Zenkuro Sake
NZ’S only sake operation has landed a prestigious award, and sales are booming. But Zenkuro has bigger plans brewing, its creator tells Sharon Stephenson
It started, like so many things, over a drink. It was 2014, an All Blacks game was on TV and long-time mates/business partners Dave Joll, Richard Ryall and Craig Mclachlan were enjoying a bottle of sake. All three had lived in Japan at various times, spoke the language and had spent 26 years running a Queenstown-based tourism business for Japanese visitors. But Dave was on the lookout for another challenge. “I wanted to be an expert at something and wondered why no one was making sake in New Zealand,” he says. While chatting to Yoshihiro Kawamura, whose family he’d worked for in Tokyo, Yoshihiro mentioned he’d recently opened a sake brewery in Canada. “I said to him, ‘I’ll help you open one in New Zealand’.” So Dave, Richard and Craig joined forces with Yoshihiro before Dave headed off to Japan, then Canada, to learn all he could about the ancient art of sake brewing. That included how to make the fermented drink that’s been oiling the wheels of Japanese society since around 4000 BC. “Sake brewing is a difficult process, especially if you want to produce premium sake by hand, which we very much did.” Sake making 101: mould and water are added to special sake rice and left to ferment for a month before the sediment is removed and the sake is pressed, to divide it into undissolved rice particles and ambercoloured liquid. The sake is then pasteurised, stored and diluted with pure water. It’s a labour-intensive, time-consuming process that takes around six months from go to woah. Having gained advanced sake-making qualifications, Dave started playing around at home until production expanded and his Japanese wife Yasuko kicked him out of the garage. He eventually found premises in Queenstown and set up Zenkuro, New Zealand’s only commercial sake-brewing operation. Today, that operation has grown to around 500,000 litres a year, two additional Japanese brewers and is sold in restaurants and liquor stores throughout New Zealand and online to as far afield as Japan, Hong Kong and Australia. It didn’t hurt that a year after starting, Dave entered their fledgling product into the London Sake Challenge, a prestigious international competition that attracts entrants from all over the globe. “We really entered our sake because we wanted feedback – for someone to say, ‘that’s not very good’ or ‘you need to do this or that’.” Instead, the quartet’s entry won both gold and silver awards. “That really got us on the map.” Dave also reckons their sake has an edge: not only is Queenstown’s cool, dry climate ideal for sake brewing, but the “super-soft water”, which is low in mineral content, makes for a smoother drop. “There’s no harsh taste with our sake. It’s rounder, softer and lighter than many other sakes.” Although the overseas market has been kind to Zenkuro, the partners are now focused on winning over more Kiwi fans. “New Zealand is about 10 years behind Europe in terms of sake appreciation. We’re keen to show Kiwis how well sake goes with our cuisine, especially with all the Asian flavours coming into play, and to help create a sake-drinking culture here.”