How to Read a "Gold Medal" Sake Label

It's tempting to reach for a bottle the moment you spot "Gold Medal" on the label. But which competition awarded it, in what year, and to which sake exactly? The label alone won't tell you. A "gold medal" doesn't mean the same thing from one competition to the next. Awards can be a useful clue when choosing a bottle, but they're neither a ranking of taste nor a guarantee you'll like what's inside. Here's how to read them, and how to check the details for yourself. For a broader look at how sake competitions differ from one another, see An Introduction to Sake Competitions.

"Gold" isn't a single standard

The first thing to understand is that "gold medal" doesn't point to one fixed benchmark. Who judges what, and how, varies from competition to competition, and so does the meaning behind a gold medal.

Take the Annual Japan Sake Awards (Zenkoku Shinshu Kanpyokai), co-hosted by the National Research Institute of Brewing and the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association. Sake that clears the preliminary round earns "commendation" (nyusho), and among those, the ones judged outstanding through the final round receive "gold" (kinsho). If commendation is a passing grade, gold is the top tier within that passing group. What's judged here is shuppinshu: sake brewed specifically as a competition entry. Some of these entries do reach retail shelves, but others are brewed solely for the competition and never sold to the public.

SAKE COMPETITION, by contrast, judges only commercially sold sake. Entries are tasted completely blind, with brand names hidden, and the top ten in each category are named GOLD (per SAKE COMPETITION). The IWC's SAKE category also judges blind, awarding gold, silver, and bronze medals, with trophies selected from among the gold medalists (per IWC).

The same word, "gold," can mean an evaluation of a special competition brew in one case, or of an ordinary retail bottle in another, and that distinction changes what the medal is actually telling you.

Three things to check on an award label

When you see an award on a label, check three things: which award, which edition, and which product. Together, these three tell you what the award actually represents.

1. Which award. Look at the competition's name and the tier of the award. Even a "gold medal" carries a different bar depending on who's running the show.
2. Which edition. Awards are given out fresh each year, judged at a single point in time. The lineup of sake being judged changes from year to year.
3. Which product. Check whether the award went to the brewery in general, or to this specific product.

That third point is the easiest to get wrong. A brewery may have won an award for a different product in its lineup. That doesn't mean the bottle in your hand won it too. An award recognizes the specific sake that was entered, not "everything this brewery makes."

A gold medal doesn't guarantee it'll suit your taste

An award history is a useful signal: it reflects a judgment made by a third party under a defined set of criteria. But it's only one signal among several. It's not an absolute ranking of taste, and it's no guarantee that you personally will enjoy the sake.

A gold-medal sake might not suit your palate at all. A showy, aromatic ginjo (sake brewed from rice milled down to a high polish) might score high with judges, while someone who prefers a mellower sake built to pair with food might be happier with a completely different bottle. Treat an award as a starting point, and let your budget, your taste, and the occasion make the final call. For more on how to choose with those factors in mind, see our Buying Guide.

Two common misreadings: "gold = the best" and "an award = this exact bottle"

Gold isn't "the best." It's recognition within a top tier. And an award doesn't belong to "the whole brewery." It belongs to the specific sake that was entered. These two points, covered above, are also the two most common misreadings. Avoid just these two, and you'll sidestep nearly every misunderstanding about awards. Related misconceptions are also covered in our Myths and FAQ.

It's also worth knowing that award labeling is regulated. Japan's fair competition code for sake labeling (and its enforcement rules) requires that any award claim on a label state both the name of the awarding body and the year the award was given. Only awards from organizations that publish their judging methods and run the competition on an ongoing basis qualify to be displayed this way. An award with no clear basis, or a self-declared one, cannot legally appear on a label. That's because a label suggesting a sake is better than it actually is could run afoul of Japan's Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations. Put the other way around: a properly displayed award should always let you trace it back to the awarding body and the year.

Look up the award history yourself

A single line on a label sometimes isn't enough to tell you which edition, or which award, you're actually looking at. So it's worth checking the source yourself. Ponsh organizes award data across four layers: competition, edition, award, and winner.

Each winner record is linked to one of a brewery (Company), a brand (Brand), or a specific product (Product), so you can confirm whether a given award belongs to the brewery as a whole or to one particular product. You can trace the award history of any bottle you're curious about, right down to the award name, the year, and exactly what it was given for.

An award is a starting point, not an answer. Keep these three angles in mind, and you can look past the four characters "gold medal" and choose the bottle that's actually right for you.

• This article is intended for readers of legal drinking age (20 in Japan). Please drink responsibly. Avoid alcohol during pregnancy or breastfeeding, and never drink and drive.