NIIGATA -- When movie star Robert De Niro visited Hokusetsu Shuzo's cellar in the village of Akadomari on Sado Island in fall 1998, he reportedly held up a 10-year-old bottle of sake and said he wanted it shipped to his restaurant in the United States.

The brand of sake De Niro was holding is said to have been matured accompanied by the music of Japanese composer Kitaro.

De Niro visited the sake maker on the island off Niigata Prefecture as he and his Japanese business partner, Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, 52, prepared to open their restaurant Nobu in Tokyo, where Hokusetsu was to be put on the drink list.