Wine has a close connection with culture in China both in ancient and modern times. In the book The Spring and Autumn in the Cup, the author, Lin Chao, has written his famous line: "Wine drinking is something of learning rather than eating and drinking."

Wine has a history as long as that of mankind. According to legend, the Chinese people began to make wine with grains seven thousand years ago; with animal milk, ten thousand years ago.

Wine permeates into every field of life: law, philosophy, ethics, morality and social customs. Because most emperors and ministers in ancient China were fond of wine, wine became a part of political life, playing an important role of moderation and destruction. The most famous example is the story how Emperor Taizu of Song deprived a military commander of his command by serving him wine.

Wine appealed to men of letters and many anecdotes about their drinking were handed down from generation to generation. Wine also has close connection with social customs in China . There are fifty-six nationalities in China and drinking customs vary from nationality to nationality. For instance, the Mongolians will present three cups of wine to a guest and go on singing songs of wine until the guest finishes them.

So wine-drinking has permeated Chinese culture. In a sense, wine is the zymase of Chinese culture.

 

Chinese drinks are classified into the following four groups, according to the process by which they are made:

Huangjiu

Huangjiu is also known as "laojiu", which is brewed from grain with wheat Qu or Xiao Qu used as saccharifying and fermenting agents. It is one of three dominated brewed wines (beer and grape wine) in the world.

Huang Jiu predates all the other liquors, with a history of several thousand years. The alcohol content is mild, at around 15%, and it is used as the base of "yaojiu". It is also an excellent condiment for cooking. Among these liquors the Shaoxing Rice Wine is the most famous.

Baijiu

Baijiu, which includes spirits, is made from sorghum, corn, barley or wheat, most of which are easy to ferment. Colorless and transparent, it usually contains over 50% alcohol. The alcohol strength varies between 55 and 65 percent. A small quantity can make one tipsy in a moment. Of the most famous of baijiu are Guizhou Maotai, Wuliangye , Shanxi Fenjiu and Luzhou Daqu.

There are three main groups of Baijiu which are divided up according to their characteristics. It is primarily the different fermentation methods that create the various characteristics. The largest groups are qingxiang, jiangxiang and nongxiang.

Those that may ferment in clay vats obtain a light and transient aroma and are called liquor with qingxiang, a light bouquet. A famous example of this is Fenjiu from Shanxi .

The kind of mash made with yeasts that have been prepared under high temperatures, which also requires a larger amount of yeast than normally, ferments at a higher temperature. This yeast becomes very dark and gives the distillate a very special character that is comparable to the taste of soy, and is consequently called liquor with jiangxiang, a soy bouquet. A typical example of liquor with this taste is Maotai from Guizhou .

Liquors that are fermented in earth cellars are affected by bacteria in the ground. This creates very special esters, acids and oils which are highly aromatic. Such liquor is called nongxiang, a strong bouquet. The three best ones are considered to be Mianzhu Daqu, Wuliangye from Yibin and Luzhou Laojiao Daqu. The production process is absolutely unique. These include its full-flavored aftertaste, its freshness and its light sweetness. Every one will never forget the good taste even he only taste a sip of it.

 

 

Wine drinking has been taken a quite important role in Chinese people's life from ordinary people to kings for a long time. Our Chinese ancestors either used wine to forefathers to express reverence as a libation, or to enjoy by themselves while writing poetry or prose, or to toast their relatives and friends during a feast.

On May 5th, our ancestors drank the Realgar Wine ( xiónghuángjiǔ ) and the Chrysanthemum Wine (júhuājiǔ ) on September 9th. On the fifteenth day of the first moon, during the Lantern Festival, watching the lantern show or admiring the full moon to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, they would liven up drinking. Wine was intimately connected with most Chinese men of letters.  During good times, the Chinese like to "sing and drink because life is brief" whereas during bad times they wonder "why relieve sorrows since wine just matters".

The banquets of ancient emperors and kings could not take place without it. Every sort of wine vessel thus became an important kind of sacrificial object subscriber.

But wine is not only for literary and refined scholars, it was also an inseparable part of the life of ordinary Chinese people through numerous events such as birthday(shengrijiu ), farewell dinner (qianxingjiu ), wedding (xijiu ), etc. Here are some typical banquets which have a close connection to wine.

Birthday Wine
In China , a banquet known as "Jiu Xi" means an alcohol banquet and the life of every person, especially from birth to death, should have pauses for drinking banquets starting a month or 100 days after a baby's birth when the parents invite people in for a drink.

Longevity Wine
China is a typical country that emphasizes the virtue of respecting older people.
When an old person's birthday comes, younger generation usually take different kinds of gifts to celebrate them. Taking wine and eat a meal with them is very popular and welcomed by older generation. It is so-called “longevity wine”. Here wine acts as a medium to transfer love and wishes. On one hand, after drinking the wine, the older people will live longer and  more healthy. On the other hand, it can give each other time to meet because nowadays younger generation is too busy to give more care to their elder generation.

Opening wine and dividend wine
When someone builds a new house, starts a business; he should invite people in for a drinking session. He could call his relatives and friends together, and then his business will be good later.

Not only starting a business needs wine, at the end of the year, when the boss is ready to give the workers dividend to thank them for working hard or encourage them ,a wine acts ,too.

In ancient China , during a feast, playing finger-guessing games with excited shouts—much like battle cries—was called a wine battle. The opposing guests, competing like two armies facing each other on the battlefield, played finger-guessing and other drinking games, such as thinking up new songs at the table, composing impromptu poems, singing in unison, dancing, and so on. All of these became amusements that added excitement to banquets.

In modern times it is a pity that the games that go with drinking are not the elegant ones of those of past involved poetry or music. Today, drinkers just play simple finger-guessing games along with a lot of heavy drinking. It also seems today that friendship depends only on the volume of drink being consumed. "If we are good friends, then bottoms up; if not, then just take a sip" is a common phrased exchanged during gatherings.

 

In different historical periods, due to the increasing development of social economy, the making techniques, materials, shapes and designs of drinking vessels responded to the development and took on various shapes and designs hard for one's eyes to follow. The vessels can be divided into different types according to the different materials. Followings are three main types.

1. Bronze Vessels

Bronze vessels were used during the Shang and Zhou periods in ancestral rituals. Ancestors, it was believed, could intercede on behalf of the living, provided they were honored and respected. The bronze vessels were kept in ancestral halls and used during a variety of feasts and banquets. Most bronze vessels were used for food or to heat or cool a millet-based wine. Others served as water basins or jugs. Wine vessels dominated during the Shang, but ritual changes in the middle of the Western Zhou period resulted in a shift toward food vessels.

Early bronze vessels, including the Jue, Gu, and Ding, were based on Neolithic pottery prototypes. But as bronze technology improved, vessels took on shapes and decorative schemes that were unique to the medium.

Surface decoration could be made by carving into the mold (for raised relief) or into the model (for recessed designs). The narrow bands that characterized early bronze designs gave way to more expansive decorations, which by the late Shang period covered the whole vessel. A common Shang motif is the taotie. Other zoomorphic designs consisted of various animal parts flowing into one another. By the end of the Western Zhou period, this imagery had begun to turn into purely abstract patterns, the meaning of which will probably never be known. They may have been symbolic of the spirits of the ancestors, protective devices, clan or lineage motifs, or perhaps they were associated with mythical beasts or supernatural entities.

2. Lacquer Vessel

Lacquer wine vessel began to be used in vogue in Qing and Hang Dynasty. It was very common that there is an “ear” on the interface of vessel. This ear was used for handling when people were going to drink.

3. Porcelain Wine Vessel

Porcelain wine vessel appeared in East Han Dynasty with a good function. Since porcelain production reached its peak in Song Dynasty, porcelain vessel owns a good shape and hand-making during that period. With the colourful painting, Ming porcelain wine vessel was famous for its Qinghua, Doucai and Jihong.