楯の川酒造Tatenokawa Shuzo

In 2010, Tatenokawa took every grade of sake it made off the production schedule and kept only one: Junmai Daiginjo, the most polished and most demanding category in the catalogue. No table sake, no fallback line, nothing to fill the shelves cheaply. For a brewery that had spent the previous century and a half making a little of everything, this was the sharpest break in its history. It was also a bet placed by a man in his thirties on the most expensive thing his family had to sell.

The lineage starts in 1832. A senior figure of the Uesugi clan passed through the Shonai area, tasted the local water, and was impressed enough to urge a man named Heishiro to take up brewing. Heishiro did not move quickly — he began producing sake in 1854, twenty-two years later. The water came from springs draining off Mount Chokkai and Mount Gassan, two peaks of the Dewa Sanzan range. In 1855, Sakai Tadakatsu, the daimyo of the Shonai domain, was presented with the new sake and gave it a name in return: Tatenokawa, Castle Brook. That name has sat on the bottles ever since.

For most of the following century and a half, the brewery made the full range a regional kura was expected to make. Sixth-generation president Jumpei Sato took over in the early 2000s and inherited the problem every regional brewery knew: falling sales and inventory with nowhere to go. He did not expand the lineup or discount his way out. He cut almost all of it. From 2010, Tatenokawa brewed only Junmai Daiginjo, which requires rice polished to at least 50% of its original size. Sakata City in Yamagata's Shonai plain already had a reputation as the heart of Japan's Ginjo kingdom; Sato decided the only argument worth making there was the hardest one.

The brewery today is run by a team almost entirely in their thirties. The toji, Takeshi Sato, works primarily with Yamagata-grown rice, including the local Dewasansan variety, and has built out an extreme-polishing program. Its furthest point is Komyo, a sake milled down to a single percent of the grain — 99% of the rice ground away before fermentation even begins.

Key facts

• Origins in 1832, when a senior figure of the Uesugi clan recommended brewing to Heishiro after tasting the local water; brewing began in 1854. The brewery name Tatenokawa (Castle Brook) was conferred in 1855 by Sakai Tadakatsu, daimyo of the Shonai domain
• Water source: spring water from Mount Chokkai and Mount Gassan of the Dewa Sanzan range, the original reason sake production was recommended on the site
• Since 2010, produces only Junmai Daiginjo — no other sake classification; first brewery in Yamagata to commit exclusively to the top grade
• Decision driven by sixth-generation president Jumpei Sato; current production led by young team, predominantly in their thirties
• Toji Takeshi Sato uses primarily Yamagata-grown rice including the Dewasansan variety
• Extreme polishing program includes Komyo, polished to 1% of original grain size
• IWC Silver Medal: Shuryu (Vogue) Junmai Daiginjo, 2015 and 2016