What can you tell from a sake label?

There are a lot of clues you can get by reading a sake label. Let’s dive deep into it!

Items 1-6: Required by Japanese law to be indicated on all sake labels

1. Product name (e.g. Nionshu 日本酒 or Seishu 清酒 both identify sake in Japanese. Products that don’t meet the requirements wouldn’t have this!)

2. Net content

3. Raw ingredients (Water is not needed to be specified)

4. Alcohol content

5. Name and Address of the brewery

6. Bottle date

(there’s one more requirement actually: all sake label has to mention that it’s prohibited by law to be sold to and/or consumed by a minor person- but for simplicity sake, it's not shown here on our fictitious label)

Items 7-11: will be shown on products that meet particular sake brewing quality standards specified by law

7) Seimai-buai

8) Sake rice: variety and place of origin

9) Special designation of sake

10-11) Special type of sake base on production techniques employed

Apart from these, some sake will also have other technical specifications which tells a lot about the sake. As they are so technical, let’s save them for the next post.