Many are surprised that Hollister is home to a sake company. I
know that I was. In a basically rural American town, the presence
of a Japanese firm that produces the delicate, ancient and revered
beverage of sake seems as out of place as a Suzuki at the
Independence Rally.
Many are surprised that Hollister is home to a sake company. I know that I was. In a basically rural American town, the presence of a Japanese firm that produces the delicate, ancient and revered beverage of sake seems as out of place as a Suzuki at the Independence Rally.
But Ozeki (USA) has been producing its rice beverages here for 25 years. Why Hollister? Ozeki Vice Chairman Norio Sumomogi told me that there were several reasons, but first we must know a bit about the sake business.
Sake consumption in Japan has been in a steady decline for decades, while U.S. consumption has soared. In fact, it has doubled in the last 10 years. Unlike wine, sake is a product that must be delivered fresh. So Ozeki – a firm that made its first sake in 1711 – realized that in order to deliver the quality product for which it is renown, a facility must be established on U.S. soil.
Prior to 1979, the Ozeki plant on Hillcrest Road was occupied by a company that produced fruit wines. They were searching for a partner company to share the facility and after Ozeki analyzed the water supply and proximity to sources of rice, a deal was struck. The fruit wine company pulled out years ago, and now Ozeki uses the entire property.
Sake has been produced in Japan since around 300 B.C. when wet rice cultivation was introduced to that country. The beverage’s history goes back even further than that, having been made in China as early as 4000 B.C.
Most Americans believe that sake should be served warm – indeed, in many Japanese restaurants and sushi bars sake arrives at the table too hot to sip comfortably. But Mr. Sumomogi told me that ideally sake should be enjoyed at body temperature, although it is a personal preference: Mr. Sumomogi likes it a bit warmer than that. Chilled sake is catching on in this country. The sake intended for this purpose is usually of higher quality, has a more pronounced bouquet and is sweeter.
Making sake is basically a simple process and there are many similarities between the production of wines made from rice and those made from grape juice. Rice arrives at the plant from Sacramento growers in one-ton bags. The grain is milled, or “polished” to remove the outer layer of minerals and oils to reveal the inner, starchy core of the grain. The amount of outer layer removed – combined with other factors – determines the quality of the finished product. The rice is steamed, and then 20 percent of the cooked grain is impregnated with Koji, a type of mold in a process lasting two days. Next, yeast and water is combined with the Koji and steamed rice for the first process that will be familiar to wine makers: fermentation.
At Ozeki, the fermentation room consists of 24 10-kiloliter stainless-steel tanks. The rice mixture remains here for between 20 and 30 days, depending on the type of sake being made. At three days, peering into the top of a tank reveals a quiescent mass of rice, but at 14 days, the contents are roiling and bubbling. I tasted the mash, a cloudy liquid with a grayish, oatmeal-like color. The flavor at this point is definitely sake, but it is very raw and unpolished. And potent. When fresh sake leaves the fermentation room, it averages 18 to 19 percent alcohol.
Next, the mixture is pressed to remove the solids, pasteurized and put into storage for six months. From there, the process is almost exactly like winemaking. Sake from several different batches is blended to attain the signature Ozeki taste and diluted to about 14 percent alcohol, and then it goes through a final filtration process.
The technique of final clarification of wine is known as fining. In this stage, both rice wine and grape wine contain protein molecules floating around that cause an undesirable cloudiness in the beverage. To rid the wine of this protein, a substance is added that attracts the unwanted molecules and settles to the bottom. Winemakers have lots of choices here. Some use egg whites, others use a type of clay called bentonite and still others use gelatin. Not all vintners fine their wine, believing that removing the proteins detracts from the final taste.
For Ozeki sake, the substances used for this process are persimmon juice and gelatin. An interesting connection between wine and persimmon juice is that persimmon is also used as a dye, because it is high in tannic acid, a key ingredient in wine. Ozeki (USA) President Yasuo Umehara told me that the persimmon juice also adds just a tiny, interesting flavor note to the finished sake.
Unlike a winery that processes one harvest each year, sake is produced continuously. The Ozeki plant here operates about 340 days each year, shutting down in August for plant maintenance. Mr. Sumomogi declined to divulge how much sake is produced here, but it’s easy to surmise that it’s a lot. Ozeki (USA) produces three grades of sake, but those three are packaged in a bewildering array of containers, from huge boxes destined for restaurants to individual-serving-size bottles.
Sake from Hollister is shipped to more than 30 countries, including Canada, Israel, Russia, Brazil and European nations. So Hollister can be proud to be home to a company that is actually a big player in the global economy. Who knew?
