Rice wine is the oldest type of wine in China, together with beer and wine, it is called the world's three ancient wines, and it belongs to the fermented wine category. About 3,000 years ago, in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, Chinese the original method of compound fermentation of sake koji and began to brew rice wine in large quantities, after which rice wine became the mainstream liquor of the feudal era. People also use grain to make koji medicine, and in Gaocheng District, Hebei Province, the archaeological team even excavated a physical liquor koji from about 3400 years ago.
Baijiu belongs to distilled liquor, and according to historical records and archaeological findings, Chinese liquor originated in the fifth year of the Yuan Dynasty. The Republic of China period was an important period for the transition from rice wine to liquor, and the mainstream domestic liquor had always been rice wine before. Li Bai's "will enter the wine, the cup will not stop" refers to yellow wine; Su Shi's "ask the wine to the sky" refers to yellow wine; Cao Cao's "How to relieve worries, only Du Kang" refers to yellow wine; and the "three bowls but not gang" in "Water Margin" also refers to yellow wine.
In short, the rice wine work almost runs through the entire ancient history of China, no matter how the current national wine name is disputed, at least in ancient times, yellow wine is a well-deserved national wine. Before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, China's mainstream wine has completed the transition from rice wine to liquor.
Rice wine is mainly divided into yuan red wine, rice wine, good wine, fragrant snow wine, flower carving wine and so on. If it is classified according to the level of sugar, the correspondence is: dry rice wine, semi-dry, semi-sweet, and sweet. Although the alcohol content of rice wine is not high, compared with liquor, beer, etc., its alcohol is strong, its taste is sweet, and consumer acceptance is low. Previously, the rice wine industry allowed the addition of caramel color, sweeteners and other additives, resulting in the development of rice wine is not optimistic. At present, the audience of rice wine is far inferior to that of liquor, beer, and even lags behind wine.
In the newly promulgated national standards, the definition of rice wine is a variety of rice wine made by saccharification and fermentation based on rice, millet, black rice, corn, wheat, etc., steamed, mixed with wheat koji, rice koji or liquor medicine. It is fully stipulated that rice wine can only be brewed with pure grains, and some rice wine with flavoring and food additives will no longer exist.
In 2020, the sales of rice wine in China were only 13.468 billion yuan, accounting for 1.5% of the sales of the entire wine industry. The distribution range of rice wine owners has shrunk a lot, with Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Shandong being the most distributed. There are also some rice wine distributions in Jiangxi, Anhui, Guangdong, Hubei, Hunan, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Liaoning and other regions.
At present, the pattern of domestic rice wine is that the south is strong and the north is weak, and the yellow wine in the south is far more than the northern rice wine in terms of popularity, output and sales scale. Among them, more than 90% of the production of rice wine comes from Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian, Shanghai, Guangdong and other places on the eastern coast.
Some people even call rice wine "South Wine", in fact, Yellow Wine is divided into Southern Yellow Wine and Northern Yellow Wine. Among them, the Southern Yellow Wine takes Shaoxing Yellow Wine as the Southern Sect, and the Northern Yellow Wine takes the Shandong Jimo Yellow Wine as the Northern Sect.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Shaoxing yellow wine sprung up and became the place with the highest concentration of yellow wine in the country, and there were large and small wine workshops along the shores of Jian Lake. This is due to the raw materials for winemaking, the taste of rice made from glutinous rice in the south is better than that made of millet (millet) in the north, so some places in the north simply gave up the production of rice wine and switched to the production of sorghum shochu.
In the five famous wine selections in the last century, there were only two national-level famous wines in yellow wine, namely Shaoxing Rice Wine and Longyan Sinking Tank Wine, which came from Zhejiang and Fujian respectively. There are more than a dozen national liquors in the rest of the rice wine category, but there are only two yellow wines in the north, namely Jimo Old Wine in Shandong and Dalian Yellow Wine in Liaoning. From the perspective of national famous wines, southern rice wine is an overwhelming advantage, of which the number of famous wines in Zhejiang, Fujian and Jiangsu exceeds half of the total.
Zhejiang Province:
Zhejiang Province is China's largest yellow wine production area, Zhejiang province accounts for 57.02% of China's rice wine production, Shaoxing as the main production area of China's rice wine, sales account for more than a quarter of the national rice wine industry. Zhejiang's rice wine industry not only has a large output, but also has many varieties and famous wines, and the export volume of wine also accounts for the first place in the country. Zhejiang Province has Shaoxing rice wine, Shousheng wine, Shaoxing Yuanhong (ancient Yue Longshan brand), Shaoxing shan brewing four national excellent wine, and there are more than 100 rice wine production enterprises, of which there are 13 above the scale.
There are three liquor listed enterprises in Huangjiu, two of which are from Zhejiang, namely Guyue Longshan and Huijishan, the leading enterprises of huangjiu. When it comes to zhejiang rice wine, we may also be able to think of Lu Xun's Kong Yiji, drinking yellow wine with fennel beans. It is true that many families in Zhejiang will brew their own rice wine. In 2011, I spent some time in Ningbo, and I found that when the locals bought breakfast, they sometimes bought a bowl of rice wine, and after eating the wine, they drank it, which showed that the rice wine had long been integrated into the life of Zhejiang people.
Fujian Province:
Fujian Province is the second largest production and sales place of rice wine in China, Fujian Province has Longyan sinking tank wine, Fujian old wine, Nanping Amaranth Liqing three national excellent wine, and Zhejiang Province is the same, and even in previous years, the total sales of yellow wine in Fujian Province once caught up with Zhejiang Province. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were basically yellow wineries in every county in Fujian Province, and the province's red yeast rice wine was on a par with Zhejiang yellow wine, which was mainly wheat yeast rice wine. At present, there are only about 10 rice wine enterprises above the scale of Fujian Province, accounting for more than one-tenth of the country.
In particular, Fujian's red yeast wine can basically achieve the best in the rice wine industry. The Fujian Provincial Economic and Trade Commission said that it will build four red yeast rice wine industrial bases in Fuzhou, Ningde, Longyan and Sanming, so that Fujian yellow wine can return to glory.
Jiangsu, Shanghai:
Most of the rice wine industry in Jiangsu Province is distributed in southern Jiangsu, almost connected with shanghai's rice wine industry, while northern Jiangsu is the important liquor town in Jiangsu. Jiangsu Province has Danyang Shen tank wine, Wuxi Huiquan wine, mellow wine three national excellent wine, but also there are Shazhou you yellow wine, Jintan sealed cylinder wine, Jiangyin Heidu wine and other excellent rice wine representatives. There are about 100 rice wine production enterprises in Jiangsu Province, ranking the forefront of the country, and southern Jiangsu is also an important consumption area for Jiangsu rice wine.
There are three major listed enterprises in yellow wine, of which Jinfeng Liquor is from Shanghai, and the Golden Maple Brand Special Rice Rice Wine at that time was still the country's high-quality wine. In the economically developed magic capital, the market capacity of liquor is actually not large, and rice wine is more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people than liquor. Among them, the rice wine series under Jinfeng Wine Industry, such as Shikumen, Golden Age, Hejiu, Nonghao, etc., can often be seen in supermarkets in Shanghai.
Shandong Province:
To say that in the northern region, the production and sales of rice wine in Shandong Province are definitely the first. Some Shandong people may not know that Shandong is still the largest yellow wine producing area in the north, but it is still the birthplace of northern yellow wine. Jimo Old Wine is the ancestor of Beipai Yellow Wine, and it is also a former national excellent wine, and it is one of the few brands that can be taken out of Beipai Yellow Wine.
Shandong's rice wine industry is mainly distributed in Jimo District of Qingdao City, with only about 20 rice wine production enterprises, and a small number of rice wine enterprises in other cities.
In addition to the above areas, the annual production of rice wine in Hubei Province, Guangdong Province and Jiangxi Province is also quite large, but most of them are sold locally. Rice wine even spread to Japan and influenced Japanese winemaking techniques.
In addition to the above-mentioned yellow wine, there are also Fangxian Yellow Wine, Jiujiang Sealing Tank Wine, Shaoxing Daughter Red, Anhui Gu Nanfeng, Wujiang Wugong Old Wine, Suzhou Tongli Red, Shanghai Old Wine, Hebi Yuhe Shuanghuang, Nantong Baipu Yellow Wine, Hunan Jiahe Poured Tank Wine, Henan Shuanghuang Wine, Henan Liuji Yellow Wine, Guangdong Hakka Niangjiu, Hubei Old Yellow Wine, Shaanxi Xiecun Yellow Wine, Shaanxi Huangguan Yellow Wine and a large number of good yellow wine products.
Why does liquor replace rice wine? Some people say that after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the state implemented the public ownership production model, so that the landlord gentry class, the most important consumer group of rice wine, disappeared, and the market for rice wine was further compressed. Some people say that it is because rice wine is too mild and no longer meets people's taste; but in fact, the most important point is that white wine is more grain-saving than rice wine.
Brewing wine requires a large amount of grain, and during the war and chaos of the Republic of China, and for a long time after the founding of the Country, the domestic grain was in a state of shortage. At this time, it is obviously impossible to take too much grain to make wine, which seriously limits the development of the winemaking industry. Domestic grain is not self-sufficient, so rice wine is the first to be limited, so the production of rice wine is greatly reduced.
Although liquor also needs grain, liquor is highly adjustable, and can be made into wine by blending, especially through the production of edible alcohol such as various potatoes and sucrose. In the case of food shortage, the state allows the existence of this mode of production, so rice wine slowly shrinks, while liquor grows against the trend. Especially in the northern region, rice wine has shrunk in a large area, and even many people have not seen rice wine since birth.