W
ith an afternoon available before the show started, I headed west ready to explore the Willamette Valley and visit modern day pioneers, SakéOne. In 1992, when SakéOne was born, American-made saké was a radical idea. Since the Japanese had perfected saké centuries ago, many questioned the idea of revolutionizing a traditional art. Nevertheless, SakéOne’s founder was a visionary. Today, SakéOne is an importer of Japan’s finest saké as well as America’s premium saké company. For nearly two decades, SakéOne has been crafting junmai ginjo (premium) quality saké at its state- of-the-art kura. On arriving, I was greeted with unpretentious SakéOne buildings not out of place in an agriculture region. I was just in time to catch the next tour and surprised that, on a weekday, there were nearly twenty others that were also anxious to see what happens in an American kura. During one of my trips to Japan, I was able to tour a Japanese
50 Asian Fabric 2013
brewery that had been in operation for well over one hundred years. I wondered if I’d see similarities. SakéOne’s Sakémaster, Greg Lorenz, learned his craft hands on at the Oregon brewery with guidance from some of Japan’s leading brewers and remains the only American Sakémaster. The pride of SakéOne’s kura is its traditional cedar koji room, just as I had seen in Japan. This is where the brewing team rests steamed rice in small batches. The premium sake made at SakéOne starts with pure, microfiltered water from a local rainforest aquifer near Forest Grove and whole-grain rice, grown in northern California and milled in-house. Saké is not a beer, wine or distilled spirit. It is a brewed rice beverage made from rice, water, yeast and koji. Mold is the ingredient that makes saké what it is. Mold spores—called koji— are introduced to steamed rice in a traditional cedarwood-lined room. The mold digests the rice with enzymes that convert the starch into sugars.