What to spend
- €18–25: the honest entry point. A solid junmai or honjozo from a specialist shop at this price will beat anything cheaper by a mile.
- €25–45: the sweet spot. Junmai ginjo territory: aromatic, polished, genuinely impressive bottles.
- Under ~€12 at the supermarket: usually cooking-grade. Fine for the wok, not for the glass. This is where most bad first impressions come from.
Where to shop
- sake.nl: one of Europe's largest Japanese-beverage webshops; huge range, ships everywhere in NL, and runs the WSET sake courses too.
- Yoigokochi Sake Importers (Amsterdam): the junmai-only pioneers; beautifully curated importer list, also found on good restaurant menus across Europe.
- Sakebase: specialist bottle shop and education house; great for guided choices and rarer finds.
- Other importers to know: Otemba, SAKENOMism and Nosawa all bring in serious bottles; you'll meet them at every sake event in the country.
- Asian supermarkets: hit-and-miss. Fine for nigori and everyday bottles, but check for a junmai or ginjo word on the label and avoid dusty shelves (sake dislikes age and light).
- Wine shops: more and more stock a shelf of sake; if yours does, ask whoever chose it what they would open first.
Yoigokochi ↗ Sakebase ↗ sake.nl ↗
Which bottles to start with
Read the bottle reviews for honest picks with prices and tasting notes. My five starter recommendations, with what to ask for and what to pay, come as a printable card in the free Starter Kit. It's made to take into the shop with you.
In the shopNot sure what to grab? Ask for a junmai ginjo around €30. It's aromatic enough to charm and structured enough for dinner, and the safest good bottle on almost any shelf.
Storing it
Cool, dark, upright. An open bottle keeps a good week or two in the fridge; unlike wine it needs no vacuum gadgets, because its low acidity means it fades gently rather than turning. Nama always lives in the fridge, opened or not.