August 31, 2026 — Four Breweries. Four Prefectures. Four Distinct Masters. De Maison Selections, known for its portfolio of artisanal wines from Spain and France, is expanding into Japanese sake with the addition of four independent breweries, each entering the U.S. market for the first time.
The inaugural portfolio spans four prefectures and four distinct brewing philosophies:
1. Tenryohai Brewery on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture, led by master brewer Kato Senichi, who is pioneering the “New Niigata” style of sake.
2. Michizakura Brewery in Higashikawa, Hokkaidō, where veteran brewer Yamada Koji relocated his family brewery that traces its roots to Gifu Prefecture in 1877.
3. Yoshimura Hideo Shoten in Wakayama Prefecture, founded in 1915 and led by Akiko Fujita, a former student of Noguchi Naohiko and one of the few female master brewers in Japan.
4. Ilaka Sake Atelier in Nagano Prefecture, known as the Japanese Alps. After a 30-year brewing career, Katsumi Tanaka has realized his boyhood ambition of opening his own brewery.
Founded by André Tamers in 1996, De Maison has spent 30 years building direct relationships with family-owned producers, importing wineries that own and control their vineyards and every stage of production. The company’s move into sake follows the same philosophy: working directly with makers rather than through intermediaries.
Rather than building a portfolio through brokers or sourcing agents, Tamers and his team traveled throughout Japan to meet brewers personally. “In the sake world, it’s common for importers to work through intermediaries who present a portfolio of producers,” he said. “We wanted to build direct relationships with the master brewers themselves. Those conversations created the kind of trust that has always been at the heart of what we do.”
The De Maison commitment to logistics and operations sets the groundwork to launch such an exciting category and country of origin. A longtime advocate and practitioner of cold chain logistics, De Maison and its distribution partners are uniquely situated to transport sake that is cool to the touch from the brewer to the retail shop or restaurant. The full De Maison team, from Sales through Compliance, earned WSET Sake Level II certification, providing a common technical foundation for education and trade support.
“I’ve been fascinated with Japan and its extraordinary commitment to quality,” said Tamers. “The more immersive my visits became over the years, the more I realized the values that define the country’s best sake breweries are similar to the values that have guided De Maison since the beginning.”
