Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
720 ml bottle from Lambert in Kyoto. Nice rice nose, rich, grainy, some caramel and umami. Yellow tinted, oily. Sweet but balanced flavor, full grain. Super ripe fruit, pears, peaches, caramel, finishes with an alcohol burn to balance well. Full and smooth. Very nice and rustic with this 80% polish. Tasty as hell though.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
720 ml bottle from Lambert Wines. This seems to be the unpasteurized, undiluted version of their junmai. My 307th sake rating on RB, making me, for now, the top rater of sakes on the site. Somewhat funky nose, woody, lots of koji, something like a kimoto, actually, though I guess it isn’t. A bit stinky, though in a traditional, interesting way. Lots of umami, a bit salty and meaty. Smoky too. Clear and icy looking. Rich, heavy, thick and full. Sweet rice and koji, light smoke and jerky with lots of umami. Very interesting and old-fashioned. Sweet estery fruits, melon, apricot, vanilla. Fascinating, weird, nice. Full-bodied.