Shaoxing Yellow Rice Wine Brewing Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
Brewing uses glutinous rice as the raw material; finished liquor is produced through the steps of rice screening, rice soaking, rice steaming, spreading to cool, charging the starter (adding wheat starter, sprinkling the rice, and adding Jianhu lake water), main fermentation, opening and stirring the mash, vat post-fermentation, pressing, clarifying, blending, pasteurizing the wine, and vat aging (three years or more). As of 2004, there were more than eighty distilleries in the Shaoxing area, with a total yellow wine output of 264,000 tons, accounting for 14.7 percent of China's total yellow wine production. The Shaoxing yellow wine brewing technique — originating in the Spring and Autumn period, completed in the Northern Song, and flourishing in the Ming and Qing — is a unique skill transmitted and developed by the forebears of the Yue region.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Shaoxing wine is an outstanding representative of Chinese yellow wine. Breweries located at Dongpu, Ruanshe, Hutang and other places west of Shaoxing city are called the "western group"; breweries east of the city at Doumen, Mashan, Sunduan, Gaobu, Taoyan and Dongguan are the "eastern group". Shaoxing wine generally makes its wine starter in the seventh lunar month, its wheat starter in the ninth lunar month, and its cooling-rice starter (rice wine mother) in the tenth lunar month. Formal brewing begins around the Heavy Snow solar term and ends at the Beginning of Spring of the following year, with a fermentation period of more than eighty days. The main varieties of Shaoxing wine are the four great types: Yuanhong red wine, Jiafan wine, Shanniang wine and Xiangxue wine. Shaoxing's brewing history is very long; written records can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The land here is fertile, the climate mild, the sunshine ample and the four seasons distinct, and there is the abundant, high-quality water of Jianhu Lake; brewing is truly favored by natural conditions. In recent years, because the Shaoxing yellow wine brewing cycle is long, the requirements for brewing water and other raw materials are high, and the technique is complex and requires experience, expanding reproduction has faced many difficulties.
The louzuo mixing step
At louzuo the wheat cake, the cooled rice and Jian Lake water are combined in a fixed proportion, with wooden, bamboo and ceramic tools.
Breaking the crust with the rake
Opening the crust with rakes during main fermentation is the decisive operation; the large and small rakes push the mash to the wall and release it again.
Sealed jar ageing
After main fermentation the wine is sealed in jars under straw covers for more than eighty days, until the beginning of spring.
Pressing, clarifying and boiling
A wooden press draws the last of the wine, which is then clarified, blended and boiled in clay pots to set its colour.
Jar ageing beyond three years
The boiled wine is jarred and aged beyond three years; the differences among the four main types largely come out of this period.
The seasonal order of cake, qu and liangfan
Wine medicine is made in the seventh lunar month, wheat cake in the ninth and liangfan in the tenth; brewing opens around the great snow and closes at the beginning of spring.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Because of differences in breweries' locations and operating techniques, Shaoxing wine divides into the two great schools of the "eastern group" and the "western group". The tools used in brewing Shaoxing wine are mostly wood, bamboo and ceramic products, with a small number of tin products; they mainly include earthenware vats, wine jars, straw vat covers, rice sieves, steaming buckets, bottom buckets, bamboo mats, wooden rakes, large huajiao paddles, small huajiao paddles, wooden hooks, wooden shovels, wandou ladles, funnels, wooden presses, jianhu kettles and taihu rinsing pots. Shaoxing yellow wine's production area is mainly distributed over the Jianhu lake system region, including Yuecheng District of Shaoxing City, Shaoxing County and Dongguan Town of Shangyu City.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Under the impact of the commercial tide, the traditional brewing technique of Shaoxing wine has fallen into an endangered situation; this has drawn the close attention of the local government, and protective measures are being introduced one after another. Wang Aniu (record from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in 1925, from Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Representative inheritor of the Shaoxing yellow wine brewing technique, a first-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project; advanced worker of the national light industry system. Wang Aniu was born into a brewing family in Shangbang Village, Dongpu, Shaoxing. In 1979 he was appointed a member of the Ministry of Light Industry's liquor evaluation committee, and in 1982 he was again appointed a national-level yellow wine evaluator. Wang Aniu accumulated a great quantity of first-hand material; in 1959 he compiled the "Shaoxing Wine Operating Procedures", and after retirement wrote the 300,000-character "Shaoxing Wine Brewing Production Technology", thereby transforming Shaoxing wine from a traditional technique passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation into a systematic operating procedure set down in writing. To ensure that the Shaoxing yellow wine brewing technique had successors, Wang Aniu taught the skill for many years on various yellow wine training courses, training technical personnel; his students are found in distilleries large and small throughout Shaoxing. He studied Shaoxing yellow wine's brewing fermentation techniques with diligence, practicing repeatedly, and attained a consummate, complete Shaoxing wine production technology, becoming an outstanding expert in the national yellow wine industry.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wang Aniu 01-0176
- Hu Zhiming
- Pan Xingxiang
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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