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Preface
In recent years, China's overall economic development has been slow due to the fact that the epidemic has not yet ended.
However, when many industries are in winter, Moutai's sales are still green light.
This has to make people sigh, when will selling wine be able to sell trillions of enterprises?
Speaking of which, today's Moutai should be the most well-known Chinese liquor for most Chinese people, so has anyone noticed the two small cups that were given when buying Moutai?
And what are they used for?
Some connoisseurs revealed that this small cup is not just for drinking!
The mystery of the small cup
Speaking of these two small cups, there is also a great mystery, what is the mystery? The first is anti-counterfeiting.
There is no way, as the so-called tree is a big move, Moutai sells so hot, naturally there will be some people who are eyeing the huge interests behind it, and then produce a copycat version of Moutai.
After all, to put it mildly, things like liquor, many people don't have the so-called good or bad when they drink it, and even most people who drink Moutai don't drink the wine itself, but a decent one.
Therefore, for the vast majority of drinking friends, two glasses of liquor together, they really can't tell who is real and who is fake.
In particular, many high-imitation fake Moutai liquors are almost the same as real wine in taste and quality, so they can be confused with the real one.
Therefore, in order to be able to do a good job of anti-counterfeiting, Moutai Distillery also took great pains, for example, the two wine glasses sent were specific.
With a height of five centimeters and a capacity of ten milliliters, the angular waist is a rare hexagon.
In addition, the wine glass is also printed with the logo of Moutai Group, which can be used by consumers to check and judge the authenticity online.
In addition to being used as anti-counterfeiting, these two cups are also a model of human sophistication.
Because Moutai Distillery also wants to advertise itself with these unique cups.
After the wine is drunk, the bottle is generally put in the warehouse, but the wine glass will be left to continue to be used, so that more people can see the Moutai mark, which is also a good means of publicity.
In addition to this, the most important point is that the small cup is for the purpose of gathering incense.
The so-called polyincense is poured into a small cup, which can bring together the sauce fragrance of Moutai and make people better taste the unique sauce fragrance of Moutai.
We all know that although northerners drink with a cup, it is not a small cup like Moutai, at least it has to be bigger.
If you drink it in a large cup, it is not as good as a small cup, and you can taste the flavor of Moutai's sauce.
Therefore, the two small cups sent by Moutai can be regarded as "comprehensive".
It's just that Moutai is really expensive, and in 2022, the most common Moutai with a capacity of 500 ml will have exceeded 3,000 yuan!
To put it bluntly, for the vast majority of Chinese migrant workers, their monthly salary may not be enough to buy such a bottle of wine!
So then again, is Moutai really worth the price?
The history of Moutai
If you really want to trace the history of Moutai, then Moutai can indeed be called an ancient Chinese liquor.
Moutai first appeared in Chinese history books, dating back to the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in the Western Han Dynasty.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, an emperor who was keen to expand his territory, not only fought the Xiongnu during his reign, but also paid great attention to the expansion of territory in the southern region.
One of the generals, Tang Meng, tasted the predecessor of Moutai liquor - wolf sauce wine when he was attacking the southwest.
In line with the principle that good things must be given to the boss, Tang Meng brought back some of this kind of wine and gave it to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in Chang'an.
After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty tasted it, he also thought it was good, so he asked the local people to regularly offer some to himself, so he left such a stroke in the "Historical Records": Tang Meng drank the sauce and made Yelang.
The debut of Moutai should be said to be relatively plausible, but it has ended here.
In his later years, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty dismissed the world's tribute in order to express his determination to recuperate, and Moutai continued to nest in the ravines and ravines of Guizhou.
Since then, Moutai has become a model of wine fragrance and fear of deep alleys, and it was not until the Tang and Song dynasties, with the rise of maritime trade, that it gradually became famous again.
After the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, the generals of the Yuan Dynasty who conquered the southwest also discovered Moutai wine, and also offered it to the emperor, and was designated as tribute wine by Kublai Khan.
By the time of the Ming and Qing dynasties, Moutai Town, where Moutai was located, had become a famous wine town in the southwest region, and at most, there were hundreds of Moutai distilleries in Moutai Town, where there were more than 20,000 people!
As for the types of Moutai, there are more than 30 kinds at the most!
Unfortunately, in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the whole of China was plunged into turmoil. Later, the warlord melee during the Republic of China and the Japanese invasion withered all industries in China, and Moutai Town was also in ruins due to many wars.
By 1950, when the People's Liberation Army liberated the southwest, Moutai Town, which was once full of brewing workshops, had only three workshops that could still make wine, and they were on the verge of closure.
It was not until 1951 that the local government took the lead and carried out a public-private partnership for the remaining distillery, which preserved the name of Moutai.
The reason why the government at that time attached so much importance to Moutai was because Moutai was one of the few products in China that could be exported to earn foreign exchange at that time.
As early as 1915, Moutai won the gold medal in the wine category at the World Exhibition and became a world famous liquor!
However, it should be noted that although Moutai is very famous in the world, for the Chinese at that time, how to say Moutai can only be regarded as average.
You must know that there are so many famous wines in China, and a Moutai can be ranked first, but it is far from being a big brand.
In fact, before the 21st century, the high-end liquor used in Chinese state banquets was all Zhuyeqing, Fenjiu and other cultures, and the historical heritage and taste were not inferior to Moutai's ancient wines.
However, in today's Chinese market, Moutai has become a dominant company, kicking aside those ancient liquors that once pressed him one by one, so what is going on?
Moutai's market road
As of July 2022, among the top 500 state-owned enterprises in China, Moutai's revenue is the first in the wine industry!
It's really unthinkable that a company that sells wine can create a market value of 2.38 trillion!
As for the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), which ranked second, and the Agricultural Bank of China, which ranked third, they together only accounted for about 75% of Moutai's market capitalization.
So much so that Ding Xiongjun, who was the chairman of Moutai Group at the time, said to the media: We can easily create 10 trillion wealth with one Moutai!
Good guys, when did Moutai become a hard currency that could be directly linked to the yuan?
So, how did Moutai get to this point?
Do you remember what I said earlier? Moutai is one of the few export-earning products in New China.
Although it is said that New China was economically blocked by Western countries at the beginning of its establishment, this does not mean that China really does not have business contacts with Western countries, but the scale is limited.
When the time came to 1978, China, which implemented reform and opening up, purposefully cultivated a large number of national brands with certain competitiveness in the international market in order to earn foreign exchange, including Moutai.
With the strong support of the central government, by 1985, Moutai had won praise in the European market, and even became the first batch of Chinese products to receive European preferential policies after the reform and opening up.
In 1990, the amount of foreign exchange earned by Moutai reached 600,000 US dollars, while the foreign exchange income of Guizhou Province in that year could only reach 2 million US dollars.
It is also by virtue of its popularity in foreign markets that Moutai's position in China has also ushered in growth.
Because many foreign leaders naively think that Moutai is the best wine in China, many foreign leaders want to taste more authentic Moutai when they visit China.
In fact, it can also be understood, just like Shaanxi's meat sandwich buns, in fact, the outside is not necessarily worse than Shaanxi's, but after arriving in Shaanxi, people always want to taste the local meat sandwich buns are more delicious, which is a kind of incomprehensible feelings.
It is precisely because of the opening of these foreign leaders that in 2001, the central government simply decided to designate Moutai as the national liquor, which was specially used to entertain these foreign friends.
It is also by relying on the check-in of these foreigners that Moutai, which can only be regarded as second- or third-rate in China, has jumped up and is highly sought after, once touted as one of the world's three famous wines!
But is that really the case?
Please think about it, in the world market at the beginning of the reform and opening up in the eighties and nineties of the 20th century, what was China famous for?
Good quality and low price!
You don't really think that Moutai, which sells well abroad, is really a high-end bar?
Although Moutai has made a name for itself in the West at the beginning of the 19th century, due to the influence of food culture and other factors, most Europeans do not like this high-concentration soy sauce liquor very much.
Moutai's main customers are Southeast Asian countries with similar Chinese cultures.
As for Europe and the United States, which have a completely different wine culture from China, I'm sorry, Moutai is not a kind of wine that can be put on the table.
For example, in 2018, Moutai sold only 60,000 bottles in France, a European wine country, and 150,000 bottles in the United States!
In particular, it should be noted that the capacity of the foreign packaging of Moutai is 750 ml, which is half more than that in China, and the price has been cut a lot!
For example, in 2023, someone broke the news that in a store in Bangkok, Thailand, a 750ml bottle of Feitian Moutai is priced at about 1,900 yuan!
In China, the price of 500ml Feitian Moutai starts at 2,600 yuan!
Well, this is really double standard, and the most annoying thing is the double standard yourself!
It is gratifying that with the economic downturn in recent years and the growing dislike of the so-called wine table culture among young people, coupled with the country's vigorous rectification, the mythical era of Moutai seems to be finally over.
I hope that in the near future, Moutai will be able to return to people's lives again as a wine.