Kura Master 2025

 Kura Master is a sake competition held in Paris that began in 2017, and its key feature is that the judges are limited to French sommeliers and staff from Michelin-starred restaurants. The main yardstick is “compatibility with gastronomy.” In other words, the lively synergy created when the sake is paired with food matters more than the liquid’s solo quality. Because of that, the contest uses the 100-point blind-tasting system borrowed from wine, and it controls serving temperature and glass shape under the exact same standards as wine judging. By contrast, the SAKE division of the International Wine Challenge (IWC) in London uses an international mix of judges and is a “technical-standard” contest that looks for universal quality for the global market, so the two events have clearly different aims and scoring methods.
 The award structure starts with two tiers based on first-round scores: Gold (80-92 points) and Platinum (93-100 points). A French government rule, the “33 percent rule,” limits their total to no more than one-third of all entries. In 2025, out of 1,083 entries, 235 won Gold and 123 won Platinum—about 33 percent as expected. From the Platinum winners, 50 moved to the finals; of those, 30 received the Excellent Award, the eight category leaders earned the Jury Prize, and one very top sake received the President’s Prize. The higher the tier, the steeper the drop-off, and the chance of winning the President’s Prize is under 0.1 percent—a truly narrow gate.
 In the 2025 contest, the categories became more detailed, with eight groups such as “Junmai 51-65 % polishing ratio” and “Junmai 66-100 %.” Thanks to this, not only highly polished, elegant daiginjo but also medium-polished sakes that keep rice flavor, plus aged sakes and classic-yeast styles, could be judged fairly by French standards. Judges’ notes say that rich styles with layers of umami and complexity ranked high this year. Innovative sakes with a story—like bottle-fermented sparkling types and brews matured at sub-zero temperatures for fifteen years—also scored very well. This clearly shows the French market’s taste for “a memorable character that still pairs well with food.”
 Breweries ranged from Hokkaido to Okinawa, and even a yamahai-style sake made in Brooklyn, USA, reached the finals. Thus, multinational brewing philosophies now compete on French tables. This very diversity is why Kura Master works not just as a tasting event, but as a strategic platform that bridges sake culture to the European market.

 In short, Kura Master 2025 has boosted the rarity and credibility of its winners through a clear position—“sake chosen by French palates”—and a system that strictly limits award rates. The praise sent out through the French culinary world will likely become a strong force that creates new value for sake, not only in Europe but also across Asian markets.