Why Is Sake Growing in Italy? Maybe Because We Are Finally Learning How to Tell Its Story

While sake consumption continues to decline in Japan, curiosity is growing in Italy. This is more than a trend: the way we understand, drink and pair sake with food is changing.

Something apparently contradictory is happening to sake.

People in Japan are drinking much less of it than they once did.

Outside Japan, however, sake continues to find new markets.

And Italy is one of the countries where curiosity is clearly growing.

The figures illustrate this contrast very well. Sake consumption in Japan peaked in 1975 at around 1.675 million kilolitres. By 2022 it had fallen to approximately 403,000 kilolitres, less than one quarter of its historical peak. Agenzia delle Entrate

Exports are moving in the opposite direction. In 2025 Japan exported approximately 33,500 kilolitres of sake worth nearly 45.9 billion yen, with both volume and value increasing year on year. Sake was exported to a record 81 countries. Japan Sake PR

Italy is part of that story too: in 2025, approximately 427,000 litres of sake were exported from Japan to Italy, worth around 394 million yen. Japan Sake Association

But figures alone cannot explain why.

Italy has started looking at Japan differently

When I first became seriously interested in sake, the Italian landscape felt rather fragmented.

Rome already had a small but lively sake scene, including specialised shops and venues.

In Milan, meanwhile, new izakaya and restaurants were beginning to appear where you could finally find good-quality sake.

Outside those circles, however, knowledge remained very limited.

Something has changed over the past few years.

There is probably no single explanation.

Expo Milano 2015 helped focus attention on Japan. Anime and manga subsequently became increasingly visible within Italian popular culture, particularly after 2020, and interest in Japanese culture grew with them.

Then there is travel.

In 2025 more than 309,000 Italians visited Japan, passing the 300,000 mark for the first time and increasing by more than 34% year on year. JETRO itself links the increasing popularity of travel to Japan with greater familiarity with Japanese food and drink. ジェトロ

When you come home from a journey with a flavour still in your mind, you often want to find it again.

Sake is no longer confined to Japanese restaurants

One of the most interesting developments is that sake is slowly beginning to move beyond its traditional context.

JETRO reports that in Italy sake is increasingly found not only in Japanese restaurants but also in high-end hotels, Michelin-starred Italian restaurants and cocktail bars. Importers are also expanding their ranges to include styles such as nigori and nama sake that were previously far less common. ジェトロ

We see the same change directly at La Bidule.

More and more people approach sake with curiosity.

And the first questions are almost always the same:

“Is sake a spirit?”

“How strong is it?”

“Do you only drink it hot?”

These questions matter because they reveal how large the gap still is between what sake actually is and what many people imagine it to be.

The first sip can feel like a cultural shock

When someone who is mainly accustomed to wine tastes sake for the first time, the reaction I hear most often is very simple:

“It feels strange.”

Not necessarily in a negative sense.

It feels strange because the Italian palate has very familiar reference points.

We know wine acidity, tannin, varietal aromas and sparkling wines.

Sake speaks a different language.

Something interesting often happens: on the first sip, people instinctively try to interpret sake using the rules they know from wine.

Then they keep drinking.

They stop comparing.

And they start understanding it for what it is.

That is often the moment when appreciation begins.

Telling the story properly begins by removing misconceptions

I believe an important part of sake's growth in Italy comes from one simple change:

we are finally telling its story better.

For me, telling sake's story properly means at least three things.

The first is challenging misconceptions.

Sake is not a distilled spirit. It does not have to be served hot. And it does not exist only to accompany sushi and sashimi.

The second is not reducing it to an after-dinner drink.

Sake is a gastronomic beverage that can accompany an entire meal.

The third is helping people understand that behind the apparently simple word “sake” lies an enormous world: different styles, rice varieties, polishing ratios, yeasts, production techniques, serving temperatures and regional traditions.

The more you learn about it, the less simple it becomes.

And that is exactly what makes it fascinating.

The decisive step will be moving beyond sushi

If sake is truly going to become part of Italian food culture, I believe this is fundamental.

We need to stop thinking of sake exclusively as a drink for Japanese food.

Not because pairing it with Japanese cuisine is wrong, of course, but because that represents only a small part of what sake can do.

We had a perfect example recently at La Bidule during a cheese pairing tasting.

We served a Dewanoyuki Junmai Kimoto by Watarai Honten alongside several cheeses.

With a goat's cheese log and Strachitunt, something happened that for me defines a great pairing.

It was not simply:

“The sake goes well with the cheese.”

The sake changed the cheese, and the cheese changed the sake.

Together, they became something different from what either tasted like on its own.

That is when pairing becomes truly interesting.

“Sake reaches places wine sometimes cannot”

It is something we often say at La Bidule.

It does not mean sake is better than wine — an absurd idea in a country like Italy.

It means the two beverages have different tools.

There are foods where wine acidity, tannin or structure can make pairing complicated, while certain types of sake can approach the same dish through a different balance.

We have already explored that subject in another article, so I do not want to repeat the technical details here.

The important idea is different:

wine and sake do not have to compete.

They can complement each other.

From cheap hot sake after dinner to deliberately choosing a bottle

For many Italians, their first encounter with sake was probably a tiny cup served extremely hot at the end of a meal in an all-you-can-eat Asian restaurant.

It is difficult to imagine a worse introduction to the complexity of sake.

Today, however, we are seeing a different kind of curiosity.

At La Bidule, more and more people want to understand why two sake taste different, what distinguishes one style from another and why one bottle costs more than another.

Most importantly, they are prepared to spend a little more to taste good or excellent sake.

The Italian market appears to be becoming more interested not only in sake itself, but in sake quality.

That is why we serve sake by the glass

There is still one important barrier.

Asking someone who knows nothing about sake to buy an entire bottle immediately is difficult.

That is why at La Bidule we try to keep at least two different sake available by the glass, ideally two styles that are noticeably different from each other.

A glass allows someone to experiment without committing to a whole bottle.

It lets us explain.

It allows two styles to be compared side by side.

And perhaps, once the customer understands them, it leads to choosing a bottle to take home.

The next step — the one I personally hope to see — is different.

I want to see more people sit down at a table, order a bottle of sake for aperitivo or dinner and consider it completely normal.

Even when there is no sushi involved.

The curiosity already exists

We can already see this through our first sake-focused tasting events.

Before even holding our first dedicated evening, the level of interest surprised us.

The first date filled up, we opened a second session on 3 November, and we already have people interested if we open another bottle.

They are not exclusively Japan enthusiasts.

Some come from the world of wine, some have already tasted sake with us and others simply want to understand what sake actually is.

The level of curiosity is, frankly, much higher than I expected.

Milan may be the clearest sign

There is another phenomenon that makes this growth much more than anecdotal.

The Milano Sake Experience attracted more than 1,500 people in 2025. In 2026, attendance reached approximately 2,900 visitors. Sake Sommelier Association

Almost double in one year.

What I find even more significant is that the 2026 edition included pairings with Italian products such as cheese and prosciutto crudo. Consolato Giapponese Milano

That is exactly the kind of cultural exchange that I believe can make sake genuinely interesting in Italy.

Japan needs to reinvent it. Italy may simply need to discover it

The situation in Japan is different.

The long-term decline in domestic consumption has encouraged the industry to explore new ways to appeal to younger generations: sake highballs, mixology and more informal drinking styles. Gambero Rosso

I think that makes perfect sense.

In Japan, sake is tradition.

And traditions are often taken for granted — or even rejected — by younger generations in favour of something newer or more exotic.

It is not so different from what is happening with wine consumption in countries such as Italy and France.

In Italy, however, I do not believe we need to reinvent sake yet.

We are still at the stage where we simply need to discover it.

The future I would like to see

I do not think sake will ever replace wine in Italy.

Nor do I think it should.

Wine is deeply embedded in our gastronomic culture.

What I would like to see is sake become a natural complementary choice, alongside wine and beer.

I would like to walk into an Italian restaurant and see someone order a bottle of sake with lunch.

I would like to see a couple share a bottle during aperitivo.

And I would like nobody at the next table to think:

“How strange — they're drinking sake without eating sushi.”

When that happens, perhaps we will be able to say that sake has truly found its place in Italian drinking culture.

Without replacing it.

Without changing what Italy is.

Simply by adding another possibility.

And I believe the first step towards that future is precisely what is happening now:

telling the story of sake properly.

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