Because of the long history, it is difficult to tell the true face of how wine-making technology developed before the Han Dynasty, and we can only speculate from sporadic written materials and archaeological materials.

1. Seeing Brewing from Ancient Brewing Instruments 1974, 1985, archaeologists discovered a complete brewing workshop in Taixi, Gaocheng, Hebei Province. The facilities are similar to Dawenkou culture period.

Judging from the configuration of brewing equipment, in ancient times, the basic process of brewing included cooking, fermentation, filtration and wine storage of grain. Steamed raw materials are convenient for microbial koji making, and are also easy to be decomposed by enzymes, fermented into wine, and then filtered to remove distiller's grains to obtain wine liquid (it is not excluded that the prepared wine mash can be eaten directly). These techniques and these simple utensils are the most basic elements of wine making. It is basically consistent with the types of objects depicted in the murals of the tomb of the king of the fifth dynasty in ancient Egypt. Because there are cooking utensils (pottery ding or general helmet) in the combination of brewing instruments, it shows that the brewing raw materials are cooked first and then brewed, and it can be further speculated that brewing with koji may be one of the brewing methods five thousand years ago. Because the cooked raw materials basically no longer germinate, they can be cultivated into koji. According to the combination of brewing equipment, of course, the method of tillering to brew grain cannot be ruled out.

There is a passage in Huangdi Neijing Lingshu, which also shows that in ancient times, cooking raw materials were one of the steps. Its text reads: "The drinker, ..., the liquid of cooked grain is also." In the theory of "soup mash" in Su Wen of Huangdi Neijing, "Huangdi asked:' What is the soup mash of five grains?' "Zeebe said to him,' The rice should be cooked, the rice should be done well, and the rice salary should be firm'. This also shows that when brewing glutinous rice, rice should be cooked with rice salary. In a word, brewing wine with cooked raw materials shows that koji is very common. Liquor-making by Qu was one of the main methods of liquor-making in China later. Of course, Huangdi Neijing was written by later generations, and it is still difficult to confirm whether some of its expressions can truly reflect the ancient situation.

2. Brewing in Shang and Zhou Dynasties 1 Drinking by nobles in Shang Dynasty was extremely popular, which can be confirmed by a large number of bronze wine vessels that have been excavated. At that time, alcoholic beverages included wine, beer and beer.

Tillering beer brewing may also be one of the brewing techniques in ancient China. Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty recorded grains and tillers. This content can refer to the first chapter of the Origin of Wine.

Photo: The word wine in ancient Oracle Bone Inscriptions.

The "Five Instruments" and "Three Wines" in Zhou Li established a set of institutions in the Western Zhou Dynasty to strictly manage brewing and wine use. First of all, in this institution, there are specialized technical personnel, fixed winemaking methods and wine quality standards. Just like Zhou Li Tianguan; & gt The book records: "Nine Righteousness, Four Sergeant, Eight Corporal, Two Magistrates, Eight History." The law that wine is in charge of wine, the material of wine is awarded by type ... There are differences in the names of five Qi countries, one is Pan Qi, the other is Qi Qi, the third is Angel, the fourth is Qi Qi, and the fifth is Shen Qi. "distinguish three kinds of wine, one is wine, the other is old wine, and the third is sake."

"Five Qi" can be understood as five stages in the brewing process, and in some cases, it can also be understood as five different specifications of wine.

"Three wines", namely, physical wine, past wine and sake. Probably the classification of palace wines in the Western Zhou Dynasty. Event wine is specially prepared for sacrifice. It is brewed temporarily when something happens, so the brewing cycle is short. After brewing, the wine can be used immediately without storage. Yesterday's wine was stored wine. Sake is probably the highest-grade wine, and it probably has to go through the steps of filtration and clarification. This shows that the brewing technology is relatively perfect. Because for a long time in ancient times, wine and distiller's grains were eaten directly without separation.

The "Six Essentials" in the Book of Rites, which reflected various etiquette systems before the Qin and Han Dynasties, was written in the Western Han Dynasty and noted by Zheng Xuan in the Eastern Han Dynasty. It records a passage that is still regarded as the essence of wine-making technology: "Midwinter Moon is the chief, rice must be neat, the tiller should be timely, Nian Chi should be clean, the spring should be fragrant, the pottery should be good, and the fire should be neat. Six things can be done at the same time. It makes no difference that the big chief supervises it. " Although there are not many words in the "Six Musts", the contents involved are quite comprehensive and indispensable, and they are the six principles to be mastered in brewing. From now on, these six principles still have guiding significance.

Ba, an ancient wine, is a high-grade wine in ancient times. There is a saying in the Book of Rites: "In the autumn of Meng, the son of heaven drinks". According to the explanation of Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Yan is three wines. Does triple wine mean adding secondary rice koji or secondary brewed wine to the wine mash? There is no clear explanation in the record, but one feature of fermented wine is that it is more mellow than ordinary wine, so there are two possibilities. However, judging from the brewing method in the pre-Qin "Health-preserving Prescription", adding good wine into the brewed wine mash for three times is probably the brewing method of wine brewing.

3. The oldest record of the brewing 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 brewing 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".