Despite my lifelong fascination with exotic food and drink, and despite many a happy hour spent in Japanese restaurants, for decades I have been almost indifferent to sake--until now. Now it's at the top of the agenda in my personal Adult Learning Center.

Why the change? For one, there is much better Japanese sake coming into the U.S. now than ever before. Secondly, American sake-samplers, warm cups in hand, had it all wrong in the '60s, '70s and '80s: Sake is served warm in Japan to heat you up in winter, to get you drunk faster, or to hide the harshness of a mediocre sake. A real sake connoisseur (known as a tsu) drinks sake cold--as do I, these days, in the Japanese restaurants and wine-oriented French restaurants that are finally bringing great sake and sake service to the public.

Though it's often called "rice wine" and has parallels to wine, sake's production process is more like brewing beer. The rice (about 60 different varieties are used to make sake) first is milled and polished to reach the "heart" of the starch. The more the rice is milled, the more refined and expensive the finished sake will be. You may get some indication of the polishing from the label. In ginsho-shu sake, for example, at least 40% of the outer rice has been ground away. At least 50% is milled away in daiginjo-shu sake.

After polishing, the rice is washed, steeped in water, drained and steamed. An enzyme is then added to convert the rice's starch to alcohol. Around 300 AD, the rice--I kid you not--was chewed by young virgins to introduce the enzymes for fermentation. (If a lot of them chewed it, you had extra-virgin sake. I am kidding you now.) By the 8th century, the Japanese had discovered a natural mold called koji that did the trick, and the virgins were out of a job.

The rice liquid ferments, then a lot of filtering, pressing, pasteurizing and aging takes place, and six months later (on average) the sake is ready for market. Water is added to most sake just before bottling, bringing the alcohol level down to about 16.5%--a little more than wine, a lot more than beer.

Today, the selection in the U.S. is vast and confusing. Get some advice at a sake bar, Japanese restaurant or forward-thinking French restaurant. If you're on your own, however, you'll get some help from transliterated Japanese words on sake labels. Here are some of the most important ones:

Genshu: A strong sake that has not been diluted with water, which means the alcohol content is closer to 20%. Try it on the rocks as a cocktail.

Taruzake: A sake that has been aged in wood. The color is darker, the taste is spicier. It finds a place at the table with boldly flavored foods.

Nigori: This is one of my favorites--sake that has been filtered only through coarse cloth, resulting in a cloudy drink. It is creamy in texture, mildly sweet in flavor. I love it with hot, slightly sweet Asian food.

Ginjo: A quality designation for high-level sakes made with better procedures and better ingredients. If the label says Dai-Ginjo, the quality will be even higher (and the price will be more than $100 a bottle). The quality upgrade is usually not in richness, but in complexity and smoothness.

So put away that sake warmer, buy a few sake cups and pitchers (or serve your sake in wine glasses, as many upscale Japanese tradition-rattlers do today), and experience one of the most interesting traditions in the world of potables. Remember this above all: The differences among sakes are not as pronounced as the differences among wines. Your concentration is important if you're to climb the ladder of connoisseurship--get into a Zen frame of mind and you're well on your way.

-David Rosengarten