Any time is a good time to enjoy sake, but the festive season lends itself perfectly to it. Carefully selected ingredients allow you to try surprising combinations and share great taste experiences with friends and family.
We've chosen four of our traditional classics and called on our fondest memories to rework their pairings with sake. Oysters, foie gras, smoked salmon, cheese platter, discover four perfect pairings!


Four great classics
Four perfect pairings

Oysters and sake
Here's a pairing no connoisseur can argue with. A classic in Japan, where oysters are creamy and served either cooked or tedied, in which case they are easily paired with rich, umami-rich sake. In France, oysters are saltier and more iodized, and are best eaten raw with lemon or vinegar. In this case, it's best to opt for a sake with a mineral bent.
Our best experience is undoubtedly Gillardeau oysters with Iwanoi i240 Gohyakumangoku sake. This is a Junmai Ginjo Namazake made from Japan's most mineralized spring water! The harmony is incredible, bringing a sensation of purity and incomparable freshness. The iodized flavors of the shellfish are generously expressed in the sake, which returns to its source, a water that has been slowly filtered through the shell layer of the Onjuku coast.


Did you know?
90% of French oysters are of Japanese origin!
In the 1970s, an epizootic decimated French oyster crops, and the more resistant Crassostrea Gigas oysters were imported from Japan to save our oyster-farming traditions.


Foie gras and sake
Mellow or even sweet wines are the usual companions of foie gras. That's where sake comes in. Particularly koshu, aged sakes that often carry notes of candied fruit, apricot, prune and honey, and why not kijoshu, which are generally sweeter. In any case, it's important to find a certain smoothness, without forgetting the freshness and liveliness that can make the difference. 
It's with X3 Amairo sake from Akita that we've reached perfection with foie gras. A sake produced with three times more koji and aged for three years, it brings richness and complexity, with dried fruit, candied fruit and hints of cocoa. A twist of Timut pepper to energize and it's magnificent!


Did you know?
Japan is the world's leading importer of foie gras!
This popularity can be explained by Japanese chefs' attraction to French cuisine. Many of them trained in France and work foie gras to perfection, even in pâté croute competitions, where they excel!


Smoked salmon and sake
The key is to bring freshness and minerality, with a lively sake carrying a “kire finish” to balance the fat of the salmon. This type of association already worked perfectly with Shuho+10 sake, a super-dry Junmaï Daïginjo, but the arrival this year of Ginjo from the same house, carrying a nihonhudo of +20 gave us the urge to give it a try.
And the match is perfect! The strong impact of Shuho+20 sake, its precision and sharpness ideally balance the power and fat of the smoked salmon. In between bites, the sake delicately perfumes the palate and, above all, refreshes and cleanses it to enjoy the next bite.


Did you know?
Japan has its own tradition of preserving salmon.
In the north of the country, there's a traditional method of salting salmon called “Aramaki zake”. Like a cured ham, the salmon is salted, desalted and then air-dried. It is then grilled before being eaten.


Cheeses and sake
A mainstay of our gastronomy, cheeses offer an incredible diversity of flavors and, depending on the variety, express floral, fruity, earthy or herbaceous aromas. Their texture varies from creamy to firm, depending on the type of milk and maturing methods. In other words, the possibilities for pairing sake are endless!
We've gone to the extreme by combining a blue, a classic but no less powerful Roquefort, with an equally powerful sake, Hanatomoe Mizumoto Nama. This is an unpasteurized sake, produced using the ancient Mizumoto/Bodaïmoto method, and is certainly the most distinctive of our sakes. Result: fabulous!


Did you know?
Artisanal cheese production exists in Japan.
It's a recent phenomenon, but one that's developing rapidly, with new producers setting up shop every year, particularly in Hokkaido, where the climate is ideal for dairy farming. One of the best known is Sakura, a soft goat's milk cheese decorated with cherry blossoms.