Ren Jinsu

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Ren Jinsu, Female, Han, from Guizhou, is a sixth-batch national representative bearer of Moutai Liquor Brewing Craftsmanship (Ⅷ-57). The tradition is documented in Guizhou. Within the regional tradition and school record of Moutai Liquor Brewing Craftsmanship in Guizhou: The brewing of Moutai is concentrated in Maotai Town, Renhuai City, Guizhou Province. The distillery is located in Maotai Town, six kilometers northwest of Renhuai City, on the eastern bank of the Chishui River, below Hanpoling and on the slope of Ma'anshan, backed by mountains and facing water, at an elevation of 450 meters; its technique has been passed down from generation to generation by the brewing workshops of Maotai Town, and more than ten distilleries of varying scale still operate at the same site today. China Kweichow Moutai Distillery (Group) Co., Ltd. is the project's protecting unit. More than two thousand years ago, in the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty, the area around Maotai could already brew liquor; it was known in historical records as goujiang wine.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

The bearer record for Ren Jinsu is anchored in the documented technical standards of Moutai Liquor Brewing Craftsmanship in Guizhou. Within the documented technical tradition of Moutai Liquor Brewing Craftsmanship in Guizhou: The Guizhou Moutai Distillery is located in Maotai Town, six kilometers northwest of Renhuai City, on the eastern bank of the Chishui River, below Hanpoling and on the slope of Ma'anshan, backed by mountains and facing water, at an elevation of 450 meters. The distillery area is built on the upper reaches of the Chishui River; the water quality is good, hardness is low, trace element content is rich, and there is no pollution. The slightly acidic purplish-red soil of the canyon belt, and the special climate — warm in winter, hot in summer, little rain and little wind, high temperature and high humidity — together with a thousand-year-old brewing environment, fill the air with a rich and unique microbial community. Moutai is a daqu sauce-aroma-type baijiu; its production process divides into six stages: starter making, liquor making, storage, blending, inspection and packaging. The whole production cycle is one year: starter is trodden at the Dragon Boat Festival and grain is charged at the Double Ninth Festival; during brewing there are nine steamings, eight fermentations and seven liquor extractions; after storage by type and blending storage, it is packaged and shipped five years later. Moutai brewing is characterized by two grain charges, solid-state fermentation, high-temperature starter making, high-temperature stacking and high-temperature liquor extraction, which together give it its unique brewing style. Moutai is the representative and originator of China's daqu sauce-aroma type, with a long history. Among the cultural relics unearthed in the production area, a considerable proportion are drinking vessels of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, showing that liquor already existed at that time. By the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the technique of using daqu in saccharification, fermentation and distillation to extract liquor was becoming increasingly mature. Over the centuries, the Moutai brewing technique has been continuously refined through inheritance and development, and is still applied intact today. Experts in the baijiu industry call it "the most unique daqu sauce-aroma brewing technique, and a model of humanity's application of microorganisms to the field of brewing". Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The valley's microflora": The upper Chishui gives soft, low-mineral, uncontaminated water, and the warm, humid, windless gorge air breeds a distinctive microflora. "Qingdu qu, Chongyang sha": The cycle is fixed to the calendar — qu trodden at the Dragon Boat festival, sha charged at Chongyang — with one year to a batch and blending by layer. "Why the town is named Moutai": The town sits where the river narrows between facing ranges, its name recorded in old gazetteers and waystation stones of the salt and post roads.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2025, Ren Jinsu was announced in the sixth batch of national representative bearers for Moutai Liquor Brewing Craftsmanship, with Guizhou as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Moutai Liquor Brewing Craftsmanship in Guizhou: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2006 (batch 1), with Guizhou as its declared area, and Zhongguoguizhoumaotaijiu Factory (Group) Co., Ltd. as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Renjinsu (Guizhou) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Renjinsu · China ICH Official Archive