Introduction: The "Luzhou Old Cellar" you previously understood may be fake!
Luzhou was called Yangjiang in ancient times, and there is a saying: Yangjiang has a lot of good wine, which means that this place has been a place of good wine since ancient times, and it is China's wine city.
Luzhou's winemaking history can be traced back to the Qin Dynasty, there is a museum in Luzhou City, there are two Qin Dynasty wine glasses in the museum, and later unearthed a picture, this picture is called the witch prayer map, the sound can faintly see the wizard holding the cup, which proves that the quality of the Qin Dynasty Lu wine can already enter the level of worship and prayer.
In the Song Dynasty, the center of gravity of economic development began to move south, the development of Lujiu is better, the Song Dynasty even set up an exclusive horse farm in Luzhou, ethnic minorities can use good horses to directly exchange wine, at that time Lujiu can account for more than 10% of luzhou's total production capacity, which is directly related to why the Economy of the Song Dynasty is so prosperous, Luzhou winemakers have mastered, the core brewing method of shochu. Song history records, Luzhou at that time appeared a lot of small wine records, small wine is made of rice wine, such wine is not distilled, brewed can be directly drunk, there is a wine method is to steam the wine, like porridge sorghum in the fermentation, and then heated to extract alcohol, in storage for half a year, such a wine was called big wine, the process of large wine and the current winemaking process has been very similar.
In the Yuan Dynasty, because of the war, Lujiu gradually declined, and later after nearly half a century with the Ming Dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang to establish the Zhu Ming Dynasty, Lujiu began a new development, the biggest result of the development of this period is to preserve the Luzhou old cellar pond that has been preserved for more than 400 years, and later in the Qing Dynasty, Wen Yongsheng Winery showed its prominence. Zhang Zhidong's grandfather passed through Luzhou to buy wine, and after drinking it, he felt that this wine was too good, so he called xiao Bing to ask: Where did you buy this wine? The creep pointed to the deepest part of the alley and said, The last one! Zhang Zhidong listened and said: Good wine is not afraid of deep alleys, and it has been passed down to this day. The wine that Zhang Zhidong drank was the wine made by Wen Yongsheng.
Wen Yongsheng winery brewed wine, the local has been well-known, and later won the Panama Gold Award, wen family wine after the award, the local explosion of the pot, when the Wen family descendants Wen Xiaoquan also often take the big qu wine to entertain relatives and friends to celebrate, Luzhou old cellar prototype is Wen Yongsheng old wine, with the development of the times Luzhou old cellar awarded countless awards, the first national wine appraisal meeting Luzhou old cellar and Fenjiu Maotai wine, Xifeng wine was rated as China's four famous wines, which is the only one of the four strong aromatic types, the strong wine at that time called Luxiang type, the strong wine at that time was called Luxiang type, That is to say, Luzhou Old Cellar is the source of authentic fragrance.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the state began to help the famous wine to improve production, Luzhou was rapidly expanded, Luzhou Old Cellar Daqu also served as the responsibility of the state to entertain foreign guests with wine, 56 years of winery just joint operation, the state began to focus on supporting Luzhou, but also for the setting of special funds, laying gas pipelines, used to ensure the production of famous wine.
In 1986, Luzhou Old Cellar was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and there was a situation that non-Luzhou Old Cellar did not drink, why did this situation occur?
The secret lies in the wine cellar of Luzhou old cellar, the wine cellar is from the Ming Dynasty Wanli began to use, to now has been more than 400 years, Luzhou old cellar pool is isosceles trapezoidal trapezoidal structure, about 15 cubic meters, the mud used in the cellar pool is Wudu Creek selected mud, the color is golden, there is no little impurity, very fine and sticky, as the wine cellar years become longer, the cellar mud is also more and more fragrant, the first seven or eight months, the mud is gray, in the use of two years of mud magically turned white, from soft to hard, 30 years of cellar mud is black, There is also a slight reddish green, the mud will also become soft from the new, the wine brewed at this time begins to have a strong aroma, generally speaking, within 5 years of the cellar, can not brew good wine, more than 30 years of cellar pool is considered old cellar, can produce good wine Luzhou old cellar special qu cellar cellar age is more than 100 years old, all Luzhou old cellar special qu taste needless to say.
Why do old cellars with long vintages produce good wine? In fact, the experiment can explain everything, the analysis of the new cellar pool and the old cellar pool of the cellar mud, the analysis result is found that the total acid total ester wrapped microorganisms of the old cellar pool is much higher than the number of microorganisms in the new cellar, especially the rare "Bacillus" this bacterium in the old cellar pool content is a lot, the aroma composition of the aromatic liquor is mainly: ethyl acid ester plus the appropriate amount of ethyl butyrate composition, Bacillus is the factor that produces these aromatic substances, after the success of the rapid establishment of a laboratory to develop artificial old cellar, carefully extract the old cellar microorganisms added to the new cellar pool, The factory quickly had more than 1,000 old cellars, because through manual intervention, it only takes about three years to produce new cellars to produce wine at the age of 30 years.
The raw materials of Luzhou wine are locally produced glutinous sorghum, this sorghum starch content is very high, and all are amylopectin, wine aroma, high wine yield, wine koji is a small koji, but wheat should be ground into a state called rotten heart is not rotten skin, this is the standard of Lu wine, can not be too broken, too broken then the water evaporation is relatively slow, microbial reproduction excess, wine koji will be more sour, can not be too neat on the heat dissipation fast, wine koji dry, is not conducive to the reproduction of microorganisms, the standard is to grind the wheat husk into pieces, wheat core grinding into powder, Break the curve open and you can see that there are white mycelium on the section and smell the curved fragrance. The water used for Lujiu is the local Longquan well water, the water quality is very good and slightly sweet, and the weak acidity hardness is also suitable, which is the raw material of Lujiu.
Lu wine brewing process is very complex, but also very exquisite, we simply say a few key points the first step on the bad, is to put the steamed grain and wine koji together in the cellar pool, the brewing master also want to go down, first around, after the middle of the step, and then to the middle and then gently step on, so that the raw materials have gaps, but also conducive to fermentation, fermentation is good on the steamed wine, steamed wine grain to be layer by layer, each time to layer on a thin layer, repeated operation uneven sprinkling will directly affect the effect of steaming grain, Lu wine is used to continue the way of steaming, It is to steam the sake and the new grain together, steam the wine is left, and the remaining raw materials continue to be fermented with wine and grain, which is the formation process of the 10,000-year-old lees. After the wine is steamed out, it is stored in the SAR for at least one year, and it is sold in the ditch and shaped, and bottled and sold out of the factory.
Is the above the "story" of Luzhou Old Cellar the same as the Luzhou Old Cellar that you know and know? Tell us about your understanding of the old cellar in Luzhou! You can also follow me to make you know more about wine!