Koji Babies and Grapes Cycle Syncing
The vibration of handmade beverages and why they feel better to drink (in my unscientific opinion)
Ask an alcohol sales rep what they don’t like about their job and most will mention supplier “work withs” and GSMs (general sales meetings). This week, I had both back to back. Working for the largest, independently owned, multi line wine & spirits distributor in the country means we have an exorbitant amount of suppliers, with products ranging from the most prized wines of Napa, Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne, to cocktail cherries and bloody mary mix. On Thursday, I had the Regional Sales Manager for our biggest sake supplier on the road with me. It was a fun excuse to taste fantastic sake all day, be treated to a nice lunch, and see some of my geekier customers who get excited at the words nama genshu.1
If your sake knowledge starts with hot sake at Benihana and ends with sake bombs over a Tiger Roll, I am pleased to inform you that there are a wide range of finely crafted Japanese sakes which display nuance of flavor and a sense of place like fine grape wine is famous for. Like grape wine, sake styles vary by region of origin, rice variety, and cultivation method, though the magic ingredient in sake brewing is a fungus called koji2. As my colleague for the day began to explain the intensive koji-making process to a curious buyer, I was reminded of the nonstop early days of caring for each of my newborn babies.
There are two items that have a chokehold on the modern American baby registry: the Hatch Sound Machine and the Crane Drop Humidifier. The popularity of these products represents our want/need/responsibility to provide our baby with the most optimal conditions to rest and grow while they sleep through the majority of their early days. Turns out, master brewers are equally dialed into the conditions necessary for optimal growth and development of their precious baby koji. Around the clock, they are tending to the koji, making sure temperature and humidity levels are precisely where needed for the desired end sake.3
Ryujin, a brewery in Gunma prefecture, employs only four people, two of which are licensed tōji Master Brewers. Here, each step of the sake production is touched by one of these humans whom the rice relies on to become its ethereal beverage form. Larger breweries use technology to eliminate human error, producing a consistent sake each and every time, and at mass scale. I don’t think this is a bad thing, it’s just a thing that influences what ends up in your glass. There is a subtle and almost undetectable vibration to consciousness that those of us with consciousness can sense. Each touch point adds to that final vibration, whether the touch is human or machine. If the master brewer snoozes his koji alarm, the sake will taste different than if he hadn’t. The brewery Tatenokawa in the Shonai region of Yamagata prefecture plays Foo Fighters music to the sake they create in collaboration with the Foo Fighters, so that’s, well… in there.4
An interesting phenomenon occurs when different vibrating things/processes come into proximity: they will often start, after a little time, to vibrate together at the same frequency. They “sync up,” sometimes in ways that can seem mysterious. This is described today as the phenomenon of spontaneous self-organization.5
In an educational meeting with Rafael Soto of Bodega Lanzaga this week, he explained that by planting early, late, and mid ripening grapes together - interspersing within rows- the grapes begin to “sync up”. Early ripening Tempranillo and late ripening Manzuelo and Graciano meet in the middle, coming to ripeness closer than typically observed. Rafa searched for the English word for menstruation to compare the grapes to women in proximity “syncing up”, while my less lyrically inclined coworkers looked on in confused horror.
Wine is an agricultural product that relies on the rhythm of an entire growing season to come to fruition. This can’t be skipped or accelerated. Trust in nature’s wisdom is essential, in partnership with the grower and maker’s guiding hands. Together, the cycle of life is carried out and their energies intertwined. This is what I love to taste, not the exact soil composition or percentage of new oak used in élevage, but the joy and hope of a human stewarding natural life to my glass transceded in the juice.
At the heart of the universe is a steady, insistent beat: the sound of cycles in sync…. [T]hese feats of synchrony occur spontaneously, almost as if nature has an eerie yearning for order.6
This may all sound a little bohemian, but ever since I heard Cathy Corison talk about the “vibration” of her wines last month in Napa I have been profoundly aware of the ~vibes~ all around.
Wishing you all a week of high vibrations and big dreams coming to light.
xoxo Caroline
nama meaning unpasteurized and genshu meaning undiluted in relation to how the sake was produced
Koji is the key ingredient in a number of Japanese food staples: soy sauce, miso, mirin, sake.
This only lasts for a couple of days while newborn parents experience significant sleep disruption for months and years on…
Supposedly, Dave Grohl is a big sake lover and sake sales are tankking with the youngest population of drinkers because it’s the “old man’s drink”, so this collab is one brewery’s idea to engage a younger demographic with the ancestral beverage.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-hippies-were-right-its-all-about-vibrations-man/
Steven Strogatz, Sync: How Order Emerges From Chaos in the Universe, Nature and Daily Life (2003)
Oh, and the syncing! I love nature!
“The sake is an absolutely delightful junmai daiginjo but the Foo Fighters in “kanji” drives me absolutely bonkers. Is that petty of me?“
If you’re petty, I’m petty 🤣
Happy to hear that it tastes good, though!
Loved this read. Especially the tie to the American baby devices. So interesting.
Off to enjoy the vibes ✌🏽