Wine knowledge is the doorway.
Sake is the focus.
The table is the destination.
Wine knowledge is the doorway.
Sake is the focus.
The table is the destination.
I'm Kazumi Uejo — DipWSET, WSET Certified Sake Educator — the person behind Grape and Rice.
Sake was always there. I grew up with it in Japan, so close that I never really looked at it — I just enjoyed it. It was wine that taught me how to taste: acidity, texture, balance, the way a glass changes a plate. When I turned that same attention back to sake, the drink I thought I knew opened into a whole world — familiar, and completely new.
Coming home to sake through wine
Coming home to sake through wine
Sushi and sake is easy to picture — everyone knows they belong together. But that is usually where it stops. Even on a Western menu, sake tends to appear just once, and then it is set aside. Sake shouldn't stop at the carpaccio course.
Read the way WSET taught me — by cause and effect, by what a drink actually does to a dish — sake turns out to pair far more widely: umami-rich dishes, cheese, herbs, spice, roast meat, even dessert. I worked this out through theory and then experiment. When I began running workshops, the same thing kept happening — a quiet delight when a sake landed beside a dish no one saw coming.
That is what I want to bring to many more tables. What I bring is different: direct access to the source. Because I speak the language, I learn directly from the brewers or restaurants in Japan — their philosophy, their history, the nuances lost in translation. I take those untold stories and read them through the rigorous logic that studying wine gave me.
With that, my aim is simple: to take the food you already love and open up what it can become, with sake beside it.
Credentials
- WSET Certified Sake Educator
- WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines (DipWSET)
- WSET Level 3 Award in Sake
- JSA Sake Diploma — Japanese & International
- French Wine Scholar (FWS)
Still, the credentials aren't the point. The point is what happens at the table — the discovery, the conversation, the question you didn't expect to ask.
What I offer
At the table
Taste, experiment, discover. Everyone is welcome — curious beginners, wine lovers, and professionals alike.
- Pairing Lab: Beyond Japanese food · a little sake grounding, then the fundamentals of pairing · at Amsterdam Wine Academy
- The Table Between Wine and Sake · wine and sake poured side by side, a tasting dinner where the pairings do the talking
In the classroom
Structured learning, at your own pace.
- Sake, the basics — WSET Level 1 · for beginners · at Amsterdam Wine Academy
Enroll here for WSET Level 1 - Sake, intermediate — WSET Level 2 · the essentials for sake lovers and hospitality professionals · at Amsterdam Wine Academy
Enroll here for WSET Level 2
Made to order
Tailored to your team, your guests, your occasion.
- Private & Corporate Tastings · team building, receptions after board meetings, and more · sake tasting with stories from the breweries, plus market and industry insight, made to order
Start here
Wherever you're starting from, two easy first steps:
- Free Sake Cheat Sheet → Download here
- For Venues — Sake List Check → [link: venues page]
