Matsu no Tsukasa (Matsuse Shuzo)

The Free Bacchus Story

Matsuse Shuzo has brewed in Ryuo, a farming town between Lake Biwa and the Suzuka Mountains, since 1860, and sells everything as Matsu no Tsukasa. In 1988 it asked local farmers who had only grown rice for eating to try Yamada Nishiki, the benchmark sake rice, and by 1992 all its rice was grown under contract. Matsuse Tadayuki has run the brewery since 2005.

Junmai means rice, koji and water only, with no distilled alcohol added; koji is the mould grown on steamed rice to turn its starch into sugar for the yeast. The organic bottle is also kimoto, the old way of starting a ferment, in which lactic bacteria sour the yeast starter for several weeks before the yeast takes over, and that is where kimoto’s tang comes from. For this one Matsuse adds no yeast and lets the yeasts living in the brewery do the work. Shiga is a quiet sake prefecture of more than thirty breweries, and most of its rivers run into Lake Biwa; the brewery says the wish to protect the lake runs deep there.

Organic Junmai Wataribune is made from Wataribune, a Shiga rice that is one of the parents of Yamada Nishiki, grown organically in Ryuo by Wakai Nōen, a family that has farmed there for generations as Komeshi Matahachi, Matahachi the rice master. The brewery mills it to 65 per cent. Ishida Keizō, the tōji or head brewer, knows wine well, and it was his idea to brew Ryuo’s Yamada Nishiki separately by soil.

Zenkoku Ainōkai certifies Matsuse under Organic JAS, certificate 25-15, for processed foods including alcoholic drinks, since January 2024. Only Organic Junmai Wataribune is sold as organic. The Junmai Daiginjo Yuge Ryuo uses organic Yamada Nishiki but is not, and the AZOLLA rice, grown without pesticides, is not certified. The rice is bought in; no farm of the brewery’s own is on the register.