Mura Mura River Junmai Ginjo Premium Saké

A crisp, vegan-friendly Junmai Ginjo Sake from Forest Grove, Oregon. It has a delicate birth with hints of rice, stone fruits & spices; while a fresh life adds hints of apple & pear; that led to an off-dry death of medium length with hints of brown sugar. December 2023

Rating: 13/23 For a dry sake, this sure is sweet. In a good way. It has a very clean flavor, with just a bit of the alcohol showing, without too much bitterness. There's a hint of melon, followed by cantaloupe, as well as a pepperiness throughout that I expect would burn were this distilled to a higher proof, but is fairly nice as is. A bit of lemon is in here as well. Definitely a bit flawed with that pepper, but overall quite an enjoyable sake. Oh, maybe that's totori, not melon. Still a hint of cantaloupe though. That harshness is really hitting me more now. Unfortunately, I'm not liking this as much anymore. I'd go for a different sake in this price range instead, like Haketsuru's Junmai Ginjo (15/23). The burn really throws this off for me. This certainly isn't bad, but it's a bit rough around the edges. I do like the spicy flavor though. I think a 12 is the lowest reasonable score here, but a 13 or 14 is more likely. I'm thinking on the high side of a 13, but I'm not quite sure. This is quite enjoyable. What ultimately puts me into the 13 camp is that this seems better chilled than at room temperature. Chilling covering some of the rough edges is not an indication of a high quality product. The value certainly isn't present with this one. Coming back to this, I don't think it's even holding up that well. It burns too much.