NV Toko Ginga Shizuku Divine Droplets Junmai Daiginjo Yamagata 750 ml

At The French Laundry, Napa Valley’s ultimate temple of fine dining, Chef Thomas Keller and his crack team of sommeliers have an all-encompassing wine list, with over 500 bottles to mine for a perfect pairing for every dish. 

But for their legendary Oysters & Pearls course, this team reaches for one bottle that isn’t made from grapes: Toko Ginga Shizuku’s Divine Droplets Sake. 

The name is no misnomer. This is one of the pinnacles of sake, a truly inspiring beverage that stands with Grand Cru Burgundy in its complexity. Whether you’re fortunate enough to have it with Keller’s heavenly seafood-and-sake combination—or if you simply open it alongside roast chicken, seared scallops, or even potato chips—the experience is absolutely magical. 

Divine Droplets gets its signature texture and incredible complexity from its otherworldly terroir. Located amidst the jagged, stony peaks of the Japanese Alps, the Kojima Sohonten brewery behind Divine Droplets has been cultivating rice in pristine snowmelt since 1579, and the purity of the water in this high-altitude spot lends the sake a silken mouthfeel that is absolutely inimitable. That’s why it’s a standby at MICHELIN-starred restaurants around the world. 

After harvest, the Dewasansan rice unique to the Yamagata prefecture gets the luxury treatment known as the shizuku method, in which master brewers extract the finished sake using solely the force of gravity rather than by pressing, ensuring only the most delicate liquid makes it into Divine Droplets. 

The result is a crystal-clear sake, and the purity in each sip will remind you of this sake’s snowy, dramatic provenance, displaying everything that makes Divine Droplets the gold standard.