Japan’s Ambassador to the US visits Charlottesville’s North American Sake Brewery

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - Ambassador of Japan to the United States TOMITA Koji visited Virginia’s first and only sake brewery in Charlottesville’s IX Park.

The ambassador was given a tour of the brewery, and got to check out the fermentation tanks up close.

“We were able to coordinate this visit with the Embassy of Japan, and we’ve done some partnerships with them in the past, so it was great to have them come down,” said Andrew Centofante, the owner of the North American Sake Brewery.

Then the ambassador and his group got to taste some of its award winning sakes.

Centofante said he felt honored to have the ambassador try his craft.

“It was nerve racking to have my product in the hands of the Japanese ambassador, but it was worth it to see his face when he like lit up tasting it, so it was great,” Centofante said.

Centofante says this is only one out of about 20 sake spots in the US.

“We’re pretty small, but we’re growing and there’s more and more sake breweries coming online every year,” Centofante said.

He hopes to expand his brewery in the future.

“We produce our sake here, as well as distributed throughout Virginia. We’re hopefully opening up some more states soon, so we’re going to kind of grow our reach as much as we can,” Centofante said.

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