As sake continues to expand beyond its home borders and evolve into a global beverage, the rules of evaluation are being rewritten. While Japan’s competitions are mainly concerned with technical purity, competitions overseas are flipping the script with a more consumer-focused approach. One of the biggest of these is the International Wine Challenge held in London. Having already built up a solid reputation as one of the world’s foremost, influential wine competitions, in 2007 a sake category was added.

In this episode, we sit down with Chris Ashton, the owner and managing director behind this massive UK-based competition. As well as exploring Chris’s personal story with sake, we learn more about how the competition judges sake in this new era, what a consumer-focused lens reveals about modern sake trends, and how an event thousands of miles from Japan is helping shape the future of the industry.

This year’s competition was particularly special, as it marked the 20th anniversary and was held in Hiroshima, Japan. As well as Rebekah, who is a regular judge, Chris and Cindy were both very lucky to take part, either as judges or in the media.  

As always, if you have questions or comments, please do share them with us at [email protected] or send us a message on our Instagram, Facebook, or Substack!

We’ll be back very soon with plenty more Sake On Air.

Until then, kampai!

Sake On Air is made possible with the generous support of the Japan Sake & Shochu Makers Association and is broadcast from the Japan Sake & Shochu Information Center in Tokyo. Sake on Air was created by Potts K Productions and is produced by Export Japan. Our theme, “Younger Today Than Tomorrow,” was composed by forSomethingNew for Sake On Air.