I've written before about Masa Shiroki at Granville Island's Artisan Sake Maker. Making use of Vancouver's "super soft" water he's been producing some very nice products (and they're fresh). It's worth your time at Granville Island to pop over to Railspur and do a light tasting with him.
But this is more of a focus on one of his newer products.
I've long been a big fan of his Osake Junmai Sparkling. For me, it's the best of the sparkling sake out there, at least of what I've tasted in Canada, the US, and Thailand. And that's a head on comparison of similar products.
Mirai is something different. Here Masa is trying to develop something to compete more against sparkling wines than against sake. The result is interesting, and well worth drinking.
My notes from the tasting gie some guidance.
First impression in the glass is a storm of bubbles. There's a slight aroma of tropical fruits - papaya, banana.
In the mouth there's a first tang of yeast, and then a thick umami mouth that gets quickly cut up by the bubbles. The flavour blossoms in your mouth after a few seconds. The expression is neutral - not sweet, not dry.
The side of the tongue and the top back of the mouth respond to the blossom, and hold it there for a long finish, lingering on the top of the palate. It hangs around, remind you it's there.
This would match very well with most of the things you would take champagne with, and might be a bit more versatile in that it can easily complement rice dishes, which can be tricky with some grape based sparkling.
Me, I'd be happy having this with sevruga caviar, the fish and salt being a good complement. We drank it with a mushroom risotto, and the result was quite satisfying.
Where it wouldn't work would be with particularly strong flavours (Thai curries for example)
As a production note, this is a corked sparkling. Summerhill in the Okanogan is doing the final stage of this product and handling the bottling.
Overall, this is good company for Japanese or Western cuisine.