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We try the YU Sparkling Wine, the ultimate wine to pair with sushi

Kay Sep 18, 2017
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If you’re wondering what drink to enjoy with sushi, then this might be a refreshing option!

Sushi is popular around the world, but many people still may not be sure about what alcoholic drinks to pair with it. And even for those who do have some experience, perhaps they’d like to go beyond the typical “sushi wines“.

Well, we recently happened upon another wine that’s made to be enjoyed with sushi, and this time it has some serious fizz. It’s YU Sushi Sparkling, and when we found the unique wine at a supermarket, we just had to buy a bottle and try it!

The wine is actually a Spumante, a sparkling white wine from Italy, which made us instantly curious about how an Italian sparkling wine would combine with sushi.

The bottle certainly was eye-catching, coming in a pristine white color which we guessed was designed to give it the feel of porcelain. Its brightly-colored koi illustrations contrasted nicely against the background. Although the type of koi depicted here would be only for viewing and wouldn’t be served as sushi or any other kind of food, it adds a nice touch of Japan to the bottle visually.

The Japanese label on the bottle said that the wine is “a dry Spumante made to be matched with raw seafood including sushi, sashimi, and fish carpaccio”.

We were also curious about the makers, so we did a bit of research. The wine is made in the town of Valdobbiadene in the province of Treviso, Veneto in northeast Italy and was developed by two brothers who operate the winery Astoria in the region.

But now, it was time to taste the wine with some sushi!

To try the wine, we prepared some chirashi-zushi, a type of sushi presented with the seafood cut and placed on a bowl (or in this case a plate) of vinegared rice. So let’s see how well the sparkling wine went with the sushi.

When we poured the wine into the glass, we were surprised by how bubbly it was. It was almost as frothy as beer, and certainly more frothy than any other Spumante we had seen. The aroma was fresh and made us think of green apples and citrus fruits.

We then took a sip of the wine, which we found to be quite dry and refreshing. And when we had it with the sushi, it paired amazingly well!

The flavor of the wine didn’t clash with the taste of the seafood, but brought out the natural sweet taste of the ingredients. And since the wine had a nice acidity, it also went well together with the vinegared rice.

On its own, the wine may have tasted a bit dry, but perhaps that was what made it an enjoyable combination with sushi. Overall, we thought the wine was quite worthy of the name “sushi sparkling“.

But then again, we guess the quality of the wine isn’t surprising. As it turns out, Valdobbiadene is a long-standing wine-making region famous for its Prosecco, and Astoria one of the area’s prominent Prosecco producing wineries. Plus, for those of us in Japan, it’s also nice to know that a fine Prosecco maker created a sparkling wine specifically to be paired with a Japanese dish.

We bought the wine at a super market in France, but the YU Sushi Sparkling is also available in Japan, including at super markets such as Aeon for around 2,000 yen (US$18) . If you see a bottle, you may want to give it a try, as the unique concept and bottle may make it an interesting wine to bring to get-togethers!

Or if that’s too expensive for your taste, there’s always 100 yen store wine that’s surprisingly good too.