Call it providence, but we at Sake Club India (SCI) felt lucky once again to conclude a major fixture before the latest Coronavirus onslaught. After having been lucky in March 2021 when we successfully concluded SCIs first anniversary event just ahead of the Covid second wave, this time we made it just in time at India’s first-ever Vinexpo from 9-11 Dec 2021 before the world woke up to Omicron. Lucky we may have been, we hope and pray that this is the last of the pandemic that we see.
SCI was founded by me and my Japanese partner Mika Eoka in March 2020 as an Indo-Japanese community to share the knowledge and passion of Sake. The vibrant platform comprises of Sake brewers, sommeliers, importers, consumers and other trade people largely from India and Japan but also from other parts of the world.
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Vinexpo India- An invaluable opportunity
India’s maiden Vinexpo was held in New Delhi from 9th – 11th December 2021 at Pragati Maidan. The show, which was one of its first kind in India in the B2B space, was co-located with the Food Expo SIAL India and jointly organized by InterAds Exhibitions, Comexposium and Vinexposium India.
Being at India’s first-ever Vinexpo was both a matter of pride and opportunity for SCI. Sake is largely recognised as a new beverage in India, somewhat that Wine was 20 years ago. But there’s always an upside to newbies- and that is peoples’ inquisitiveness to know more about them. In this sense, Vinexpo afforded us a golden opportunity to showcase Sake to the Indian beverages trade and consumers like never before. Needless to mention, we grabbed the opportunity with both hands- thanks to brewers from Japan who onboarded us for this maiden outing.
Three famed breweries from Northern Japan viz. Kunimare from Hokkaido, Rokka Shuzo from Aomori and Nanbu Bijin from Iwate prefectures partnered with us at Vinexpo India, offering some of their choicest Sakes that are keen to explore the Indian shores. Apart from these three breweries we also showcased a good range of Sakes from the Tottori prefecture of Japan that has lately been making overtures towards the Indian market.
Sake Masterclass at Vinexpo India
A high point of our Vinexpo India presence was a Masterclass conducted by both Mika and me. Both of us believe that we complement each other well at such presentations as we bring to the table our respective perspectives of Sake from Japan and India. It also helps that Mika is well versed with Indian cuisine- something that I noticed in Tokyo when she hosted me at an Indian restaurant in her neighbourhood.
Our Sake Masterclass witnessed more than a full house with the audience spilling over to the sidelines, eager to lap up the knowledge that we planned to share with them. It was good that we saved up on some Sake to be able to serve everybody at the masterclass. We served three different styles of Sake, one each from the respective sponsoring breweries as an ample exposure to the audience’s palate to drive home the Sake point.
Is Sake Wine or Beer?
The most common question encountered about Sake is about its classification as wine or beer. At the outset, our Masterclass highlighted the similarities and differences of Sake with Wine and Beer, to summarise that Sake is neither a “rice wine” nor a “rice beer” but rather an alcoholic beverage of its own standing deeply rooted in ancient history. So strongly is Sake embedded in Japanese culture that it is also officially denominated as the Japanese National Beverage called “Nihon-shu” meaning “Japanese Alcohol”. Some key points on Sake covered in our masterclass were:
- Sake is a fermented (and not distilled) alcoholic beverage.
- Made with Rice, Koji (a mould), Yeast and Water.
- Sake rice is a fatter grain having higher starch content- quite different from table rice.
- “Multiple Parallel Fermentation” is a production process unique to Sake.
- Like wine, the “Terroir” concept can be loosely applicable to Sake with the variables being- rice variety, water from specific regions, strain of Koji and Yeast etc.
- Sake as a category can be made anywhere in the world but “Nihon-shu” i.e. “Japanese Sake” is a Geographical Indication (GI).
Vinexpo India: A beginning well made
Conducting a globally renowned event during such unprecedentedly challenging times is reason enough to doff one’s hat to the organisers. However, the fixture had its set of teething troubles – a significant one being patchy visitor management. Since Vinexpo India 2021 was co-located with the SIAL expo in the same hall, managing thronging crowds at the stalls was hard, with many irrelevant visitors to the otherwise B2B event. The problem was further compounded by the gratuitous entry for all. Notwithstanding these blips, Vinexpo India is a beginning well made and we hope to see it bigger and better in the future editions.
