It can be said that only yellow rice wine originated in China and is the oldest wine in China.
For thousands of years, people have different opinions on the origin of yellow rice wine. Many old people will tell these stories to their children on midsummer night when they shake their cattail leaf fans to enjoy the cool.
Among them, there is a story called "Water Swimming Brewing".
When Dayu was in charge of water conservancy, there was a man named Shuiyou who was grazing with his brothers one day. Each of them brought a bowl of glutinous rice and barley rice, and the taste of barley was particularly strong. So at noon, the two brothers mixed two bowls of rice and ate them together. Unexpectedly, it rained heavily without eating a few mouthfuls, and then they put down their bowls and ran home. A few days later, they came to the old place to graze. Shuiyou found that the original rice had turned into porridge, which was fragrant. After tasting it, they feel a little dizzy, which is a very magical thing.
Although this is only a legend, it can be said that this is the earliest prototype of yellow rice wine in China. At that time, it should be called grain wine, which was naturally produced. Because it was discovered by water friends, it is called "wine". There is a written record of the word "wine" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the earliest writing in China, which shows how the early yellow rice wine appeared.
There is also a record of Yu Xia courtier Yidi.
There are two recognized Dionysians in China, one is her and the other is Du Kang. She can make very delicious wine and dedicate it to Dayu, which shows that there was already a wide range of brewing industry at that time. During this period, the brewing industry developed rapidly, but the wine at this time was mainly enjoyed by kings, and the "meat forest wine pool" was a portrayal of the aristocratic life at that time.
So about three thousand years ago, during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, China people began to brew a large number of yellow rice wine, using the original double fermentation method of distiller's yeast. In the Zhou Dynasty, officials began to brew yellow rice wine. At that time, there was a complete record of brewing and a bureaucratic system of full-time management of brewing. The official in charge of brewing is called Jiu Zheng. The best wine is used for the most serious sacrifices, and the brewing of yellow rice wine has a complete set of techniques.
"Book of Rites" said: In the winter of brewing, we should prepare high-quality brewing raw materials; It is necessary to make a good song at a suitable time; The soaking and cooking of raw materials should be clean; The brewed water should be fragrant and sweet, and it is best to use spring water; The fermentation containers and tools used should be of high quality, firm and durable; When cooking raw materials, you should master the heat; When saccharifying and fermenting, control the temperature. It can be seen that the technology was mature at that time.
After that, the heyday of rice wine development was from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Northern Song Dynasty. This was mainly because there was a long war at that time, many people were frustrated, and the literati did not ask about political affairs, so they used wine to drown their sorrows, which mistakenly made the wine industry prosperous. At this time, drinking is not only popular in the upper class, but also in the homes of ordinary people.
Like the famous poet Li Bai's Hundred Poems about Fighting for Wine, Du Fu's own poems are all true portrayal of the prevalence of yellow rice wine at that time.
During this period, the brewing technology of China yellow rice wine developed rapidly, and the famous Qimin Shushan and Beishan Jiujing were both produced at that time.
During the prosperous period of Han and Tang Dynasties and the trade period between Europe, Asia and Africa, Chinese and Western wine cultures infiltrated each other, and the invention of wine and China liquor also appeared and developed at this stage. At the same time, in the Song Dynasty, China people invented distillation, from then on, China liquor was produced.
Therefore, yellow rice wine is the national wine of China, and its history is much longer than that of white wine.
Then in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, until the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there was a distinction between southern wine and northern wine. In fact, rice wine is still the mainstream world, no matter whether it is southern wine or northern wine. The so-called northern wine does not only refer to white wine, but all kinds of yellow wine-based wines produced in the north. At that time, Shanxi and Shandong were both important producing areas of yellow rice wine; Jiu Nan is centered on yellow rice wine in southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.
By the middle of the Qing Dynasty, due to the continuous war and poor social economy, grain production began to decrease. The economic value of yellow rice wine is not as good as that of white wine. Because of the high grain cost and low alcohol content, the output began to decrease gradually, so the northern yellow rice wine was gradually replaced by white wine. The prosperity of Shaoxing yellow rice wine is due to technological innovation, so the sales volume has gradually increased and become the most mainstream yellow rice wine in China.
Moreover, even though northerners gradually began to drink white wine, white wine was still limited to ordinary people, and the upper class still drank local yellow wine, because in the eyes of many people, only people from improper families liked to drink that kind of soju drink with high alcohol content to seek excitement. There is a saying in the poems of Qing Dynasty that "the price of yellow rice wine increases when it is expensive, and the price of white wine decreases when it is cheap", which reflects the great difference in the cost of yellow rice wine and white wine at that time.
Moreover, many wine names are mentioned in many novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties, such as Jin Ping Mei. Jinhua wine, Shaoxing wine and Huiquan wine in> movies are most frequently mentioned. It is said that Song Wu drank three bowls of yellow rice wine. It can be seen that many yellow rice wines were produced locally at that time and were very famous.
In addition, there are a lot of literatures about wine brewing. For example,> wine can be divided into three categories: yellow wine, shochu and wine, and the practice of red koji is also written. The> book also describes the production method of monascus, with illustrations of monascus production. Enough to see the technical proficiency of yellow rice wine at that time.
Although there has been a great breakthrough in the production technology of yellow rice wine after the founding of New China, compared with liquor and wine, the development gap of yellow rice wine is still relatively large.
Its low price has led to some underestimation of the value of the whole industry. It can be said that the value and price of yellow rice wine products are far from symmetrical.
At present, in terms of output and sales volume, Zhejiang yellow rice wine represented by Gu Yue Longshan, Huijishan and Tapai, and Shanghai yellow rice wine represented by Shikumen and Hejiu have leading advantages in some industries, but when it comes to consumers' impressions of yellow rice wine, they may be mostly vague. Therefore, the promotion of rice wine culture is also relatively lacking.
The advantage of yellow rice wine is that it can be said to be the most grounded wine, which is very popular in life, especially in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. Therefore, we hope to really improve the popularity of China yellow rice wine culture and make more and more people like yellow rice wine, the national wine of China.