Les larmes du Levant, the New French Sake Produced as it Should Be

After a trip to Japan during which he had many fruitful encounters, Grégoire Bœuf set himself the challenge of creating a company dedicated to sake. Hugely passionate about it, he decided to take intensive Japanese lessons and went to Japan to study for almost a year. During this time, he spent seven months assisting a brewer in Tuttori prefecture and four months working in a restaurant in Tokyo. When he returned in August 2016, his brewery ‘Les larmes du levant’ was beginning to take shape in his mind.

In 2017, he created his sakagura (a traditional brewery dedicated to sake) in Pélussin in the Loire department, a region which is particularly known for excellence in winegrowing and the remarkable purity of the waters of the Pilat Rhodanien. Les larmes du Levant wishes to link ancient Japanese knowhow with French gastronomy. To do so, Grégoire called on a toji (cellar master) and a kura bito (specialised brewing staff), both from Japan, to ensure that the sake production rituals were adhered to exactly as they should be.

With this project, Grégoire wishes to ‘create new customs of consumption’ and make sake ‘the wine of tomorrow’. Les larmes du Levant holds the status of the first brewery producing traditional Japanese sake in France. Four different kinds of sake are currently available: L’aube, La vague, Le tonnerre and Le vent.