Archaeology Wuliangye - Wuliangye's historical wine "conjecture"

Wuliangye brewing technology has been passed down for more than a thousand years, and now the birth of "Wuliangye Recipe" is not created out of thin air, but inherits the winemaking experience of the previous dynasty. Heavy bi wine, Yao Zi xuequ, mixed grain wine... These fine wines that have entered the history of Wuliangye's development are distilled or brewed? Today, the five treasurers will talk to you about those wines in the history of wuliangye's development.

As early as the Tang Dynasty, Yibin had a fine wine called "Chongbi Wine", which was made from four grains. When the poet Du Fu passed through Yibin, he also gave a poem "Heavy Bi Nian Spring Wine, Light Red Lychee".

So, in the Tang Dynasty, the heavy bi wine that fascinated the literati and inkers, would it be distilled wine? From the perspective of technical possibilities, the Tang Dynasty undoubtedly already had distillation technology, but it is not yet possible to confirm whether this technology is widely used in winemaking. Judging from the wine body itself, the wine shows the appearance characteristics of "heavy blue" (dark green), which is close to the colorless and transparent appearance characteristics of distilled wine, so it is more likely that this wine is still a brewed wine (also known as "fermented wine").

In the Song Dynasty, Yibin's winemaking industry developed unprecedentedly, and the variety and scale of wine far exceeded that of Han and Tang, such as the "Lychee Green" of Wang Gongquan's family, the "Anle", "Spring Spring" and "Snow Qu" of Yao Junyu's family. Because of the love of the Song Dynasty scholar Huang Tingjian, the record of "Yao Zi Xuequ" is the most perfect, according to the description in Huang Tingjian's "Ode to an Lequan", it can be summarized that this wine has several major characteristics:

First, the degree of alcohol is quite high - it can cure "hand wind" and drink "dazzle";

The second is the "harmony of all tastes" - "clear but not thin, thick but not turbid, sweet but not smacked, spicy but not stinging";

The third is the purity of the wine body color - "cup color competition jade, white cloud valley".

Through these characteristics, it can be seen that Yao Zi Xuequ should already have some of the characteristics of distilled spirits.

The "miscellaneous grain wine" developed from Chongbi Wine and Yao Zi Xuequ was popular in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Its secret recipe was created by Chen Shi, and it is also the earliest Wuliangye "historical wine" with a clear formula record.

It is easy to judge whether the "grain wine" is distilled or brewed: according to Chen's secret recipe "cellar fermentation day pot steaming", it is already distilled at this time.

Learn more about the history of liquor, pay attention to Wuliangye today's headline account, and archaeologize Wuliangye with the five treasurers, and the fun little story first "taste" for fast.