Jiande Five Gapi
Medicine is it
Wine is also it
In the old Jiangnan region centered on Lin'an (Hangzhou), the liquor industry was developed and the drinking style was extremely popular. In the "Past Events of Wulin", Zhou Mi recorded the well-known fine wines in the country at that time, such as Liuxiang wine, silver light wine, Xueyao wine, jade training mallet, etc., a total of 54 kinds, most of which were produced in all parts of Jiangnan.
The emergence of distilled liquor in the Yuan Dynasty broke the pattern of traditional brewing liquor unifying the country. In order to distinguish it from liquor, the traditional brewing liquor in the Gangnam region is called "yellow wine". During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Jiande, located in the western part of Zhejiang and in the upper reaches of the Qiantang River, produced a medicinal liquor called "Wujiapi", which is known for its cold resistance, rheumatism, fatigue and fatigue, and is a collection of distilled wine and brewed wine, which can be described as the "outlier" in Jiangnan wine.
01
A good source of wine on the Xin'an River
▲Map of the Xin'an River Basin
As the saying goes, "water is the blood of wine", the quality of water plays an important role in the quality of wine, famous wine must take the best spring, Jiande is located in the west of Zhejiang Xin'an River. Speaking of Xin'anJiang, there may not be many people who know, but if you talk about Qiandao Lake, I am afraid it can be regarded as a household name. Qiandao Lake, also known as Xin'anJiang Reservoir, is formed by the storage of water from the Xin'an River.
Xin'an River originates from Liugujian Mountain, Xiuning County, Anhui Province, flows through the area to sandstone, limestone and shale structure, the sand content is very small, the lake water is clear and transparent, visibility can reach 9-14 meters, belongs to the national first-class water body Class I water quality, theoretically without any treatment can be directly drunk. The water contains strontium, metasilicic acid and other ingredients that are beneficial to the human body, and the solubility is high, which can absorb more of the active ingredients in the raw materials, and can also promote microbial fermentation, which is no better for brewing. Jiande, located on the banks of the Xin'an River, was known as early as the Song Dynasty for producing the famous wine "Xiao Shan Quan".
▲Aerial photography of Qiandao Lake
02
Origin of the Southern Song Dynasty "cocktail"
Nowadays, we have no way of knowing what the taste of Xiao Shan Spring is, but based on the characteristics of the water quality of the Xin'an River combined with the brewing process at that time, it is about sweet and mellow to taste. At that time, the literati were keen to cure wine by hand, mixing several different kinds of wine to obtain their favorite taste and realize the principle of self-cultivation and family governance.
The Southern Song Dynasty luo dajing recorded a bartending story related to Xiao Shanquan in the "Crane Forest Yulu". When Luo Dajing was studying in Taixue, his roommate liked to study the way of bartending, and once he asked Luo Dajing to drink after reconciling Qingyuantang and Xiao Shanquan, and he was highly praised by Luo Dajing: "If you are not rigid and not soft, you can observe morality; you can be lenient and not fierce, you can watch politics." At that time, the literati also named their own wine, the taste was sweet and soft called "health lord" or "golden plate dew", and the taste was called "QiWu Theory" or "Pepper Flower Rain", comparing the preparation and naming of today's cocktails, trance some meaning echoed by time and space.
▲Formulated sake: A liquor based on rice wine, with flowers, fruits, plants and trees or Chinese medicine with specific effects.
It is not only a famous wine production area, but also has a cultural background of blended wine, which is a prerequisite for the birth of Jiande Wujiapi wine, which has created the characteristics of Jiande Wujiapi wine that is different from other Wujiapi wines.
03
Jiande Wujiapi wine: different fireworks
▲ Old packaging of Jiande Wujiapi wine 30 years ago
Legend has it that in the last year of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang defeated Chen Youyu and Zhang Shicheng, and finally seized the world to establish the Ming Dynasty. At that time, Zhang Shicheng's old department had Chen, Qian, Lin, Li, Yuan, Sun, Ye, Xu, and He Jiu surnamed Chen, Qian, Lin, Ye, Xu, and He Jiu, who would rather go ashore and become vassals than go ashore to claim the title of vassal, and was degraded by Zhu Yuanzhang as a fisherman, strictly taking the boat as his home, and never allowing him to settle ashore, let alone to be an official, intermarry with people on the shore, and exile them forever between the rivers. The long-term life on the water has made the fishermen of the nine surnames suffer from wind paralysis, and in order to treat the disease, they have created Wujiapi wine with rheumatism and bone strengthening effect.
However, this is only a legend. The main medicinal material of Wujia Pi Wine is the root skin of Eleutherocococcus anneus, which has the effects of dispelling rheumatism, tonifying liver and kidneys, strengthening muscles and bones, and activating blood veins, and has long been recognized and used by Chinese medicine. In the Tang Dynasty's "Qianjin Fang" and "Qianjin Yifang", the preparation method and symptoms of Wujia liquor have been listed; the Ming Dynasty "Compendium of Materia Medica" has appeared Wujiapi wine; in the Qing Dynasty, Wujiapi wine is ranked as one of the 19 kinds of imperial medicinal liquors in the court, and its inheritance has traces to follow, not founded in Jiande fishermen.
▲ Thorn stick, the root skin can be put into medicine, called wujiapi.
Jiande river surrounded, the climate is warm and humid, the Xin'an River is full of fog in all seasons, such an environment and climate are very favorable for winemaking, and it is also very suitable for the growth of buckwheat and yellow gardenia, raw materials of Wujiapi wine, but it is easy to let the fishermen who have been living on the river for many years suffer from rheumatism, perhaps for this reason, there is a legend of fishermen inventing Wujiapi wine, but there is no doubt that it is precisely because of the demand group that Jiande Wujiapi wine can be passed on from generation to generation.
Today, Wujiapi wine is well-known in Guangzhou, Tianjin and Zhejiang. In addition to the difference in medicinal compatibility of the five-placed Wujiapi wine in the three places, the biggest difference lies in the choice of base wine. Guangzhou and Tianjin Wujiapi wine only uses a single base wine, that is, locally produced liquor or sorghum wine, while Jiande Wujiapi wine follows the Song people's bartending habits, and mixes high-quality liquor and honey wine brewed from glutinous rice as a base wine in proportion, which not only has the taste considerations, but also combines the role of liquor to loosen the wind and cold, and the yellow wine to nourish the stomach and spleen, so as to better play the medicinal effect.
▲The four medicinal liquors have different colors and are pleasing to the eye. Ginseng wine is yellowish amber, Wujiapi wine is slightly orange-red, calamus wine is lighter in color, and Western wines that are occasionally used for medicinal purposes are a strong burgundy red.
As a medicinal liquor, medicinal formula and medicinal juice extraction are one of the most critical and important links. Jiande Wujiapi wine is mainly based on Wujiapi, gardenia, jade bamboo, dang ginseng, sand kernel, cloves, red yeast, angelica and bergamot, plus other auxiliary medicines a total of 29 flavors of Chinese herbal medicines to form a prescription ratio, using the "four degrees of immersion" process method to leach the medicinal juice. This method is very exquisite, soaking the medicinal herbs not with water, but with a concentration of 50% of the local buckwheat brewing wine, after four soaking processes, and then obtained the medicinal juice filtered, stored, waiting for the next step.
▲Yan Dongguan Wujiapi wine brewing scene.
The production process of Jiande Wujiapi wine is very complicated, there are more than 100 processes, first of all, with sorghum, corn, glutinous rice and bitter buckwheat and other brewing three different wines as the base wine, and then with the prescription, soaking the juice, to the hooking link, the hooker must rely on years of experience, the liquor, honey wine, medicinal materials soaked juice, sugar liquid and high-quality water springs in accordance with the proportion of carefully mixed, and then after six months of storage, and finally formed the "color like durian flowers, fragrant like huilan; mellow and sweet, golden hanging cup" Jiande Wujiapi wine.
— Knowledge Links —
Medicinal liquor is China's earliest "national wine"
China has long had "wine is the length of a hundred medicines" saying, that wine is the essence of the valley tiller, itself has the role of nourishing the spirit, killing hundreds of evils, blood veins, dispersing moisture, etc., wine medicine potential, to wine decoction medicine or soak medicine, can play a faster and better medicinal effect, so as early as the pre-Qin period has appeared medicinal wine, and to the Ming and Qing dynasties, there is always a place for medicinal wine in various medical books, generations of physicians have passed on the torch, creating hundreds of different recipes of medicinal wine, including the ancients for the maintenance of their own body can think of all aspects, roughly divided into tonic, There are four major categories of blood tonic, qi and blood two supplements and nourishing yin and yang, and there are three kinds of internal use, external use and internal use and external use.
▲Pattern medicinal liquor
There is a word in the Oracle of the Shang Dynasty, "chàng", which resembles a high-footed container containing liquid, referring to a kind of wine made of black millet drizzled with tulip boiling juice, which is the earliest medicinal liquor in China. The "mane" was specially dressed by merchants in ceremonial vessels, mainly used for solemn and sacred occasions such as sacrifice, divination and séance. As a potion that can communicate with ghosts and gods, the status of the mane is far above that of sake, cheese, liquor, and mash, and the Japanese scholar Yamazaki, who has studied ancient Chinese winemaking, has bluntly called it "Chinese sacred wine".
Zhou people are different from merchants, merchants believe in ghosts and gods, Zhou people respect ancestors, Zhou Li as the beginning and source of the spirit of Chinese, the etiquette system revolves around the respect of Shangde, and the things of ghosts and gods are respected and far away, so corresponding to this, the function of worshiping gods is weakened, but at the same time there are more functions of symbolism and honor. The Zhou Dynasty's mane is also called "秬鬯", 秬 is the black mane, in ancient times was regarded as Jia Gu, the wine brewed in Jia Gu, is naturally a very precious wine, not ordinary people can touch, even if the princes and nobles can only taste one or two in the formal banquet and drinking occasions.
▲Oracle bone rubbings (Oracle Bone Collection, 1644)
In ancient China, there was a set of highest courtesies of emperors to meritorious princes and ministers, called the "Nine Tin Ceremonies", which was formed in the Western Zhou Dynasty. For courtiers with outstanding merit or high moral character, the emperor would reward nine kinds of ceremonial instruments according to different circumstances, collectively known as "nine tin", "tin" through "gift". Jiu Xi were Che Ma, Yi, Le County, Zhu Hu, Na Majesty, Tiger Ben, Axe Qi, Bow Arrow, and Straw Mane, of which The Horse was usually rewarded to filial piety to praise filial piety. However, later, the "Nine Tin Ceremony" was not so much a reward for the ministers as it was a weak Tianzi's envelopment and appeasement of the strong ministers. Historically, Wang Mang, Cao Cao, Sun Quan, Sima Zhao, and the founding emperors of song, Qi, Liang, Chen, and Sui and Tang dynasties all received nine tins, but... The next situation is also known to everyone, so "nine tin" later became synonymous with usurpation.
Regardless of the Shang Dynasty or the Zhou Dynasty, compared with other liquors, the status of the mane has always been superior but noble, and it is closely related to the etiquette system, so at the beginning of the founding of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the mane was designated as the national liquor, until the Tang Dynasty, the mane as the supreme national wine, is still the indispensable protagonist of national celebrations, sacrifices, rewards, banquets and other occasions.
— — END — —
Author 丨 Li Ruoxuan
Editor 丨 Ame
Image source丨China National Geographic, Jiande Cultural Tourism official website, etc
bibliography
"Crane Forest Yulu"
"The Past of Wulin"
"Complete Catalogue of Wine Culture" and so on