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The wine’s nose was mellow and nutty. All sorts of earthy flavors emerged, including pistachio and cocoa. You could see pairing it with roast chicken. The glass next to it was completely different, although equally whimsically named. Unlike Bride of the Fox, Well of Wisdom featured a clean and fruity nose, and its profile ranged from pear to pineapple.

Welcome to premium sake, every bit as varied and complex as wine.

Sake, or rice wine, has been around for centuries, but most Americans know it only as the warm stuff served in glazed carafes alongside sushi.

“If you like hot sake, you should give premium cold sake a try,” says Ian McCaffery, wine manager at Martin Wine Cellar in Baton Rouge.

Serious sake drinking is slowly taking root nationwide, although it’s more common in large metropolitan areas and along the coasts. Still, wine and food lovers everywhere are discovering the ancient drink’s sipping, pairing and cooking virtues.

“Sakes are great food wines,” McCaffery says. “Their low acidity and clean taste make them complement all sorts of dishes.”

Martin carries half a dozen high-end sakes, which are set apart from everyday sakes by a lack of added alcohol in distillation.

McCaffery recommends starting with the $19 Well of Wisdom and working your way through the others, which vary significantly in flavor.

Dreamy Clouds, unfiltered sake that’s highly recommended by Wine Spectator, is dominated by rice and fruit. It’s cloudy with rice sediment, giving it heft and a long finish. Then there is the ultra-smooth, perfumey Divine Droplets, whose quality grade, Junmai Daiginjo (joon-my die-jin-jo), makes it part of the top .5 % of sake production in Japan.

One of the factors that distinguishes a bottle like Divine Droplets from others is its seimaibuia (say-my-boo-eye), or the degree to which each grain of rice has been gently milled, or buffed away, during production. The more the better, since the interior of the grain contains the most concentrated flavors and will produce the most complex sake. The labels of good sakes will show a seimaibuiai of between 70% and 35%, meaning between 30% and 65% of the grain has

been slowly removed.

As in winemaking, numerous factors influence each sake’s personality, including the variety of rice (there are around 50), the mold used to start fermentation, and the seimaibuiai mentioned above. Finally, the quality and source of the added water can seriously tilt the flavor in one direction or another.

A couple of additional pointers: the date on the bottle is the production, not expiration date, and you’ve got 12 to 14 months from then to consume it. Once opened, sake will keep for about two weeks.

Most importantly, because heat will damage premium sake, it’s best to serve it slightly chilled. Don’t fret over a sake set. Pour a small amount in regular stemware and enjoy.