Daiginjo

Daiginjo is the top premium grade of Japanese sake — a brewed rice wine made from highly polished rice, water, kōji mould and yeast, in which at least half of every grain has been milled away before brewing (a rice polishing ratio, or seimai-buai, of 50 percent or less). That deep milling, a slow, cool fermentation and painstaking hand-work give daiginjo its signature: an extraordinarily clean, delicate and aromatic sake, prized for a fragrant lift of green apple, pear, melon and white flowers known in Japanese as ginjō-ka. Pale and almost water-clear, silky and light on the palate at roughly 15 to 17 percent alcohol, it is the most refined and often the most expensive style a brewery makes, poured slightly chilled from a wine glass to show off its perfume rather than warmed like everyday sake.