Recently, the 2023 Chinese annual short essay "Book of the World" edited by Lijiang Publishing House came out, and the work "Let's See the Flowers and Pick the Wine" by Xu Fanning, the author of our district, was selected and highlighted in the important position on the cover.
"Let's See the Flowers and Pick the Wine" was first published in the 5th issue of the "Feitian" literary monthly magazine in 2023, and the 7th issue of "Selected Essays" in 2023. Recently, this article was selected as the 2024 college entrance examination mock test paper in Henan Province.
Xu Fangning, vice chairman of the Liangzhou District Writers Association, currently works for Huangtai Liquor. His works have been published in newspapers and periodicals such as "Selected Essays", "Flying Sky", "Years", "Yangcheng Evening News", "Culture and Art Newspaper" and so on. The article "Let's See the Flowers and Pick the Wine" deeply excavates the traditional brewing skills of Liangzhou wine, the language is vivid and full of charm, and explains the exquisite skills of the brewing masters and the origin of the name of the flowers in a simple way, and at the same time, the work also shows in detail the profound heritage and long history of Liangzhou wine culture, which plays a positive role in promoting Liangzhou and its unique wine culture.
In recent years, the Liangzhou District Writers Association has deeply studied, publicized and implemented Xi Jinping's cultural thoughts, always adhered to the people-centered creative concept, carefully planned and organized various activities, encouraged and guided members to keep up with the pulse of the development of the times, go deep into the factory workshops and fields, fully excavate the profound historical and cultural heritage of Liangzhou, adhere to the poetic writing and expression close to life, pour sincere emotions into literary works, warm people's hearts with sincere brushstrokes, and create many products that meet the aesthetic needs of the masses. Literary and artistic masterpieces that can stimulate the spiritual strength of the masses.
And see the flowers and pick the wine
Picking wine, just these two words, in the mouth, will make people feel fragrant, and they can't help but even tremble in their hearts. Picking flowers, picking tea, picking vegetables - flowers can be picked, tea can be picked, vegetables can be picked, because they are things with form, they can be taken, they can be picked. And wine, this liquid that flows like water, this kind of elf that makes the blood of many men boil, can also be used to pick it?
The fermented grains are buried in the cellar for several months, fermented and matured out of the cellar, transported to the retort pot, evenly mixed with new grains, and then hand-loaded with a shovel. The quality of the retort is related to the yield of the fermented wine. Therefore, the work of retort decoration is very particular, not simply put the fermented rice into the retort pot, but to pay attention to many important orders, to be "light, loose, thin, even, flat". This five-character instruction is easy to remind people that when the mother made the quilt, she emphasized the "loose, soft, even, and flat" order. The process of making the quilt carefully by my mother is very similar to that of the winemakers who fill the fermented rice in front of the retort.
The brewing master is also holding a long shovel handle, a bow waist, a body, a force, a side shovel is thrown, the sake paste is as light as water, and evenly spread in the retort pot. Shovel after shovel, shovel cover and shovel, the fermented rice is fluffy and soft in the retort pot, and in half an hour, the retort pot more than one meter high is filled. During the retort loading process, if a lump of condensation is found in the fermented pasture, the brewer will stop waving the shovel in his hand and carefully crush or remove the lump with his hands. The whole process is not hurried or boring, it seems random, but in fact, the winemakers have always been calmly and methodically controlled. Those who stand on the sidelines will feel that this is winemaking, this is simply the cultivation of life - impatient, not disturbed, cold and summer, alternating seasons, you can't be in a hurry, just like the realm of a living person.
Put the fermented grain into the retort and seal the retort lid. At this time, the master who picks the wine has to make some preparations, such as connecting the barrel to the outlet of the cooling barrel, and then preparing to see the "sickle" of the flower picking wine. The "sickle" is the flower cup for wine tasting. Although the fermented rice has just been put on the retort pot and distilled slowly, it feels like it is just a conversation, and the original sake of Qingling is bubbling out of the mouth, far faster than a mother steaming a pot of steaming steamed buns in the stove.
The liquor that has just flowed out is the head of the wine, which is spicy, strong, and miscellaneous, and it is necessary to store it in a single barrel and separately, which is called pinching the head. The wine head is short, and the process is like a flash in the pan, the duration is only two or three minutes, and the number of catties is only four or five catties. After the wine is picked, it is time to pick the high-grade products, which is the highlight of the wine picking.
The wine picker half-squatted at the wine outlet, staring intently, holding a flower cup in his hand, and began to look at the flowers and pick the wine.
Flower refers to hops. Hops are divided into large clear flowers, two clear flowers, small clear flowers, etc. The hops of the high-grade grade are large clear flowers, the size of soybeans, which form quickly and break and disappear quickly. Forming and disappearing, all in an instant, to capture, not only need to concentrate, but also need to be quiet, in the calm and leisurely momentary control, not the slightest impetuous.
Big flowers, two flowers, small flowers...... Listening to the name of this hop will make you want to laugh. Does the big flower have the same size and intensity as the dahlias? Does it have layers of petals, and in the layers of overlap, it squeezes out the showy and noisy flowers as big as a bowl? Does the second clear flower only shrink a little smaller than the big clear flower in terms of shape? Is the small clear flower more miniature in form? If you want to think like this, you are wrong. Large, second, and small flowers, they are not any flower species that are used to blooming arbitrarily. To put it bluntly, they are not plant flowers at all, but a layer of bubbles that are formed when the wine is cut into the flower cup. The bubbles quickly gather in an instant, blooming like flowers, and then shattering and disillusionment.
So, how do the masters distinguish between large clear flowers, two clear flowers, and small clear flowers? This is mainly based on the "standing flower" time when the wine is soaked in the flower cup. Daqinghua hops are large, soybean-sized, translucent, the wine concentration is high, the alcohol degree is uniform, the faster the hops disappear and break, the wine in this period is in the mouth, strong and fragrant. Compared with the large clear flower, the hops are slightly smaller, and the liquor at this time, in the mouth, has a buffer compared to before, stable and mellow and comfortable. The hops of Xiaoqinghua are even smaller, like mung beans, small and dense, layered, gathered on the surface of the wine, refusing to disperse, and the taste of the wine is obviously much weaker. After the small flowers, after the flowers and picking the wine, it becomes the tail of the wine, and the taste of the tail is sweet, and it begins to have the texture of water. The tail of the wine should also be stored separately, which is called taking the tail. The flowing liquor can not only be picked, but also pinched and tailed, which is really mysterious.
The process of picking wine and pinching the head and taking the tail is really like a person's life, the young man pinching the head, the old man taking the tail, the youth and the old age are not clear, it is simply negligible, only the stage of youth and middle age, like the essence of life, high-spirited, mature and mellow, bursting out of the most dazzling and wonderful life.
After pinching the head and removing the tail, there is only the wine left. When steaming a pot again, it is directly sprinkled under the retort, and the only remaining slight wine strength of the wine tip is completely absorbed into the next pot of fermented grain, and the wine content is completely extracted.
The hops are obviously not flowers, but just a layer of wine bubbles formed on the surface of the wine, but they are called big clear flowers, two clear flowers, small clear flowers, and cloud flowers...... Just one wine picking is amazing enough to make people guess, and the name of this series of hops is even more eye-popping. Who gave this name, how can it be so bold, so dazzling, so shocking, just listen to it once, and forget it.
When did he give the name of Du Kang in Baishui County, Shaanxi Province in the Xia Dynasty? Or was it a literati and ink writer who was drunk with fine wine in Liangzhou in the Tang Dynasty? Or was it a young talent who could both soju and was fond of alcohol? He brewed a jar of good wine, full of self-satisfaction, a heavy drink, drunk, full of pride, full of poetry, and blurted out a beautiful and elegant name?
Don't exaggerate, such a chance is really not impossible. "The soul is haunted by the dream of looking for fine wine, and spurs the horse to Liangzhou". Liangzhou has been a place for brewing fine wine since ancient times, especially in the Tang Dynasty. Some people say that reciting Tang poems can't avoid Liangzhou words, and mentioning Liangzhou words can't avoid Liangzhou wine. The fine wine of Liangzhou has been flowing for a long time, drunk countless literati and nobles, and also made countless border soldiers drunk and lying on the battlefield, and has achieved one after another famous poets in the annals of history. According to historical records, the prosperity of Liangzhou wine in the Tang Dynasty was closely related to the government's liquor policy at that time. In the Tang Dynasty's liquor policy, there was a monopoly on liquor households, which allowed them to brew and sell liquor, and as long as they paid the liquor tax according to the amount stipulated by the imperial court, they could freely brew and sell liquor. Not only could the wine owners be relieved of the burden of miscellaneous duties, but sometimes the imperial court also provided some of the means of production to the wine owners to help them carry out normal production and sales. With such a preferential policy, who can not be tempted, especially to brew mellow and intoxicating wine. Perhaps it is precisely because of this that the land of Liangzhou in the Tang Dynasty was full of wine households, which made Liangzhou wine popular for thousands of years, and also made Liangzhou wine have a long history.
With such a long history and fragrant wine, there is a well-known "Liangzhou Ci" known to women and children, as well as the delicate and simple state of a drunk woman who is "drunk but leaning east and west, and her boots are weak in front of the lamp", and there is also Cen Shen "Seventy old men still sell wine, thousands of pots and thousands of urns at the door." The elm pods on the side of the road are still like money, can you pick up the wine seller", I couldn't help but suddenly open up. In this context, it is really not a fuss to think about the appearance of three or five elegant and surprising beautiful words and sentences such as "picking wine", "big clear flowers", "small clear flowers", "cloud flowers", "water splashes", etc.
The process of watching the flowers and picking wine is actually very short, from beginning to end, but only about ten minutes. It takes several months for the fermented fermented fermentation to take only a quarter of an hour. Therefore, it is very important to watch the flowers and pick the wine, and if you are a little distracted, different stages and different grades of wine will flow in an instant. "Aroma depends on fermentation, Titian depends on distillation, and good wine depends on wine pickers. "That's the reason. Each winemaking team is often accompanied by one or two experienced wine pickers. The wine picker picks the wine, not only by looking at the flowers, but also by hand twisting, and smelling the fragrance. The experienced winemakers in the team workshop cannot be obtained without ten or eight years of personal practice.
The quality of the distilled liquor varies greatly from cellar to cellar, and even in the same cellar and at different times, the distilled liquor will be different. The slight differences in this cannot escape the review of experienced winemakers in the process of watching the flowers and picking wine.
Freshly picked wine cannot be bottled and put on the market in a hurry. This is because the new wine is strong and often has a bad taste. "Wine is the fragrance of aging". The masters would bring the new wine produced every day to the wine storage warehouse, or put it into countless pot-bellied pottery jar containers like arhats, or into a sea of wine, or into wooden cabinets like trains. The storage cycle varies, some as long as several decades, some as long as more than ten years, and some as three or five years.
The process of storing new wine is also the process of eliminating the evil flavor in the wine, which is effectively volatilized in the process of aging, and the remaining wine gradually becomes more and more mellow and comfortable with a long aftertaste.
The new wine is stored into old wine, the old wine is out of the jar, and then the new wine is filled in, and so on, and the cycle repeats. The new wine has been stored for a considerable period of time, and it is old and slightly yellowish before it can be blended. It is blended into a harmonious and plump jade liquid with good "color, fragrance and taste". Then, put it into all kinds of wine bottles that are luxurious or festive, simple or elegant, the mellow aroma of the wine, in this way, flows to thousands of households.
Source: Liangzhou Literature and Art