Introduction: China is one of the "four ancient civilizations", with a long history and brilliant culture. Speaking of culture, we have to mention "wine culture".
The earliest appearance of wine is one of the oldest foods of mankind. And wine is not only a kind of food, with the passage of time, it gradually has a spiritual and cultural value.
"Wine is a gift, wine is a joy, wine can forget worries, wine can be bold..."
The ancient Chinese people played the role of wine to the fullest, and drinking was no longer simply hedonistic and drunk, but became a social culture.
Compared with the ancients, modern people's love for wine is even greater. According to statistics, the number of drinkers in China is on the rise every year, and by 2020, it has exceeded the 500 million mark.
To take an image example: Chinese can drink an average of 23 kilograms of wine per year, and the total capacity is equivalent to a West Lake.
No one could have imagined that such astonishing data began with an accident in ancient times.
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On Earth about 2.5 million years ago, a primate completed a key evolution: they evolved from walking on all fours to walking upright, gradually freeing their hands.
So "human beings" stepped onto the stage of history, and after entering the barbaric era of Ru Mao drinking blood, they gradually became the masters of the world.
Since the "man" has appeared, how does the wine appear? In ancient Chinese legends, there are three theories about the origin of wine: ape wine, Du Kang wine, and Yi Di wine.
1. Ape wine
In many traditional Chinese literature, "monkey wine" is mentioned, but its name is often replaced by "monkey wine" in China.
Ancient apes made a living by collecting wild fruits, and they hid the wild fruits that they could not eat that day in tree holes and stone depressions for use when hungry.
For some reason, the fruit is put on hold for a long time, and it gradually decays. Wild fruits themselves contain a certain amount of sugar, and after the natural fermentation of fungi attached to the peel, it becomes a liquid containing a low amount of alcohol, which is the origin of the world's most primitive wine.
Primitive people are naturally smarter than monkeys, and they also experience the process of fermentation after wild fruit storage to form wine.
Curiosity prompted them to taste this mushy semi-liquid food, but were surprised to find that this "spoiled water" was delicious.
As a result, the ancients began to make wine in ancient times.
2. Dukang winemaking
Du Kang was the 5th king of the Xia Dynasty, and he was able to make wine himself, which shows the importance people attached to wine in that era.
Jiang Tong mentioned the process of Du Kang's winemaking in the "Wine Curse": "There is no end to the meal, and the empty mulberry is entrusted... For this reason, it is not a strange party".
How to understand this sentence? To put it bluntly, it was Du Kang who poured the leftovers he ate in the dry mulberry tree hole and put it for a long time, and even smelled a strange aroma.
In the end, Du kang invented the real meaning of wine, and Du Kang became the originator of winemaking.
"The only way to relieve your worries is Du Kang."
Later, a Lefu poem by The WeiWu Emperor Cao Cao not only praised the wine, but also made later generations agree with the legend of Du Kang's winemaking.
3. Yi Di makes wine
Compared with Du Kang, the king, Yi Di's identity was only a minister or a full-time winemaker in the Xia Yu era.
The "Warring States Policy" records: In the past, the imperial daughter ordered Yi Di to be beautiful as wine and entered the Yu. Yu Qin and Ganzhi, Sui Shu Yi Di, absolutely the wine, said: "In the future there will be those who will destroy their country with wine.".
According to this passage recorded in the history books, it seems to have seen a story about "kings, wine and villains": Yao or Shun's daughter, who was also Xia Yu's concubine, ordered Yi Di to improve the winemaking process in order to please her husband, hoping to produce better tasting wine.
After Yi Di's efforts, he made a more delicious wine, so he offered it to Xia Yu to taste.
Although he thought the new wine was delicious, Xia Yu, the Prince of The Holy Ming, not only did not reward Yi Di, but alienated him.
Xia Yu left a famous saying through the ages: Later emperors cannot withstand the temptation of fine wine, and there must be kings who have perished because of greed.
As a result, the image of Xia Yu Mingjun became more glorious, and Yi Di became the representative of the flattering courtiers.
Regardless of whether the originator of winemaking is Du Kang or Yi Di, one thing can be proved: the Xia people are good at drinking, and the wine culture is also quite popular in the Xia Dynasty. There are drinking poems to testify to.
"Frost in September, polyester in October... Call him a man of great lengths, and his life will be boundless. ”
This is the description of the rural drinking customs in the pre-Qin era in the "Book of Poetry", which shows that the wine culture of the Xia and Shang dynasties has been very popular.
Later, the "wine culture" of the Shang Dynasty, the "wine festival culture" of the Zhou Dynasty... Until the Sui and Tang "wine chapter culture", wine culture reached the peak of ancient China, and the process of winemaking was gradually perfected.
So how did the ancients make wine? What is the difference between it and modern craftsmanship?
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Why was the wine drunk by the ancients called "water wine"? In the history books, it is often left with the reputation of "a thousand cups are not drunk"?
That's because the alcohol content of ancient liquor is much lower than that of modern liquor, and in a sense, it is more appropriate to call it a drink with a liquor flavor.
The root cause of this phenomenon is that ancient brewing techniques and processes are very different from modern times. So how did the ancients make wine?
In the Yin Shang era, the ancients had learned to make wine with koji. So what is a song? And how did you find it?
Emperor Wuding, the Yin merchant Gaozong, once said, "If you make wine, you will only be a tiller." ”
Qu is the mother of wine; tillers are new shoots near the roots; and lily is a sweet wine with a weak taste.
The Book of Wine records that whoever makes wine must be made into faith... If it is lost, it will also die.
What does this sentence mean?
In order for the ancients to brew fine wine, there must be a mother of wine. Without a mother of wine, even good grain could not be made.
In ancient times, the mother wine was used to make wine, and tillers were used to make liquor. In later generations, people disliked the faint taste of liquor, and gradually the process of using the "tiller method" to make wine was lost.
Although the ancients did not study biology, they were very good at collecting and summarizing the laws of nature and using them for their own use.
Through long-term observation and continuous experimentation, the ancients found that sprouted or moldy grains produce a liquid with a special aroma, and after drinking, the feeling of slight drunkenness is quite wonderful.
Thus, the ancients mashed the moldy grain into a "wine koji", and this mysterious substance of winemaking appeared.
With sake koji, the next step is the process of making sake. Although there are many kinds of wines, most of the craftsmanship is the same.
Taking the most common rice wine in ancient times as an example, there are roughly the following 8 processes:
1. Soak glutinous rice in water to promote the full hydrolysis of starch.
2, steamed soaked rice, so that it becomes gelatinized, more conducive to fermentation.
3. Quickly cool the steamed glutinous rice to a temperature suitable for microbial propagation.
4. Put raw materials such as rice, wheat koji, and liquor into the container and wait for the fermentation of the wine.
5. The heat and carbon dioxide generated by the fermentation process will inhibit the fermentation of yeast and require artificial stirring and cooling.
6. Separate the wine from the dregs by the method of pressing.
7. The use of "decoction" means of sterilization can make the bad components in the wine volatilize.
8, rice wine should be served in the altar while it is hot, slowly fermented, the more aged the better.
The "Qi Min Yao Shu" records 12 kinds of music making methods such as white mash, female song, yellow cloth song, yellow steamed song, etc., which shows that by the southern and northern dynasties, the ancients' music making skills were already very superb.
According to historical records, before the Song Dynasty, the wine drunk by the ancients was mainly fermented wine, and the degree was relatively low. During the Mongolian Yuan period, there was a distillation technology, and the degree of liquor gradually increased to about 40 degrees.
The technology of winemaking has been developed for nearly a thousand years, and today's process has added a "blending" process compared with the ancient times.
Seeing this, some readers will misunderstand. "Blending" is not simply alcohol mixed with water, but with different brewing rounds and different grades of liquor for blending, so that the taste of wine is more mellow.
So far, from the taste, liquor has been divided into sauce flavor type (Maotai), strong flavor type (Wuliangye) and so on. Because of regional differences, consumers also have their own love for "cabbage and turnips".
Times have changed, and now Chinese people drinking alcohol has become a unique culture of human feelings and dinner culture.
When a guest visits, how can no wine be happy; a good holiday, no wine is difficult to show comfort; step by step, no wine how to show pride; sleepy, no wine is difficult to solve the worry...
How much more do you know about wine? Welcome to leave a message to add.