The history of official wine

See/content/10/0523/16/62878 _ 29105420.shtml to learn more about the history of China wines.

People in the Song Dynasty praised Liu Yong, a pop superstar at that time. "Where there is a well, you can sing willow songs."

This sentence is replaced by a compliment to the current domestic liquor, that is, "there is a government office, which is liquor production."

In the vocabulary of China people, "official" does not refer to the official's mansion and private residence. According to the interpretation of Ci Hai, it is the general term for official positions. In modern Chinese, the official position is actually the government, but it does not include the central government-it is called the imperial court, and the official position in the mouth of the people usually refers to the county and municipal government.

China is the largest producer of liquor in the world, especially the spirits commonly known as liquor. There are more than 2,400 counties in China, so there are more than 2,400 government offices. Liquor is a big taxpayer, and local governments regard wineries as a cash cow of local finance, so there are no fewer than 2,400 kinds of liquor in China.

The main criterion for measuring alcohol is alcohol concentration.

So far, China has not invented, produced or sold a portable alcohol tester. In some places in the mainland, the basic way for people to taste wine at banquets is to dip chopsticks in the wine, and then light it with a lighter. What can be burned is qualified wine, and then study the aroma, fluency and stamina of the wine.

Wine is a popular product. In addition to the need to buy wine with a wine ticket in the planned economy era, any adult can buy wine as long as he has money at present.

On different occasions, wine plays different roles.

In a bar, wine plays the role of a medium for lovers' tryst. Gently pouring wine and sipping each other's hearts can make two hearts close quickly.

In bars and at home, wine is sometimes a good medicine to drown one's sorrows. When you encounter stock lock-up, frustrated love, frustrated company, hopeless promotion, husband and wife turning against each other, and lovers moving on, you can temporarily forget your troubles and remove obstacles in your chest.

30 years of reform and opening up, in the official-now called the government, wine has become an absolutely indispensable work content, investment means, financing tools, public relations weapons and development momentum for governments at all levels.

It is no exaggeration to say that if our country had a law like the prohibition of alcohol in the United States in the 1920s and strictly banned alcohol nationwide, then 30 years of reform and opening up in various places might not have made such great achievements.

Can't be so exaggerated? Bloggers must be skeptical.

Let me explain it in detail.

China's traditional culture stresses self-cultivation and family harmony, and advocates self-suppression of human personality.

Our traditional education never encourages children to call a spade a spade, but teaches them to respect their elders (that is, to respect their leaders when they grow up), to be polite, steady, not rash, not frivolous, to judge people's faces, not indifferent, not to distinguish between men and women, and so on. Therefore, in public places, especially in official places, China people are unsmiling and reserved, or show off their insincerity in entertainment. But deep down, China people are not introverted, and their spirits fluctuate.

And wine, especially the hard liquor at the official banquet, is a stimulant, an aphrodisiac and a dispersant for the attendees.

In the past 20 years, I have traveled all over the country for work and drank official wine hundreds of times. I have a good understanding of official wine, and I hereby summarize it and share it with bloggers.

Official wine usually has the following characteristics:

First of all, local governments regard banquets and banquets as public expenses, and few officials pay for banquets and drinks themselves.

The beginning of the banquet can be roughly divided into the following categories:

1. Entertain superior leaders and other power departments, including project approval, financial allocation, policy implementation, project coordination, and welcoming.

2. Banquet various visiting delegations, such as Red Tourism Delegation, Poverty Alleviation Delegation, Lecturer Delegation of Party Construction and Theory of Three Represents Advanced Experience Theory, Study Delegation of Development Zone, Investment Environment Delegation, Foreign-funded Hong Kong businessmen and Taiwanese businessmen sightseeing delegation, social security medical care, rural collective land circulation study delegation, counterpart area delegation, state-owned enterprise reform delegation, tourism project development delegation, etc. There are various names that can be created at will;

3. Attracting investment: For domestic and foreign investors and customers who are interested in investing here, this is a top priority for local governments;

4. Government public relations: for example, major government projects need to implement bank loans; The "three links and one leveling" of a development zone needs the help of electric tiger, oil tiger, coal tiger and Land Rover. A big boss promised to invest in a big project somewhere; Industries in advanced areas should be transferred to local areas; Government leaders will personally greet each other with smiles and hold a banquet to entertain all kinds of people.

Second, the official wine generally chooses the famous wine produced locally, and there is no need for wine from other places. This is an iron law. It is a joke that Sichuanese use Yanghe Daqu. Northeasters drink Shanxi Fenjiu instead of Beidahuang sorghum, and it is a shame for Hunan people to use Beijing Erguotou instead of drinking mellow spring, and so on.

Third, the official wine is high-alcohol wine, and the official banquet is decorated with low-alcohol wine such as red wine, yellow wine and beer. If you only entertain guests with this wine, it is a serious neglect or contempt for the leaders or guests.

Remember to sit at the same table with a director from Xinjiang who came to Shanghai. He looked at the red wine in the glass and said to himself, "Shit, the mouthwash is here!" " "

On another occasion, in a development zone in Ningbo, the owner entertained the rich in Northeast China with aged yellow wine. Several Northeasters were obviously unhappy and took out a big stack of red tickets on the spot to greet the waiter: "Miss! Take a few bottles of Maotai! " Make the host extremely embarrassed.

In other words, when the host makes a toast, the guests can't help drinking. I don't drink unless you dress up as a grandchild and brother, otherwise you despise or neglect the host, resulting in a bad seat. I have experienced this scene many times, and I have described it in detail in my essay "Talking about the Drinking Habits of Shanghainese".

The phrase "lay down your life to accompany a gentleman" seems to be frequently used only in banquet occasions.

Fourth, official banquets usually have one or several local beautiful civil servants or even local TV anchors with amazing capacity for drinking as the leading role of the audience, which is an indispensable highlight of official banquets. Without beautiful women, the official banquet may turn into a bamboo basket drawing water with a sieve, or meat buns beating dogs.

As I said before, the spirits at the official banquet are stimulants, aphrodisiacs and dispersants for the attendees.

Once a beautiful woman gets mad at a banquet, she frequently raises a glass to visiting leaders, bosses, various electric tigers and Land Rover. Those officials and bosses who are usually reserved and unsmiling can drown their sorrows by drinking at this time, and take the opportunity to be frivolous and flirt with each other, and the prude in the officialdom shopping mall is suddenly swept away.

I remember once attending an official banquet hosted by a municipal government in Jiangxi, and several beautiful women came to propose a toast to the guests with great charm.

The dialect there is called drinking Tuo wine, or Tuo for short.

The host emphatically explained the ambiguous pun meaning of drinking a lot of wine.

As a result, the beauty, the boss and the leading guests looked at each other affectionately, holding a full glass of white wine and shouting, "You take it off", "You take it off first", "Let's take it off together" and "No, it doesn't count." As a result, the audience was booed. Then I took it off and the atmosphere reached a climax. Next, I took a photo with the beautiful woman in my arms.

These leaders, on another occasion, dare to shout "You take off first" to the beautiful woman so unscrupulously? The aphrodisiac and excitement of official wine are vividly reflected here.

When I went to Qinghai that year, a director gave a banquet, accompanied by a rich second-generation beauty who was married between Han and Tibetan. The director stopped me as soon as he opened his mouth: "She is a catty of wine!" " Looking at that graceful beauty, I was almost dumbfounded, and the idea of taking the initiative to propose a toast was scared away.

Because I was going to do a project, they let me rest and didn't let the beautiful woman pour me a catty of white wine, but I was so drunk that I had to hold the wall when I walked the next day. I have a splitting headache, and even forget what a beautiful woman looks like, but at night, I still want to drink!

Fifth, official liquor has indeed played a great role in promoting the local economy.

Mr. Runzhi has a famous saying: "Revolution is not about inviting guests to dinner, writing articles, painting and embroidering. It can't be so elegant, so leisurely, so gentle. "

With the reform and opening up, people changed this supreme instruction to "revolution is to invite people to dinner."

In fact, the current reform is also a revolution. Can the economy develop rapidly without inviting guests to dinner?

In order to save Guan Yunchang, Cao Cao "had a small banquet for three days and a big banquet for five days, and dismounted with gold and silver". Now, Cao Mengde will feel very ashamed-have a party every three days? Too petty for a talented and ambitious traitor!

Over the years, if local governments dare to entertain investors, inspection teams and leaders for three days, the result must be that they will quickly become underdeveloped areas.

Because China people deeply believe that the host's enthusiasm and solemnity for entertaining guests, as well as the richness and beauty of the banquet, are the most basic attitudes of the host towards the guests.

"Food is the most important thing for the people" is an old saying in China, but in modern Chinese, it means "officials put wine first". The most concrete manifestation of the host's hospitality is binge drinking. I don't drink either, but I have traveled all over the country, as if I have never met it once.

In order to attract investment, local governments should not only create an investment environment and design various preferential policies, but also express their enthusiasm and urgency through banquets.

Alcohol is a stimulant and an emotional adhesive. Between the tragedy, the gentle mask is torn off, the strangeness is eliminated, and the family is born. You can be brothers and shake hands, and investment projects, bank loans, and superior approval are all green.

It is difficult to find a province, city, district and county in China that promotes economic development by negotiating and signing contracts to introduce projects in government conference rooms without drinking at all.

Sixth, sometimes, an official cocktail party produces unexpected dramatic effects.

This is a true story.

M, the new secretary of J province, took office.

Secretary M used to be the director of the Bureau of Retired Veteran Cadres in a city. He knows that there are many senior cadres, but people are often deserted, and there are few cars and horses in front of the door. Whether you want a car depends on their faces-retired cadres are quite disgusted.

On his third day in office, Secretary M gave a banquet in the first guest house of the provincial government-usually the banquet hall of the state guesthouses in various provinces-and personally hosted a banquet for more than a dozen veteran cadres who had held high positions in the province.

During the dinner, Secretary M respectfully toasted the veteran cadres, asked them to be caring and attentive, and humbly asked them about the situation in M province. The veteran cadres were greatly moved and sighed. In addition to the formal Spring Festival group worship, the first two provincial party secretaries have never been invited once. Occasionally meet in the provincial government, just nod sideways.

So I gave the veteran cadres a face-to-face lecture on how to do things in J province and what aspects should be paid special attention to.

After the banquet, Secretary M personally helped the old cadres get on the bus, and each of them gave a gift.

A few days later, a meeting of provincial directors was held in the province, and a seat card marked with the name of the director was made in front of each seat.

J province's style of work has always been to exhaust ze and fish. Those attending the meeting are all small roles such as directors of offices of various departments and bureaus, and most of the top leaders are absent.

Because Secretary M has learned the situation from the veteran cadres, he has a well-thought-out plan. When he spoke, he patted the conference table hard and said with an expression, "The cadres in J province are really busy! Too busy to even have time to go to the provincial party Committee meeting! Sika doesn't have a matching number! How will this meeting be held? It is closed today! Meeting! "

The following cadres were scared out of their wits, knowing that the big event was not good, and immediately reported to their immediate superiors after returning.

The next day, the meeting continued, and the heads of all departments were honestly sitting behind their seats, but almost no one brought notebooks and pens.

Secretary M thundered again: "The cadres in J province are all brainstorming computers, so you don't need notebooks for meetings!" "

These two records killed the cadres in M province, and since then, officials, large and small, have been much cleaner.

Under the leadership of Secretary M, the economy of J province doubled in a few years, and Secretary M gained an excellent reputation among the officials and people of J province.

However, everything has two sides.

The first is health.

Many local officials are addicted to banquets and drink too much, and it is uncomfortable not to hold banquets for three days. I have a friend who worships departmental officials and really turns into a banquet every night and a bathing place every day. He yawns in meetings and is full of energy at night. At an early age, I always had medicine boxes in my pocket, from Viagra to pills, and I swallowed them one by one.

Drinking too much, fatty liver, diabetes and pancreatitis have become common diseases in officialdom. When I went to Inner Mongolia in Qinghai, I met a young official who drank a lot of meat while eating insulin at the banquet. According to them, almost all the cadres there have various chronic diseases, and many young cadres died suddenly, all of which were caused by acute pancreatitis and cirrhosis.

Last night at the Silk Road Hotel, a friend hosted the county party secretary of a Tajik autonomous county near the Afghan border in Xinjiang. He was attending a training course at the National Cadre College in Shanghai. I am in the last seat.

"Silk Road" is the guest house of Xinjiang office in Shanghai, where almost all ethnic minorities from Xinjiang live.

I am trying to go on a diet these days. I want to relax for a while. A steamed stuffed bun in the morning, a cup of soybean milk, an apple, half a box lunch at noon, two pieces of bread in the evening and a plate of boiled celery.

As soon as I received the text message, I knew that the diet plan had been aborted.

A table full of Xinjiang flavor: hand-grabbed mutton, tiger dishes, spicy mutton hoof, fried sheep kidney, mutton offal soup, saute spicy chicken, red army dishes, tissue paper bags, mutton pilaf, naan, Selimu Lake cold water fish and so on. Wine is illite koji.

On this occasion, pretending to be a grandson will be laughed at. So I quit drinking and started drinking with some friends in Xinjiang.

Uighurs, the deputy general manager of the Silk Road Hotel, also came to accompany us intermittently-leaving after a toast and coming back later. He said that he would swim at five banquets at the same time tonight and swim back and forth for entertainment. I was startled.

From 7: 00 to 10, for three hours, it was still civilized. Eight people (three people didn't drink white wine) made three bottles of Yilite Qu.

After the banquet, the fruit was served, and the secretary of the county party Committee was still wanting more, and asked everyone for a big plate of roast mutton and a bowl of Xinjiang noodles.

I really admire their ability to eat and drink. Aren't they afraid of getting sick?

I still have to stick to my diet plan.

Second, the problem of corruption.

Wine can be promiscuous.

At the banquet, including the official banquet and three glasses of white wine, people's defensive psychology will be eliminated and they will enter a state of euphoria, and they can make friends by drinking wine. Therefore, all kinds of activities, such as abusing power for personal gain, accepting bribes, extramarital affairs and over-the-counter transactions, will gain tacit understanding through toasting at banquets, so there are frequent official wonders of corrupt officials moving forward one after another, one falling down and thousands standing up.

Alas! Official wine, success is Xiao He, failure is me!

Although the Song Dynasty has been in the midst of fierce ethnic contradictions, in the early period of the Northern Song Dynasty, efforts were made to govern, the regime was stable, and politics, economy and culture were developed. The Southern Song regime also had a period of stability, and the economy also got some recovery and development.

The wine-making industry in Song Dynasty was further popularized and developed on the basis of the popularization and development in Tang Dynasty. On the one hand, with the development of handicraft industry and commerce, Bianjing, Lin 'an and other metropolises are unprecedentedly prosperous, and people's consumption and demand for wine have greatly increased. On the other hand, the abundance of grain and the maturity of brewing technology have increased the variety of wine, improved the quality of wine and expanded the production scope of wine industry. In the Song Dynasty, the brewing industry, from the palace to the countryside, was dotted with brewing workshops. Its wide distribution and quantity are unprecedented.

Yellow rice wine is a traditional wine in China. The brewing of yellow rice wine in Song Dynasty not only has rich practice, but also has systematic theory. China modern yellow rice wine brewing inherited and developed the theory and tradition of Song Dynasty. Among the ancient wine-making works in China, the most systematic, complete and realistic wine-making work is the Nine Classics of Beishan, which was written in the late Northern Song Dynasty.

The author of Beishan Jiujing is Zhu Jun, a native of Wuxing, Zhejiang in the Northern Song Dynasty. The age of this book is not accurately recorded. After Zhu, he wrote "Continuing the Wine Classics in Beishan". Li Bao wrote in "Continuing the Northern Mountain Wine Classic": Mr. Zhu Jun retired bravely in his prime, wrote books and made wine, and lived in the West Lake and became old. The continuation of the Nine Classics of Beishan was written in117, so the Nine Classics of Beishan should be before this. Beishan is the one next to the West Lake in Hangzhou, indicating that the material of this book was taken from Hangzhou, Zhejiang at that time. Because the imperial court attached great importance to brewing at that time, Zhejiang was the main producing area of yellow rice wine brewing in China, and brewing workshops were everywhere. The booming brewing industry made Beishan Jiujing a summary of practice and theory at that time.

Zhejiang area is also the main area of rice wine production and consumption in China, which is inseparable from the foundation laid by the Song Dynasty.

Nine Classics of Beishan is divided into three volumes. The first volume is Classic, which summarizes the important theories of wine-making in past dynasties and comprehensively and systematically expounds the wine-making and koji-making in the book. The middle volume discusses koji-making technology and collects more than ten kinds of koji formulas and methods. The second volume discusses brewing technology. Jiujing in Beishan has made great contributions to the development of yellow rice wine brewing industry in China.

In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the policy of prohibition of alcohol was implemented, and private brewing was not allowed. Making 5 kg sake koji without permission should be sentenced to death. Later, it was relaxed to 15 Jin of private songs and sentenced to death. With the recovery of economy and the development of production, the policy of wine is becoming more and more relaxed.

No matter in the Northern Song Dynasty or the Southern Song Dynasty, wine tax was an important financial source for the government. In order to get enough wine tax, the production and sales management of wine was very strict in Song Dynasty.

There were three main forms of liquor administration in the Northern Song Dynasty: liquor monopoly, liquor monopoly and tax liquor. That is to say, for different places, three different policies are implemented respectively: Sanjing area implements the monopoly of liquor and koji; In the city, the monopoly of wine is implemented; Places below the county level either pay taxes or specialize in liquor. This policy of differential treatment, taking into account local characteristics, is conducive to the country to obtain greater wine profits.

The monopoly of wine is that the winery is owned by the government, and the means of production, production costs and raw materials are all solved by the government. Brewers rent wineries from the government to organize production, and the produced wine is underwritten by the government. The price of wine is naturally set by the government. At that time, there were two types of hotels in Kaifeng, which were responsible for promoting official wine. One is called punctuality, and the other is called intersection. According to the Tokyo Dream, "there are 72 stores in Zheng Jing, and the rest are called foot stores." There are restaurants, which are government-run places to eat and drink. The wine warehouse is the wholesale place of official wine, and there are also retail stores called "Paihu" and "Puhu". Daqu is an indispensable saccharifying agent and fermenting yeast for brewing yellow rice wine. Daqu is relatively stable. It can be stored for a long time, so it can be monopolized and the government can effectively control the wine tax. The monopoly of Qu is mainly in Sanjing (Kaifeng, Luoyang and Shangqiu). There are mainly the following ways to buy songs: the official price of songs, the delineation of the scope, and the quota distribution.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the government was very careful in the management of wine making and the control of wine tax, which was stricter in some aspects than it is now.

Song Gaozong Zhao Gou ascended the throne in 1 127. He implemented the policy of surrender and compromise, fearing the people and generals who bravely resisted gold, and finally moved to Hangzhou to establish the Southern Song regime. The financing of military expenditure is a top priority. In the early days of the Southern Song Dynasty, it was in the situation of internal troubles and foreign invasion that funds were tight, and wine tax was an important financial source. "History of Song Dynasty" records: "After crossing the river, I succumbed to raising soldiers and working overtime at any time, all kinds of names."

The wine administration in the Southern Song Dynasty was diversified, and the monopoly of wine was still the main form of the city.

In order to effectively control the wine tax, the government adopted the method of collecting wine tax from the beginning of making wine with rice. People bring their own rice to the government to make wine, but they have to pay the brewing fee and the head money (additional tax). In this way, the government does not need to purchase raw materials, nor does it have to bear the sales of wine. It just needs to stand up and manage it and use it. Brewery is located in a place designated by the government, which is convenient for centralized management and is a better way. The government levies wine tax according to the rice used, also to prevent tax evasion.

The Southern Song Dynasty also implemented the liquor monopoly policy, which was embodied in the establishment and management of liquor depots. Wine barn is a wholesale market for brewing under the control of the government, and it is one of the main sources of official liquor. Therefore, whoever masters the wine warehouse will master the rich profits of wine. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the struggle for the right to operate wine depots became the focus.

There are many kinds of wineries in the Southern Song Dynasty, and their affiliation is complicated. There are wineries of the central government, wineries of the army and wineries of local governments.

The cellars belonging to the army are designed to raise money for the army, so they are called "Zhan Jun cellar", "Shen Jun cellar" and "Reward cellar". When the Southern Song regime was basically stable, government agencies gradually turned the wine cellar belonging to the army into the government's.

In order to promote the sales of wine, the Song Dynasty once organized its own wine storehouse to carry out large-scale wine tasting and promotion activities. This kind of activity is similar to the sugar and wine parties held in recent years.

Compared with the Northern Song Dynasty, the price of wine in the Southern Song Dynasty has several characteristics: frequent and large price increases, and independent pricing in various places. The price of wine in the Southern Song Dynasty was much higher than that in the Northern Song Dynasty.