NIIGATA -- Yoshikawa High School in Niigata Prefecture is the only high school left that teaches students how to brew sake. But the current class will be the last to learn this ancient art.

The school will stop enrolling students for the course in the academic year beginning April. This decision, taken by the prefectural board of education, reflects the steady decline in the popularity of sake.

Japanese tastes for alcohol have diversified, with more people now drinking wine, low-malt "happoshu" and "shochu" spirits made from barley and sweet potato.

This trend has led to a steady decline in sake consumption and cast a pall over the sake industry and efforts to develop local economies.

The number of students taking the sake course at Yoshikawa High School has fallen short of the required level for several years now.

"What a waste," lamented teacher and sake brewer Akio Matsumura, 59. "Cutting the class is like throwing away a treasure."

Yoshikawa is a leading rice-growing town. The sweet-sour smell of unrefined sake, which has been fermented but not yet strained, envelops the school as brewing enters the peak season in winter.

Since the school launched the course in 1957, about 1,300 students have graduated and landed jobs in major sake producers in Niigata as well as those that produce the famous Nada brand in Hyogo Prefecture.

But only 18 students took the course this year, well shy of the 40 required. When they complete the three-year course, the program will be pulled from the curriculum.

The course is generally regarded as having been pivotal to the development of Yoshikawa, which has produced many brewers.

"The curriculum has been the town's cherished asset, but since the prefectural government has decided to cancel the course, we cannot do anything about it," Mayor Tamotsu Kakubari said. "I'm worried about the future of sake-making."

Sake consumption has been in gradual decline since fiscal 1973, when it totaled about 1.76 million kiloliters. According to preliminary reports, some 999,000 kiloliters of sake were drunk in fiscal 2000.

The Japan Sake Brewers Association has conducted a high-profile public promotional blitz, but does not appear to have forged any solid reversal of the drift away from sake.

Association officials said that smaller sake producers will face a tough time when part of the Special Taxation Measures Law expires at the end of this fiscal year.

The law reduces the alcohol tax for small and midsize brewers with an output of 1,300 kiloliters or less. The government is expected to decide whether to revoke the law before the compilation of the 2002 budget at the end of the year.

Shinichi Kondo, 52, of Kondo Shuzo brewery in Gosen, Niigata Prefecture, said he plans to continue specializing in the brewing of sake.

For 10 years, he has organized an annual winter event that brings together consumers and sake retailers to draw mountain water for the purpose of making sake.

About 370 people from outside the prefecture, including residents of Tokyo and Osaka, attended this year's event.

"If they get a tangible experience of joining the manufacture of sake, they will come close to it," Kondo said.

He also accepts elementary and junior high school students for study tours.

"I should like to tell them that where there is good sake, there is a good environment and water," he said. "I hope they will sip sake when they grow up."