Speaking of "wine culture", China is one of the best in the world. The warm and passion of "red mud stove, green ant new roasted wine" is still unique and charming. According to the records of " Shennong Bencao Jing ", winemaking and drinking had already begun in the Central Plains as early as 5,000 years ago.
After thousands of years of development and changes, my country's winemaking technology has been constantly improving, and famous wines from all over the country have emerged like mushrooms after a rain.
With the emergence of sauce-flavored liquor, vintage has begun to become a helping factor in the price of famous liquors. The mellow aged liquor seems to have a different charm. However, the common aged wines are at most decades. If they take too long, the difficulty of preservation will be greatly improved and the taste will also add a little bitterness.
But in 1996, several farmers in the Northeast accidentally dug out "ancient liquor" that had been treasured for more than a hundred years, and its taste was excellent.
When were these "ancient liquors" buried? What is their fate afterwards?
Wine Culture
Switch factory to dig out treasures
In the 1990s, many state-owned enterprises were reorganizing and reorganizing, and only two or three lucky people who could successfully cross this threshold.
and Lingchuan Winery located in Jinzhou is one of them. The high-quality liquor it produces has always been well-known and the company's development is changing with each passing day.
By 1996, Lingchuan Winery entered a new stage. It needed to build a new factory to expand its scale and better adapt to market development. Starting from June, the relocation plan of Lingchuan Winery was officially launched, and the demolition of the old factory was also carried out step by step.
htmlOn June 9, the winery arranged several migrant workers to handle the work. These people arrived at the construction site early and waved their pickaxes to dig the foundation. Everyone thought it was an ordinary day, but the incident happened soon.Discher
When a worker was working on the west side of the factory, he encountered a problem. It seemed that something was underneath, which was very difficult to do. At first, he thought it was his illusion and didn't care.
However, when I dug one meter deep underground, pickaxe obviously encountered something strange and felt very hard.
So he expanded the excavation range and cleared the surrounding soil. Then the hard object revealed the true face of Mount Lu, which turned out to be a wooden board. Because he was worried about digging something that he shouldn't touch, the worker called everyone over and asked everyone to study it together.
After the workers got together, they looked left and right and didn't know what it was. They could only continue to expand the range and finally dug out a large wooden box that was 2.6 meters long, 1.3 meters wide and 1.6 meters high. Everyone felt relieved this time because this wooden box did not look like a burial object.
Wine
When lifting the wooden box out, everyone heard the sound of liquid flowing in it. Considering that it was found underground in the winery, many people speculate whether it was a wine buried by the ancients. After all, there are similar practices in many places.
So they brought the winery leader to ask him to identify the origin of the box.
Zhang Guangxin, the director of Lingchuan Winery, was nearby. After listening to the workers' description, he had a vague guess in his heart.
It turns out that Zhang Guangxin is not just the leader of the winery, he is also the heir to a local wine-making family and is very familiar with the ancient liquor culture. He initially judged that the large wooden box should be a utensil used by the ancients to preserve good wine, and its scientific name was Mujiuhai.
Mujiuhai
Thinking that it is possible to see a rare counterpart cultural relics, Zhang Guangxin was very excited. He immediately rushed to the scene and even trotted a few steps on the way.
After going to the scene, Zhang Guangxin trembled excitedly after just taking a look.
With a pilgrimage, he slowly walked to the wooden box, caressed carefully, and murmured: "It's really a sea of wooden wine, this is a treasure!"
After confirming that it was correct, Zhang Guangxin ordered someone to open the lid of the wooden box, and a mellow fragrance of wine came to his nose in an instant, making people unable to help but indulge in it.Then he asked someone to block the scene and waited for cultural relics experts to appreciate and evaluate.
Wine
Experts identify the identity of ancient wine
While waiting for the cultural relics expert, Zhang Guangxin, who was itchy, took the utensils and served a cup of wine shallowly. The moment the aged wine entered his throat, Zhang Guangxin, who had been studying white wine for a lifetime, felt extremely satisfied. The mellow and distant taste was really unforgettable.
The cultural relics experts in the city soon arrived at the scene. They first measured the "Wood Wine Sea" and found that it had a huge space and could accommodate about 1 ton of white wine.
Then, the experts conducted a careful exploration of the site. Soon they found some clues. After analysis and calculation, they found three wooden boxes of the same size, which were also filled with fine wine.
is near the wooden box, and the experts also found a piece of paper with some wear marks. After careful identification, the handwriting on it was "Guang Yisi, the Daqing National Day".
They agreed that this piece of paper should be the seal of the wooden box. After the seal is discovered, the year of the wine buried can be locked, and the difficulty of identifying in cultural relics has been greatly reduced. The so-called "Daoguang Yisi of the Qing Dynasty" was the 25th year of Daoguang, that is, 1845 AD. It has been 151 years since it was buried.
These four from the "Wood Wine Sea" 150 years ago preserve more than 4 tons of sauce-flavored wines. Because of the excellent sealing methods, the quality of these wines has not been affected at all, and the taste is even more mellow. Such large-scale and high-quality century-old raw wine is enough to be called a national treasure and is definitely the most important cultural relic discovery in Jinzhou that year.
After reading a large amount of information, the experts found the owner of this batch of fine wines.
It turns out that the area where Lingchuan Winery is located was once the famous Tongsheng Jin Brewing Floor in history.
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The latter was very famous in the early years of the Qing Dynasty and was an imperial workshop specially used for the royal winemaking. In other words, these 4 tons of cultural relics that will see the light of day again a hundred years later are most likely the imperial wine of that year.
During the Daoguang period, the owner of Tongshengjin Brewing Furniture was Gao Lin, a highly admired winemaker at that time. The royal wine he brewed had the characteristics of mellow and sweetness, and was always loved by the royal family.
And these buried "ancient liquors" should be his work.
Seeing this, many people will be curious about why they can be preserved for more than 150 years. What are the tricks?
Wine
Why can it be preserved for a hundred years
At this time, many media raised questions about this question, and experts gave very detailed answers. They believe that there are three reasons why this batch of "ancient liquor" can be preserved so well.
The most intuitive point is that "ancient liquor" has a very high degree. Anyone who knows the wine culture knows that the degree of liquor exceeds 53 is very suitable for long-term preservation.
Moreover, such highly liquor will produce some subtle chemical reactions during the storage process, in which the astringent and hard substances will gradually disappear, and the lipid substances will gradually increase.
, and the latter is the key to the fragrant and mellow taste of aged wine.
wine
Secondly, not all liquors are suitable for long-term preservation. There are two types of mainstream liquors on the market, namely the light fragrance type and the soy aroma type.
Among them, the fragrant white wine is suitable for brewing and drinking in the same year. If it lasts for more than 5 years, the taste will decline sharply.
sauce-flavored liquor is different, it is very suitable for long-term preservation. Because its brewing process is more complex and is carried out in a high-temperature environment, it not only kills many harmful bacteria, but also evaporates many low-boiling impurities. The remaining wine molecules have relatively high boiling points, and the overall structure is more stable, so they can naturally be preserved for a long time.
The batch of "ancient liquor" discovered by Lingchuan Winery is a sauce-flavored type, so it can sleep underground for more than a hundred years, and it will also have a strong aroma of wine after opening it.
Lingchuan Liquor
Of course, these are relatively basic content. The "ancient liquor" discovered by Lingchuan Winery has such high quality, which has a lot to do with its storage environment. It has been stored in the "Sea of Wooden Wine" until it was found, which is almost the pinnacle of ancient cellaring craftsmanship.
Although the excavated "wood wine sea" is simple and simple, the structure does not seem to be very complicated. However, its production process is quite cumbersome and has extremely high practical value.
According to historical records, the production of "Mujiu Sea" takes one year, and it takes a lot of manpower to participate.
It uses pine , which secretes oil during use and has strong corrosion resistance.
"Mujiuhai" needs to be sealed with more than 1,500 sheets of rice paper during the production process, and the pasting techniques of each layer are very particular. All rice paper will have a thickness of more than 5 cm when stacked, and the sealing effect is excellent.
mujiuhai
"mujiuhai" is also particularly exquisite, including egg white, beeswax and deer blood, which has extremely strong anti-permeability and corrosion resistance. These adhesives can be used together with rice paper to achieve the effect of one plus one greater than two.
The "Wood Wine Sea" produced by
has a seal that many modern means cannot achieve, so it can naturally properly preserve these "ancient white wines".
Finally, Zhang Guangxin believes that the storage location of "old liquor" is also very important, and it is located under the warehouse of the factory. In a factory area, the warehouse is the best ventilation place, and the "wooden wine sea" buried under it has always been in a relatively dry environment.
It can be seen from this that it is indeed not easy for these "old liquors" to cross a 150-year period.
Discherry
Where does the "Ancient Liquor" go
Seeing this, I believe many people must be curious about how to deal with these "old liquor" after they were dug out? Where did they go? It is reported that these "white wines" dug out by Lingchuan Winery were considered important cultural relics to be discovered that year. In 1998, it also successfully applied for the Guinness World Record. After the successful application of
, Lingchuan Winery specially took out 10 kilograms of raw wine and a "wooden wine sea" and gave it to Chinese History Museum , becoming a precious cultural relic.
The rest of the raw wine belongs to Lingchuan Winery. Later, due to the continuous invitation of wine lovers in society, the winery auctioned 86 kilograms of raw wine to the public in 1999, and finally sold it at a high price of 3.5 million. After the batch of
, the original wine of was quickly scrambled to the market, and then it received unanimous praise from countless enthusiasts.
Considering the strong voice of the masses, Lingchuan Winery once again sold 93 kilograms of raw wine for a high price of 5.58 million yuan in 2003.
Wine
, and the remaining original wine is treasured, and the winemaking process contained in it has been studied in depth, and breakthrough progress has been made in several years.
Then, Lingchuan Winery developed a brand new product based on these processes, and its name is - Daoguang 25 . The new product
quickly became famous nationwide, becoming one of the top famous wines in Jinzhou, and was listed as a national geographical indication product in China. Now it is recognized as a representative of the Manchu winemaking technology and has been loved by countless people.
For Lingchuan Winery, the relocation of the old factory in 1996 was definitely a turning point that changed the fate of the company. The "old liquor" dug out from the ground has become an inexhaustible and inexhaustible treasure, allowing the company to continue to flourish in the new century.
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Conclusion
The re-seeking light of "old liquor" not only gave birth to a brand new famous liquor brand, but also showed the world the powerful wisdom of our ancestors.
Its exquisite brewing technology and excellent cellaring technology can still provide guidance to the younger generation.
It can be seen from this that the five thousand-year-old civilization of China has long penetrated into all aspects of life, and any field can discover its brilliant history and culture.
Reference
"Traditional Liquor Brewing Technology" - Yu Qianwei
"China Geography of Wine" - Li Xun, Chu Qiao
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