In search of surprises: the Richard Geoffroy interview

Written by Andrew James October 2, 2026

In 2019, after 28 years running Dom Perignon, Richard Geoffroy left to start a sake brewery in the isolated village of Shiraiwa, near Toyama. He called it IWA 5 (the name comes from the last three letters of the village and the five sake components: rice, yeast, koji or yeast mold, terroir, and fermentation.) Though Geoffroy’s introduction to the world of sake was eased by Ryuichiro Masuda, a sake brewery owner who became his friend and business partner, it has not been without controversy. Sake brewers aim to make something like a non-vintage blanc de blancs Champagne. Each brewery develops a recognizable style, with its products intended to be consumed soon after release. Pursuing balance and complexity, the 72-year-old Champagne chef de cave decided to create a single sake assemblage each year from three different rice varieties and multiple yeast strains, then to vary the recipe so that no two bottlings are identical. IWA 5 is the only sake brewery in Japan to offer vertical tastings showing how rice wine evolves.

Were you suddenly inspired to brew sake or did the feeling develop over time?

My family have been vignerons in Champagne for seven generations. All my personal development has been wine, more than medicine [Geoffroy initially trained as a doctor]. I gave 34 years of my life to wine and I found there aren’t sufficient surprises anymore. Wine can limit creativity. There are regulations, you have to keep to the house style, the LVMH legacy; the marketplace is a constraint because people want their Dom Perignon to be in a particular style, a little box. I lived in Napa Valley for 18 months [in the 1980s] and when I had sushi and sake I remember that the sake wasn’t great. Since then I have visited Japan 80 or 90 times; I started considering brewing sake around the year 2000. Sake allowed me to access the heart of Japan, as it is such a cult there. Once you start sharing it, there are no borders and it breaks all the formalities. As a creator, I’m thinking of creative design more than actual technical winemaking. For me the technical is only supporting an intention of beauty.

What do you hope to achieve with IWA 5?

I have a purpose to contribute. There are three main pillars to this project: authenticity, innovation, and contribution. Perhaps I won’t see the change, but my successors will – sake will be universal, something wine could never be.

Why could wine never be universal?

Wine comes from the Judeo-Christian tradition whereas rice is the universal representation of food. It’s pristine and unspoiled. It feeds the planet. It also has versatility. Sake will one day stand alongside the greatest wines. So far it's been a Japanese affair only, but if it wins the world over and is judged by wine criteria, true sake can reach that highest level.

Can sake age?

It’s too early to tell. There is a lot of debate to the point of controversy about the age worthiness of sake. I would have said no. For example, Dom Perignon Plénitude [the house’s very old releases] all have to do with the yeast and maturation in the bottle. There is no such thing with IWA or sake. But I have started questioning that, because something does seem to be happening in the bottle. Assemblage 1 was born in 2019, and I have seen that it goes in cycles. The first three years were steady, while in the fourth year the structure seemed looser, which got me worried. Then it went back and now I don’t see it suffering or slowing down. And that pattern applies to all of the subsequent assemblages.

In Japan sake has traditionally been a drink that is consumed in its youth. There is a wider tendency to appreciate foods and beverages that are offered for a limited time only. Do you think there is room in the market for the innovation of IWA 5, a sake that is meant to be aged?

There are fewer constraints with sake than wine. As long as you use rice, koji, and yeast you are in business. Nobody is going to tell you that you are not being true to the character of sake. Outside Japan there is a wrong perception that it is a conservative country. It’s traditionalist but tradition evolves. IWA is extreme in many ways, but so many of the outstanding sakes nowadays are not made in the way they were decades ago. The Japanese like to be surprised. There could be an interesting disparity between many sake makers evolving positively but slowly and the marketplace expecting more newness and radical moves. When we developed IWA I was reading every single post on Instagram and elsewhere, and people were saying, ‘Aah! At last. Something different. More nuanced and complex.’

Is there anything about the making of sake that you know now and wish you knew earlier?

To be honest and with all due humility, I have been stunned to be so much at ease with the blending. Starting off I was thinking that it was going to take years to figure it out but, I dare to say, it was so easy because the principles of blending are universal. With any beverage, it’s about the balance of fundamental tastes: sweet, sour, sapid, spice, umami. Okay, so sake is less sour, more bitter, a tad more alcoholic, but so what? I am still figuring out the time scale. When you discuss blending in Champagne, people are always fascinated by the cellar master being able to predict what the blend will be in X number of years. With IWA, I am not 100% sure if it will turn out to be as balanced and complex as young sakes in the months following the brewing and prior to the bottling. I don’t know if I can master that, but I would like to have a clearer idea of evolution over time. The time scale of sake is not the same as wine, that’s for sure.

Having first trained and practiced as a doctor, you’ve talked before about having three lives in medicine, wine, and sake. What, from each life, has helped shape your creative vision?

The three activities deal with the mystery of life. Wine and sake brewing are about microbiology. You are in an intimate organic connection with your work. When you look under the microscope at the construction of a human cell and a yeast cell, it’s pretty confounding. There are differences, but not as many as you would think. There may be a nucleus, zillions of cells, but in the end, it is a mystery.

What would your last drink ever be?

This is a hard one. I need to be so focused on what’s coming that I haven’t even been looking at Champagne. Still, I love it. It’s my DNA. Champagne, sake . . . you know what? Maybe it will be sparkling sake.

You haven’t made sparkling sake before. Is that a coming project?

Frankly, if I told you that I’d never been thinking of it you wouldn’t believe me. I like the idea of getting into sake through the more conventional way of playing the game by the rules and then you keep elaborating. Never say never because I know how to make something sparkle.

Andrew James is a professor in the School of Commerce at Meiji University in Tokyo. His book Bandol Wine and the Magic of Mourvèdre was published in 2023. In addition to teaching English and wine business classes at Meiji he has established a summer study wine program at Curtin University in Perth