Good wine is not afraid of the deep alley, it is said that in the past, the family workshop style handmade winemaking, the aroma of the wine is rich and mellow, the fragrance is thousands of miles, even if the alley is deep, people will pursue the aroma of this wine to buy wine. But now it is difficult to find a pure artisanal winemaking workshop, it is difficult to smell such a wine...
With the change of technology, large-scale machine production has replaced manual production, and many traditional old crafts have gradually faded out of people's vision and become memories. "Old steamed wine", a craft that has been heard for a long time but has almost been lost, can be felt in the Anya office in Yuyang District.
Yanghuita Village is one of the few remaining villages in Anya that are still brewing "old steamed wine". The 46-year-old villager, He Changshe, is a major brewer in the village, with good skills and excellent craftsmanship. He Changshe said that in Anya, there is also the habit of steaming wine to welcome the New Year, and steaming wine is also an important part of the local New Year's culture. First, shochu is one of the essential New Year goods, many people do not care about the dishes on the New Year table, but there is nothing in this cup; second, steamed wine in addition to the intention of the old age, but also the reward for the hard work of the past year, during the festival, relatives and friends gather, and drink a few glasses of their own steamed shochu happily, which is the best way of family communication. The Hechang Society said that his winemaking skills were the true inheritance of his old father who had to steam wine all his life.
Speaking of the ancient way today
The mellow aroma of more than two hundred years of precipitation
In recent years, Anya old steamed wine is quietly and simply appearing in the lives of a considerable number of Yulin people with its unique posture, but without exception, it has captured the tip of the tongue and heart of drinkers. The longer it is, the more mellow it is.
The old distilled wine is the distilled liquor in the history books, and what we usually call shochu is the wine that is heated and distilled by adding fermented raw materials to the koshiki.
Historical records record that distilled spirits existed in the Tang Dynasty. In 640 AD, when Emperor Taizong of Tang dynasty, distilled liquor would be made in the southwest or northwest of China, and "Tang broke Through Gaochang and obtained its method". Bai Juyi, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, said: "Lychee newly cooked chicken crown color, shochu first open amber fragrance." Du Fu's poem has "Who gives Qu Zhen, carefully consider Lao Jiang Qian." " famous sentence. From the distillation process, during the Tang Kaiyuan period, there are records of "Zhen (steam) gas water" and "multiplication by gas" in the ChenZang ware "Materia Medica". Later generations speculated that the reason why distilled spirits were not fully popularized and pushed away was that people did not understand the principle, the instruments were not dense enough, and many wine gases in the distillation process were scattered into the air with water vapor, which was wasteful and the effect was not good. Another reason is the high degree of alcohol waste of food. Since the Yuan Dynasty, distilled spirits have formed two major schools of north and south after hundreds of years of development. In addition to distilled liquor made from grain raw materials in the north, there are also wines from the northwest and horse milk wines from Inner Mongolia. Commenting on distilled liquor in various places in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, he said: "There is shochu everywhere today, and sorghum is the most positive. "From the middle and late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, sorghum wine almost became a special name for distilled wine.
When the old steaming wine brewing technology was introduced to Anya has no way to verify, the local seventy or eighty-year-old people said, listen to the elders said that it was passed down in the early years of Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty, anyway, their grandfather's grandfather is brewing old steamed wine, 200 years of history must be more than that. It can be seen that the old steamed wine is not Anya's "unique craft", but it has a deep relationship with Anya.
Pure grain brewed aromatic and mellow
Raw drinks
Master He said that Anya's "old steamed wine" is white and crystalline, colorless and transparent, with rich aroma; the taste is mellow and soft, sweet and clear, the wine body is harmonious, and the aftertaste is long. Listening to his explanation, we learned about the complicated brewing process of Anya's "old steamed wine".
The first step is to ferment the koji. "Qu is the mother of wine, qu is the bone of wine, and qu is the soul of wine." Buckwheat and wheat are ground with a certain proportion of peas, millet and corn, add water to make a block or cake, artificially expanded into a block, placed in a closed kiln, the temperature gradually rises, the water gradually evaporates, and microorganisms begin to multiply. Master He said that the cultivated koji is rich in microorganisms and culture components, such as mold, bacteria, yeast, lactic acid bacteria, etc., which is the carrier for providing winemaking materials, and the quality of the koji directly affects the quality of steamed wine.
Master He said that after the koji is made, it can be made into sake. Sorghum, corn grinding and then appropriately add bran, grain bran poured into the steamer to stir evenly, steaming for more than an hour after shoveling out to cool down, with the wine koji in proportion to add water mixed well, and then pile them into a small hill shape, covered with a quilt, fermented in a warm state for more than an hour, you can put into the closed wine cellar fermentation, the process to grasp the temperature, and at any time to analyze the main ingredient moisture, acidity, wine quantity, starch residue changes, generally stubble wine needs to ferment for half a month, the second stubble wine fermentation does not exceed ten days. Master He said that the amount of wine koji is closely related to the thickness and taste of the wine, and the wine is too small, and the wine taste will be light, but if it is put too much, the wine taste will become bitter. Only in a moderate proportion, the steamed wine will be coordinated and just right.
Once the sake is fermented, it can be steamed. Rural conditions are poor, the equipment is poor, and the river must freeze in winter, and ice cubes are convenient for cooling before distilling and extracting wine. Master He told us that every process is exquisite, and there is no experience to make a real good wine. The newly steamed wine is not smooth to drink, there is a chaff taste, it should be closed in a jar or a jar, put it for two or three years and then drink, the taste will be aromatic and mellow, and the taste will be refreshing.
Traditional utensils are ancestral craftsmanship
Rare nationally
In a cave in the village dedicated to making old steamed wine, we saw the main tool for brewing Anya old steamed wine. A stone bucket six centimeters thick, more than one meter high, and more than eighty centimeters thick sat firmly on a corresponding iron steamer. The steamer is placed on the edge of the kang on the half side, and below it is a charcoal-burning stove, embedded in the ground more than a foot deep. The steaming stove is specially made, shaped like a bunker, because steaming wine requires continuous and fierce firepower, so the stove made of stone is very large, even if the bowl of large whole thick wood is put in, it can be fully burned.
While explaining, Master He showed us the process of steaming wine: the half wall of the stone barrel is supported with sand strips of koshiki, and there are many small holes in the bottom of the koshiki, like a modern steamer. At the top sits a brain pot (cooling pot) with a pointed bottom made of iron sheet, and the bottom of the pot is equipped with a sake twister, and the connecting pipe leads to the stone barrel wall to drain the steamed wine.
After the steamer is added with water, the steamer is installed on it, the cage surface is covered with wine sauce, when the water of the cauldron boils, the steaming water vapor passes through the sauce on the steamer, and a certain reaction quietly occurs, so that the alcohol is concentrated and separated from the pickle, and the steam containing alcohol is condensed through the ice cube water on the top of the cage, and the wine twister flows out of the pipe again, and the finished product that flows out is the old steamed wine.
Master He said that the wine must be basketed twice to distill out all the wine flavor, the initial distilled wine is called "cold drops", high degree, strong, suitable for cellaring, brewing medicinal wine, etc.; the middle steamed wine is called "mid-waist nest", the entrance is mellow, soft and luscious; the final distilled wine is called "water", the wine taste is getting lighter and lighter. In the meantime, the water in the cooling pot will heat up due to heat, and it is necessary to constantly scoop out and replace the ice cube water in order to better play a condensing role. In the process of steaming wine, the owner will often pick up a cup of freshly steamed old wine, please watch the lively neighbors taste it, and show off their steaming skills.
Master He curled up and climbed to a small partial kiln built on the side of the kiln leg, and showed us a flashlight to see him digging a three-foot, closed fermentation pond. Master He said that steaming wine is a highly technical craft. The quality of grain, the purity of grain, the control of temperature, the grasp of the length of fermentation time, and the production of koji, a problem in one link, light will affect the rate of wine, the taste, degree, quality of wine will also be affected to varying degrees; heavy is no wine can be produced, or wine is useless, waste of raw materials, delay in working hours. Master He steamed wine, using the ancient method and relying on feelings. The cooking time, the temperature of cooling, and the degree of fermentation are completely dependent on oral taste, nose smell, eye, ear listening, and hand touch. His unique job is to "look at the flowers and pinch the wine in six levels", according to the size of the hops and the speed of disappearance, you can judge the degree of the wine at a glance, and accurately take the wine in stages and grades. The first steamed wine has the highest degree of strength, the hops are larger, and as the hops slowly become smaller, the steamed wine degree also gradually decreases.
Master He said that Anya old steamed wine is a kind of fine wine that flows in the blood of Anya people, and has been stored in everyone's memory since childhood. Every time it is close to the New Year, the steaming master like him in the countryside will be very busy, and some villagers who do not have steaming utensils will take the fermented wine sauce to the steaming kiln and ask the master to process it on his behalf. After the shochu is steamed, the curtain of the Lunar New Year is also slowly opened under the careful preparation of people, the unique smell emitted when the grain is fermented, and the family sits around the table before and after the Spring Festival waiting for a pot of old steamed wine to be boiled... Added a lot of laughter and joy to the festival.
Master He said that the traditional "treasures" of his family and the skill of making wine based on ancestral craftsmanship are rare in the country. Chef He proudly says that he will always insist on using traditional craftsmanship to brew the best old distilled wine. In the flashy fast-paced industrial era, it is a luxury to stick to a traditional craft.
Establishment of cooperatives
Developing innovation in heritage and innovation in conservation
Anya Office is located at the junction of Yuyang, Jia County and Shenmu County, due to its remote location, economic development lags behind, and the people's living standards are relatively backward. In recent years, the office's population has been massively exodused, bringing the traditional art of distilling wine to the brink of being interrupted. To this day, only yanghui pagoda, Jiaoya kiln, Pang yaoze, safflower canal, Yuhewan 5 villages are still circulating.
China has thousands of years of wine culture, with a long history and a long history. It is scientifically proven that moderate drinking is beneficial to good health, can relax muscles and blood, and prolong life. Most of the liquor purchased in the market is alcohol blended, and the content of methanol and fusel oil is seriously exceeded, which seriously affects people's health after drinking. Therefore, people are eager to drink the original liquor brewed from pure grain. As a traditional handicraft with a history of hundreds of years and passed down from hand to hand, Anya old steamed wine is pure grain, no additives, no blending, and the price is reasonable and moderate, which is in line with the current people's consumption psychology and has a broad market environment.
At present, there are more than 10 wine workshops in the 5 villages of Anya, and the number of participating households is nearly 100. Among these farmers, the largest annual output of steamed wine is more than 1,000 catties, and the net income reaches more than 40,000 yuan, which has become the main economic source of winemaking farmers. Other farmers with smaller yields, in addition to their own use and gifts to relatives and friends, the remaining part is also sold, which also broadens the economic income field of farmers to a certain extent.
After years of word of mouth, Anya old steamed wine has been widely recognized within a certain range, and at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, from Yulin to the province and beyond, from brother townships to the surrounding squares, there is an endless stream of door-to-door visitors who come to buy steamed wine. He Zhijun, secretary of the Party Working Committee of the Anya Office, said: This year, through the guidance of the government, the "Anya Old Distillery Traditional Brewing Industry Cooperative" has been established in Yanghuita and Pangyaoze, two villages where the old distillery is relatively famous and has more peasant households. At the same time, the government is also actively applying for the registration of the trademark "Anya Old Distillery" and striving to introduce Anya Old Distillery to the market as soon as possible.
Source: Folklore of Northern Shaanxi