Chengdu, April 4 (Zhongxin Net) -- "Sichuan Chengdu Shuijing Street Brewery, which was founded in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties, has a history of more than 11 years and has not stopped production. Recently, Wang Gang, director of the Shuijingfang Museum, said. Ancient winemaking tools, Ming and Qing cellar pools, busy winemakers... The ancient imprints left in the museum seem to freeze time and space.
Shuijingfang Museum is located in Shuijing Street, Jinjiang District, Chengdu, and opened to the public in July 2013. The museum systematically preserves the "Shuijing Street Distillery Site" in its original location, and reproduces the national intangible cultural heritage - "Shuijingfang Wine Traditional Brewing Technique" with real production scenes.
The site of Shuijing Street Wine House is the most complete and oldest archaeological discovery site of wine at home and abroad. In the excavation area of the core site, various brewing facilities such as drying halls, cellar pools, still bases, stoves, ash pits, and wooden pillars of different ages have completely restored a complete set of technological processes for people brewing distilled spirits in ancient times.
In 2001, the site of Shuijing Street Winery was listed as the fifth batch of national key cultural relics protection units. "In order to better protect this historical and cultural heritage, the museum has implemented a variety of special protection measures, including ancient building safety assessment, virus surveillance, environmental monitoring of soil sites and microbial research." Wang Gang introduced.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Shuijingfang Museum is a "living" museum. According to museum docent Wang Yuan, Shuijingfang Museum has successfully integrated the production line in production as the largest exhibit with the visiting exhibition line, which is the first museum of its kind in China.
Winemakers are "steaming chaff husks". Photo by Wang Lei
"This step is called 'steaming bran husk', and steaming bran removes the odor and raw bran flavor from the bran shell, making it an excellent filler in the winemaking process." Follow Wang Yuan into the technical hall, you can see the busy figures of the brewmasters, or on the top, or on the stall, or under the song, this ancient production line is still running.
Mixing materials in the cellar, distilling the upper cellar, picking wine in quantity and quality, spreading the koji, fermenting in the cellar, blending and storage... The reason why the "traditional brewing technology of Shuijingfang wine" has a long history, in addition to adhering to these ancient brewing processes, it also has a lot to do with the ancient cellar group that has been used for hundreds of years. It is understood that in the ancient cellar mud of Shuijingfang, researchers isolated the unique ancient yeast represented by Shuijingfang "No. 1 flora", which gave Shuijingfang wine a unique flavor.
"We have set up a cultural heritage protection fund and built a talent pool for intangible cultural heritage skills." Wang Gang said that in order to strengthen the protection, inheritance and rational use of intangible cultural heritage, the museum will also launch the exhibition upgrade in the future, giving more prominence to the display and interaction of skills, so that more audiences can know and understand this "treasure" in Chinese liquor culture in more ways.
Shuijingfang Museum Art Hall. Photo by Wang Lei
"Chengdu is the root of Shuijingfang, and Shuijingfang is also an important part of Chengdu's poetry and wine culture, and the two complement each other." Wang Gang said that today's Shuijingfang Museum attaches great importance to integrating into Chengdu, spreading Chengdu, and co-creating with Chengdu's urban culture.
He has participated in many foreign cultural exchange activities organized by the government, continued to carry out cultural and educational activities for the public and schools, and hosted the Chengdu International Poetry Week... Once Shuijing Street Distillery, to meet the interest of Chengdu people to gather for feasts and drinks, now Shuijingfang Museum has become an important cultural window, using wine as a "medium" to attract visitors from all over Chengdu. (End)