Chinese wine is also popularly known as Rice Wine among its aficionado. The main ingredient comprises of rice or any other related grain. It is an integral part of the process to steam the grains and then leave it for making sugars and ferment. It is necessary to perform this process before completely filtering it under pressure.
The authentic beauty of the wine lies in its yellowish hue and adding as an incentive is the no sediment culture. The alcohol content is relatively low which is between 12-17%, and the acidic content is between 0.3 to 0.5%. The popularity of wine is high in China due to its medicinal and nutritional values. The relatively high healthy contents make the wine a good ingredient for cooking purposes.
1. Shaoxing Yellow Wine
Several Chinese recipes use alcohol for enhancing the flavor. Talking about a recipe that demands cooking wine, it clicks to Shaoxing wine.
Shaoxing wine is a kind of Huangjiu which means yellow wine. It is prepared from ferment ice and has a translucent amber color. Shaoxing Wine has an alcohol percentage of 14%- 20%. It possesses a strong flavor of sweet, bitter, spicy, sour, and acts as a famous beverage in China, primarily for a hot winter drink. It works as a useful ingredient for cooking.
The marinade is a term for cooking wine. It is useful in baking and making stir-fried dishes. Marinating the recipe removes the raw smell of meat and brings a nice flavor to dish.
2. Jimo Old Wine
Jimo Old Wine has got its name from Jimo an old area on the peninsula which has Quingdao on its tip. The wine is popular by the name laojiu which implies “rich as well as smooth wine.” This old wine is a mixture of semi-sweet wine of millet from the banks of Moshui River. It’s a wonderful blend of wheat-based ferment and mineral water from Laoshan. It involves using ancient techniques for breaking the millet to form a paste and mixing it over moderate warm temperature. Later the process is followed by saccharification and fermentation after excess straining.
The wine has a dark brown shade assimilated with the hue of reddish purple. The clear and adhesive texture of the wine grabs the side of the mug and resists spills. It contains 11.5% of alcohol content, and its acid content is less than 5%. It acts as nutrition and is useful for health too. The best kind of wine is Lao Gan Zha.
3. Ao Yun
Ao Yun is a Chinese wine which means “above the clouds,” referring to its high altitude location or its market price. According to Robert Parker taste, it is a combination of fruit and tannic wine. As per his estimates total of 24000 bottles are made for balancing the production. While searching for establishing its presence in China, LMVH found several other areas before fixing to Yunan Province, where the local farmers favor the wine on the banks of Mekong. It is a mixture of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Cabernet Franc.
4. Chairman’s Reserve
Chairman’s Reserve is a wonderful combination of 3 to 4-year-old rums which blends copper pots stills and a Coffey still and has been rusty in the American white oak casks. The white rum offers a refreshing citrus note with a balance forming the right foundation for the cocktails or other mixed drinks.
The wine offers a clear translucent color with clean and refreshing citrus concerning sweet raisins and boiled sweets. Partially it is dry, and rest is hints of zesty citrus lime, cream, and the long balanced finish.
5. Château Rongzi Cabernet Sauvignon Black Label
The red wine lovers know about the Xiao Rongzi Black Label drink that turns into a brilliant ruby red, soft, delicate, fruity, and pleasurable lasting finish.
The range of Chateau Rongzi is in the Shanxi Lv Liang Mountains 1300 meters above sea level. It is on the Loess Plateau. The secret of this tasty wine lies in the cold weather with hundreds of meters of deep Loess layers, and wandering flow of Yellow River, that forms a particular microclimate ideal for sprouting wine grapes. The makers of the wine sort it strictly by hand picking method. The former chief winemaker, the French “Wine King” for Chateau Petrus manages the whole process.
6. Silver Heights Family Reserve Red
Silver wine is among all the wines which Emma Gao, the famous women winemaker in China take charge of. The famous wine contains 13.7% alcohol content involving 65% Cabernet Sauvignon and 35% Merlot. Makers store the wine for about 12 months in 30% new French oak and rest 70% in old French barrels. It is brilliantly structured with excellent fruit and oak integration coupled with soft and subtle tannins.
7. Changyu Moser XV Cabernet Sauvignon
Chinese wine has come a long way by roaming in the supermarkets of China and finding the Changyu Moser that is among the most extensive selection. This famous Cabernet from the dry and warm soils of Helen Mountains of Ningxia is publicized by retailers being a “first between classic Bordeaux and rich, fruity Australian wine.”
8. Longyang Chen’gang
Longyang Chen’gang wine belongs to the Fujian province and is among the oldest wines that hold a rich long history. The famous wine involves all the techniques that are useful in Chinese winemaking. It is of high quality thick rice and four different ingredients that are for further fermentation.
The process initiates by mixing herbal ferment, white ferment for preparing a sweet mash, a granular ferment, and adding Gutian red ferment. Further, the technique involves mixing rice liquor in two steps.
9. Red Ferment Wine
Red ferment wine is prepared by involving red mold that grows on the glistening surface of round rice. It is the attribute of the area near Pingnan and Gutian in Fujian province. The best quality white gelatinous rice is for preparing the wine. The red ferment boosts fermentation and saccharification.
Winter season turns to be the favorite time for preparing the wine, and when the procedure of fermentation completes after 120 days at a relatively low temperature, the wine is pressed, refined, meld and purified. Later it is put out in a jar and for one to three years makers leave it for reaching the maturity stage. The resulting drinks turn to be a sweet wine that has an alcohol content of 14.5%-17%.
10. Snake Wine
Snake Wine is surely going to fear anyone who comes across its name for the first time. The method of preparation involves imparting a snake in a bottle filled with grain alcohol or rice wine. During the Western Zhou Dynasty in China, the people of China drank the wine for the first time and treated it as an important curative traditional Chinese Medicine. The drink is easily available in China, Goa (India), Vietnam, and around Southeast Asia.
The snakes in the wine are not for their meat but to have their “essence.” The snake venom dissolved in the liquor doesn’t harm the drinker. The ethanol mixed in the wine denatures the poison and unfolds the proteins involved in it.