The oldest wine-making process

Although there are many words about wine in Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, it is difficult to find a complete record of the wine-making process. As for the brewing technology of the Zhou Dynasty, we can only speculate based on a few words.

The earliest record of brewing technology found in China can be found in the silk books "Healthy Prescription" and "Miscellaneous Therapy Prescription" unearthed from the Western Han Tomb in Mawangdui, Changsha.

Among them, there is an example of the production method of "Lao Li Zhong", which includes ten processes.

Because this is the earliest complete written record of brewing technology in China, and everything reflected in the book is from the pre-Qin period, it has high research value. The general process is as follows:

Medicinal materials → Chopping → Soaking (boiling) to get juice → Brewing ← (water).

│↓

│ bibimbap/cooked rice/cooked rice

└─→↓

ferment

↓

Wine mash/medicinal materials

↓

Good wine → Continue to ferment.

↓

medicinal liquor

From the above, we can find that the wine-making in the pre-Qin period has the following characteristics: using two kinds of koji, first soaking koji and making wine with koji juice. In the later stage of fermentation, good wine was added into the wine mash three times, which was a unique process of ancient "three-alcohol wine", namely "fermented wine".