Huaxia Liquor Daily reporter Liu Zhendong
Old wine is not limited to a certain type of liquor, and it is not a patent for sauce-flavored liquor. The taste of old wine is affected by many factors such as the quality of raw materials, the quality of the wine body and the storage environment.
Recently, the article "The Old Wine of the Liquor Industry is Just a Story" has been widely circulated on the Internet. After reading this article, the reporter of Huaxia Liquor News could not help but be dumbfounded: According to the author's theory, at present, millions of old wine practitioners have become "big fools", half of the old wine industry with an output value of 100 billion will collapse, and the 10, 15, 30 years of Wuliangye and the 10, 20, and 30 years of Fenjiu blue and white porcelain are garbage wine, which is not worth tasting at all, let alone worth collecting!
Is this the rhythm of a stick to kill old wine and vintage wine except sauce wine?
Leaving aside the right and wrong of the liquor industry here, the reporter of Huaxia Liquor News interviewed several experts in the liquor industry and the old wine circle, and only wanted to popularize the common sense of old wine and the common sense of vintage wine.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="39" >What is old wine? </h1>
The collection of old wine sprouted at the beginning of this century, and only after 2010 did it rise in the country with a spark of fire, and has gradually formed an old wine industry with an output value of 100 billion.
The traditional meaning of old wine refers to the wine produced before the mid-1990s, when China's degree of industrialization was low, most of the wine used traditional technology, winemaking raw materials, water is not polluted.
A few years ago, Zeng Yu, a famous collector of old wine and the founder of Jiangxi Zeng Pintang, had a relatively vivid definition of old wine: old wine is a non-renewable cultural resource with a pleasant aging taste, attached to historical memory, real year records, and investment attributes.
In March 2019, the China Liquor Industry Association issued the "China Old Liquor Market Index" for the first time to officially define "aged liquor": liquor products brewed by enterprises with liquor production qualifications in the traditional liquor (solid state method, semi-solid state method) process, leaving the factory for more than 10 years, and stored well.
In August of the same year, the group standard "Old Wine Collection Evaluation Index System" issued and implemented by the China Collectors Association also defined "aged liquor" in the form of standard text: liquor produced, bottled and produced by legal liquor enterprises in the People's Republic of China and stored for a period of time without any artificial appearance changes, with high collection value and economic value.
The author of the article "The Old Liquor of the Liquor Industry is Just a Story" quoted the relevant contents of the "Encyclopedia of Liquor Production Technology" edited by the late liquor master Shen Yifang and the "Traditional Liquor Brewing Technology" edited by liquor expert Yu Qianwei to support his view that "above the sauce wine is the sauce-fragrant old wine, there is no strong liquor".
What I want to ask the author is, "Have you ever drunk old wine?" Have you ever drunk the fragrant Wuliangye old wine? Have you ever drunk a fragrant lao fen wine? If you haven't drunk it, do you make a fool of old wine collectors and consumers when you put forward this point? ”
In this regard, Zeng Yu, a famous old wine collector and founder of Jiangxi Zeng Pintang, disagreed, he said: "The statements of these experts quoted by the author are all N years ago, when there was no old wine industry in China, although they were liquor masters and liquor experts, they did not contact old wine, and it is estimated that they have not tasted old wine." ”
Mentioning the "Encyclopedia of Liquor Production Technology" edited by Shen Lao, the reporter of Huaxia Liquor News still has a fresh memory. When the book was reviewed at The Gujing Gong Distillery in 1998, I participated in the entire review process as the only media representative. "Traditional Liquor Brewing Technology" was also published by China Light Industry Publishing House before the spring 2010 sugar and wine fair.
From the perspective of the old wine expert, Zeng Yu said, "If the storage time of strong aromatic liquor is short, the taste of two or three years or even four or five years is indeed not much changed, but the aroma will become elegant." With the prolongation of storage time, the taste of aromatic liquor will gradually change, the aroma will be more elegant, and the aging taste will be comfortable. ”
"Above the sauce wine is the sauce fragrant old wine, there is no matter of strong wine." This is nonsense! Old wine is not limited to a certain type of liquor, and it is not a patent for sauce-flavored liquor. As an old wine lover who has been immersed in the collection of old wine for many years, Liu Peng, a national first-class wine taster, a columnist of wine culture, an expert technical committee member of the Hunan Provincial Wine Industry Association, and the vice president of the Old Wine Collection and Wine Culture Promotion Branch of the Hunan Provincial Wine Industry Association, believes that the taste of old wine depends on the quality of raw materials, the quality of the wine body and the storage environment.
Liu Peng has many years of collection and experience of old Chinese wine, with high-quality chinese liquor, whether it is sauce-flavored, fragrant, rice-flavored, aromatic, tulip- rich, strong compound or even clear-flavored liquor, after years of storage of aged liquor can show a comfortable and pleasant taste and sweetness, and is not limited to sauce-flavored liquor.
Liu Peng especially pointed out that even if it is sauce-flavored liquor, if it cannot meet the requirements of high-quality liquor, such as some sauce liquor in Maotai Town, even if it is stored for 100 years, garbage liquor is still junk liquor, and there is no collection and investment value.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="38" >What is vintage wine? </h1>
According to the "Liquor Vintage Group Standard" promulgated by the China Liquor Industry Association in April 2019, the definition of liquor vintage wine is: brewed by traditional liquor (solid state method, semi-solid state method) process, after storage for three years or more of base wine, the standard year is the weighted average age of the theme base wine used, without direct or indirect addition of edible alcohol and non-self-fermentation of the color and aromatic substances, liquor with the inherent style characteristics of this product.
The liquor vintage standard stipulates that the year marked is not the oldest vintage of the base wine, but the weighted average age. In the new standard, it is stipulated that the main base wine should account for more than 80% of the wine, and the other 20% can be unmarked, mainly taking into account the basic principles of brewing different aromatic liquors and the confidentiality of independent technology.
"Guxun liquor is the aroma of Chen, which is an objective fact for most high-quality liquor products, there is no doubt about it." Wang Guiyu, a Chinese liquor master, a famous liquor expert and honorary president of the Liaoning Liquor Industry Association, pointed out that due to the different production process conditions of various aromatic liquors, the composition of high boiling point aroma and low boiling point aroma in wine is different, so the flavor of wine has its own characteristics. Drinking alcohol is an interesting thing of spiritual and material coexistence, the addictive ingredients in wine play a fundamental role, and the aromatic substance is to enhance palatability, comfort and pleasure. Complex components are heavily metabolically burdened, and the fragrance of compounds with high volatility weakens quickly after long-term storage, while the fragrance weakens slowly. But no matter what kind of liquor type, long-term storage of mellow aroma is getting better.
Wang Guiyu explained from the brewing mechanism that in the long-term storage process, the liquor has a slow process of "alcoholization", which will produce a variety of aging substances, these polymers will produce a variety of aged wine aromas, the taste of the wine is more and more supple, and the wine aroma is more pleasant.
"Sauce-flavored original wine is only before bottling, due to the needs of the process, the time of old cooking is to store a little longer, otherwise the quality is not guaranteed, but it cannot be said that the storage time is long, called old wine, good wine." Professor Fan Wenlai, founder of modern flavor chemistry of beverage wine, famous liquor expert, and doctoral supervisor of the School of Biological Engineering of Jiangnan University, pointed out: "The strong aroma type and the fragrance type have reached the factory requirements because the storage time of 1-3 years has reached the factory requirements and reached the quality drinking requirements, so the process requirements can be shipped out of the factory, but it cannot be said that because the time is shorter than the storage period of the sauce flavor type, it is not a good wine, which is a serious error in logic." ”
Fan Wenlai believes that the relevant expression of the article "The old wine of the liquor industry is just a story" confuses the concept of qualified wine and good wine, and also confuses the concept of good wine and old wine.
Quality qualification means that it meets the sensory and physical and chemical standards, and conforms to the inherent process and inherent storage period of the aromatic wine. Obviously, only in line with the current national standards, is not high quality or high quality liquor; product sales revenue is high, not necessarily high quality; product advertising, does not mean high quality.
So what is high-quality or high-quality liquor? Fan Wenlai elaborated on his understanding of high-quality or high-quality liquor from seven aspects:
First, to meet the basic requirements of the wine body, that is, do not stab the throat when drinking, do not dry mouth, do not go up, do not burn the heart, do not hurt the stomach;
Second, from the high-quality production areas or long-established or long-standing, such as the main production area of high-quality sauce-flavored liquor in Guizhou, in the Chishui River Basin, high-quality fragrance-type production areas in the upper reaches of the yellow wine in Qinghai and shanxi in the middle reaches of the region, and high-quality aromatic production areas in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River in Sichuan and Huanghuai region of Jiangsu Anhui northern region; the old brand should not only look at the long history of this enterprise or region of winemaking, but also look at the process of the development of this enterprise or regional liquor industry, whether it has been developing and growing, or has just emerged in recent years. Whether it has won the title of national or provincial famous wine in history;
Third, follow the traditional method of brewing, that is, to maintain the operation and parameters of the traditional process, to maintain the essence of traditional process production, such as the essence of sauce-flavored liquor is "four high and one long" (high temperature big koji, high temperature accumulation, high temperature fermentation and high temperature flow wine, as well as long storage and aging cycle), the essence of aromatic liquor is continuous (micha) fermentation, artificial old cellar, long-term fermentation, the essence of fragrant liquor is low temperature big koji, tank fermentation and so on;
Fourth, adhere to the high quality, pure, authentic, full year. The authenticity of high-quality liquor is not only the labeling of fermentation methods on the label (such as labeling solid fermentation), but also the labeling of "single sorghum liquor" or "single multi-grain liquor" or "single barley liquor" or "single rice liquor" (single refers to the use of only liquor produced by the same distillery of the company for blending), "sorghum liquor" or "multi-grain liquor" (only use labeled grains such as sorghum produced liquor, but can be produced in multiple enterprises or multiple production areas of one enterprise), of course, the addition of alcohol must be labeled alcohol , and can not be vaguely expressed with characters such as "corn"; full year, for high-quality liquor, should not meet the "weighted average" of the industry association as a requirement, but should be based on the youngest original wine in the blending of the original wine, and the true label, or marked on the label bottling date;
5. From raw materials to brewing, to distillation, to storage, to blending, there are winemaking masters and blending masters or experienced winemakers and blenders recognized by the industry to participate;
Sixth, the aroma and taste of the finished wine, so that the aroma is unique, full and elegant; the taste is mellow, plump, delicate, and the aftertaste is long; the wine body is balanced, soft, natural, coordinated, beautiful, typical, no different color, smell, peculiar smell, tail refreshing. High-quality liquor or high-quality liquor should have its own unique craftsmanship and unique style;
Seventh, quality and safety indicators, in line with national standards, and continue to move closer to the international advanced standards, with international standards as the standard of high-quality, high-quality liquor.
A gentleman loves money and has a way of getting it. Whether it is traditional media or new media, criticism or exposure, seeking truth from facts, scientific rationality, and not losing its true color.