy mustard kick in the nutta. I head back to the sushi bar to talk to the my reglar guest, who is eager for my recommendation. Fantastic--My first Koshi no Homare spring nama sale of the year!

My next table is a couple who have read about sake in the Wine Spectator and other sources and are very excited to try it--but they are hesitant about where to start. Could be a fun table. They say that they love sushi and eat it all over world. They ask me to pair a sake with their food. Perfect! I am excited to introduce these adventurous people to sake. What are they eating? Omakase? Cool sashimi choices? Nope. The adventurous couple orders edamame...and three California rolls...with extra wasabi. Letdown. Well, at least they are interested in sake. Sigh. The next course for the omakase is ready so I head back to the sushi bar. This course is always challenging as Ken San likes to do a plate with several different kinds of sashimi on it. So, I have to pick a sake that falls in the middle. It can't be too big for the delicate fish or too light for the heaver fish. Ken San chooses four different kinds of fish: Umimasu (sea trout), Kampachi (amberjack), Katsou (bonito) and Kinmedai (goldeneye snapper). The sake that I choose is Gassan Ryu daiginjo.  I think this sake is perfect for that middle ground: made from 100% Dewa San San rice and produced in Yamagata, it has lush cherry and pear for the richer fish like the Katsou but as a honjozo it has a clean dry finish for the delicate kinmadai. And back I go to Mr. and Mrs. California Roll to pair their sake. I choose the Isojiman Omachi tokubetsu junmai from Shizuoka. The Omachi rice gives sake a nuttiness to the nose like hazelnut or almond. The palate is full of juicy pear with a lean finish.  It is very elegant and has good depth so it pairs well with all kinds of makimono (sushi rolls), especially the simpler ones. On my back to the bar, I see the next course for the omakase table has already been dropped so I hurry up to get the pairing going. It is tempura with maitake mushrooms, kisu (whitening fish) and shrimp. I love this dish. With tempura, I usually pair Suehiro yamahai junmai from Fukushima. This was the first brewery to make a Yamahai sake (in 1910) and they make a very elegant style.  As a Yamahai, it is made with wild yeast, giving it a certain gamy quality--just enough of that yamahai funkiness to stand up to the rich fried food. It is also full of hazelnut, vanilla and white pepper which pairs perfectly with the fresh grated daikon we serve with the tempura. 

One of the servers tells me there is a gentleman in the back of the restaurant who needs my help with sake. I take a look around to make sure all the tables have what they need and head back to talk to him about sake. He says he only drinks daiginjo and he wants me to pick one for him as long as it is not expensive. I ask him what is it about daiginjo that he likes? He says it is the best, so of course it is what he drinks. (Personally, I like junmai and honjozo better--I feel they pair better with food and have a firmer structure.) I want to try to get this guy interested in other sakes too, so I tell him that I'll pick something for him to sample. As I'm heading back to get the sake for him, I look over to the bar and my regular with the Koshi no Homare nods and at me to let me know she is ready for a another glass. I give her a glass of sake I don't normally sell but happen to have open, Mastou No Kotobuki junmai. This is a round sake with notes of peach and honeydew and a nice clean acidity. On my way back to the "I only drink the best as long as it is not expensive" guy, Ken San waves me down: the next course of the omakase is ready. Seared wagyu beef with miso-scallion sauce and reduced balsamic, a difficult dish to pair with sake. Most people think of sake in white wine terms and assume it does not have enough body to pair with something like beef, but I happen to have a sake that pairs very well with beef. One of my all time favorites, Denshu from Aomori, is a round junmai with a full mouthfeel of chestnut, mushroom and cream that works well with grilled beef. I head back to the gentleman that likes daiginjo. As a fan of sakes that are milled more, I assume he likes lighter and cleaner styles of sake. I decide to go with a old favorite: Jozen Mizunogotshi junmai ginjo. A nice, clean sake with hints of stonefruit and a dry mineral finish. He loves it and buys a bottle. We are onto the last savory course for the omakase and Ken San's favorite, sushi. Sushi presents more of the same problems as the sashimi; plus, the table just had a rich sake (the Denshu with the beef course) and now they are going back to the delicate flavors of sushi.  These can vary from clean white fish like hirame (halibut) to toro ( bluefin tuna belly) and anago (sea eel). So, I can go a few different routes here. I can use a nama sake in this situation because it is bright and lively but I decide to go in a similar direction as I did with the sashimi, and choose a special ginjo from Yamagata called Oka. This year is the thirtieth anniversary of this label of sake so they made an extremely limited amount of anniversary sake in a manner as close as possible to the original recipe they made thirty years ago. We were lucky enough to get some at Hana, and I love to use it for this course. What the Gassan Ryu did with the sashimi the Oka does for the sushi. Oka has the same cherry, pear, floral palate but is much lusher and weightier in the mouth, which works well with the vinegar in the rice, and the sake progress nicely from the heavier styles before it.

I have been so busy that I have not had time to look at the clock.  When I finally get a chance to look, service is soon coming to an end.  Around this time, we always get the late chef rush. Chefs are getting off work and want to stop by for some sushi on there way home. I see one group of chefs from a local restaurant that come in all the time and I already know what sake they will want, Born muroka nama genshu from Fukui. This sake is a muroka which means that it is unfiltered, but not cloudy like a Nigori.  They let the rice settle to the bottom of the tank and take the sake off the off the top which makes for a bigger and richer sake. It is also a genshu which means they do not add water back to the sake to bring the alcohol level down. It is full strength at about 20%. This produces a full, rich mouthfeel, and this sake does not disappoint. It is filled with rich notes of cream, lemon and lots of umami. The last course of the omakase is headed to the table so I run to get the sake that pairs best with yuzu sorbet. Yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit with a flavor somewhere between a lime and a grapefruit. Sake and dessert is always challenging because I feel that most sweet sakes have no balance or depth. They lose what it is to be sake. They are just sweet, sticky and one-sided, like drinking corn syrup. That is why I tend to choose Jokigen "Sweet Dreams" from Yamagata; it has great balance and nice acidity but most of all it hasn't lost what it is to be sake. "Sweet Dreams" has lots of very lush stonefruit, vanilla and clean acidity and it pairs well with the yuzu because of the tart sweetness of the citrus.

The night is winding down and Ken San calls me to the sushi bar. He makes me two natto ( fermented soy bean paste) hand rolls and I pour him a beer. We finish up service and sit down to talk about the night, which went well. He asks about my pairings, which sakes I sold, and about tomorrow's service. This time at the end of the night also gives us a chance to catch up. I eventually head home hoping my wife is still up so I can talk to her about my day and hear about hers. But I get home too late and have to settle for ESPN.  Tired, I head to bed, but suddenly remember that tomorrow Kami ko Koro "Tokigen" comes in.  Another new spring nama! So, I know tomorrow is going to be another good one.

Stuart Morris is the Sake Sommelier for Hana Japanese Restaurant in Rohnert Park, CA.  Stuart enjoys pairing sake with not only sushi but also with the most popular seafood dishes to demonstrate the complementary nature of the beverage. He has many regular diners who come from throughout Northern California for his unique pairings.  Whenever a diner is interested in a sake pairing, Stuart will provide personal commentary on the selected pairings so that diners leave with an education and newfound appreciation for the beverage.