The Recovery of Liquor Industry Demand in China 中國酒類行業需求復蘇

陳年佳釀，歷久彌香 The Aroma of Fine Liquor Gets Better with Time Secrets behind Collecting Kweichow Moutai

—— 貴州茅台酒的收藏秘訣

If what liquor embodies is a culture or a taste, then what vintage liquor carries are the accumulation of time and feelings towards the past, which have been significant to the human world. There are verses in poetries like "filling my cup with vintage liquor to remind myself of the joy in old days" and "a cup of old liquor brings me back to my home thousands of miles away", or sayings such as "age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read". Today, more people see the value given to liquor by time and realize the purpose and significance of collecting liquor. As a superior Jiang-fragrance baijiu, Kweichow Moutai is very suitable for collecting no matter it is fresh from the distillery or vintage. One of the features of its aroma is that it gets richer and stronger with time. Yet, if you want to be one of the Moutai collectors, there are some techniques you need to know. Firstly, it is important to keep the liquor from volatilizing. Volatilization will not only decrease the volume of liquor inside the bottle, but also affect the enrichment of its aroma, and then the value of that bottle of liquor will be compromised. Therefore, before storing the liquor, you need to check the bottleneck and bottle cap in advance. For a sealed bottle, it is less likely for us to smell strong aroma from the bottleneck. If you can smell the aroma strongly coming out before the bottle has been opened, and still determine to collect this bottle of liquor, make sure you check its weighing regularly to keep track on the "volatilizing status". If the loss in weight gets too obvious,

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it makes no sense to continue keeping it in the collection; you may just drink it up before everything in the bottle is gone. As an extreme case, if you find the red ribbon already soaked with leaked liquor, you can directly drop the idea of collecting it. Apart from checking in advance, you need to prevent volatilization during the process of storing. The first thing to do is to place the bottle in up-right position so the liquor will be less likely to leak out from the cap. The next step is to consolidate the protection of the bottleneck. If your purpose of collecting the liquor is to drink it yourself in the future, the simplest way is to seal the cap with Teflon tapes. However, this method cannot protect the appearance of the bottle, which contains multiple anti-counterfeiting marks and important information for authentication and value assessment. If the marks or labels are damaged during the storing process, the reserve value of the liquor will be greatly reduced. Vice versa, the more identification information is preserved on the bottle or the outer package, the easier the authenticity can be proved, and the higher the value will be. Hence the fact that Kweichow Moutai coming with an original carton is more valuable than a single bottle. Therefore, if your purpose of collecting the liquor is for demonstration or for trading after its appreciation, the optimal way of preserving Kweichow Moutai liquor is to wrap it with plastic wraps or seal with heat shrinkage films so as to protect both the bottleneck and the bottle or

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the outer package. Generally speaking, the collection value of Kweichow Moutai liquor is determined by the volume of the remaining liquor in the bottle as well as the appearance of the outer package. No one will buy an unrecognizable product or a half-empty bottle of old liquor after all. The proper storing condition is also crucial. There are three main rules to follow. The first one is the "golden rule" for storing food and drink: avoiding direct light and heat while ensuring good ventilation. The optimal temperature for storing baijiu is from 5℃ to 20℃, and temperature out of this range will affect the liquor quality. Therefore, it is recommended to store Moutai liquor in shadow or in a shelf, especially during summer. The second rule is to assure an environment with constant humidity between 60% and 70%, which is especially important for storing Kweichow Moutai liquor. In regions with relatively dry climate, you can put a glass of water where you store the liquor to increase the humidity so as to prevent the cap or the bottle from cracking and keep the label from fracturing and peeling off. If the regions are with relatively high humidity, then you need to store the liquor in somewhere less humid to prevent mold and insects. A dehydrating breather which can control the humidity indoor will definitely help. The last rule, yet the most easily neglected one, is to prevent the liquor aroma from being tainted by other odor. Some inexperienced collectors tend to store Moutai liquor in their closets so as to keep the liquor from direct light or put mothballs, sachets in the liquor shelf to prevent insects, which are totally inadvisable. The fragrance from sachets,

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perfume or laundry detergent in the closet and the odor of the mothballs are really possible to contaminate the aroma of Moutai liquor generated from esterification reaction after a long time of storage due to molecular mobility, which will greatly jeopardize the collection value of the liquor. To become an experienced collector of Moutai liquor, knowing some jargons about Moutai liquor is necessary since these jargons often indicate the information hidden behind including background stories and the storing-year. As a collector, knowing the jargons will not only help you decide whether it is a right decision to collect a certain bottle or carton, but is also useful for you to identify the authenticity and have a better understanding towards what you are going to collect. It is widely known that compared to fresh Moutai liquor, vintage Moutai liquor smells stronger in aroma, tastes richer in flavor and mellower in mouth-feel, but how to define "new Moutai" and "vintage Moutai"? Usually, "new Moutai" refers to the liquor whose manufacture date is within 3 years from the current date while "vintage Moutai" is the liquor whose manufacture date is over 10 years from the current date. As for the liquor whose manufacture date is between 3 to 10 years, it is called "sub-new liquor". Speaking of Kweichow Moutai, many people might immediately think of "Feitian Moutai" with a red ribbon, a red cap and a white glass bottle with a red label. Actually, "Feitian Moutai" is not the only product line of Kweichow Moutai that worth being collecting. For example, "Commemorative Moutai" refers to Moutai liquor that is

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specially produced to celebrate or commemorate certain big events or people, such as Kweichow Moutai "Entering Australia" Commemorative Liquor for Cultural Moutai's Trip to Australia, Kweichow Moutai "Entering Santiago of Chile" Commemorative Liquor in memory of Cultural Moutai's Trip in Chile, and Kweichow Moutai "Entering Dar es Salaam of Tanzania" Commemorative Liquor for the Moutai event in Tanzania. The bottle design of each Commemorative Liquor is inspired by the local culture and the event theme, unique and aesthetic. "Moutai Chinese Zodiac Animal Liquor" is a collection launched every year based on each year's corresponding Chinese zodiac animal, like "Moutai for the Year of the Rat" released this year and "Moutai for the Year of the Pig" released last year. Every year, renowned masters of traditional Chinese paintings will be invited to design the back label of the bottle based on interesting background stories about the specific zodiac animal, bringing out good blessings. "Moutai Aged Liquor" is produced with vintage Moutai liquor as basic liquor and blended in accordance with the standard of 15-year-old liquor, 30-year-old liquor, 50-year-old liquor and 80-year-old liquor so people are able to taste the mellowness of the aged liquor. The labels on the Moutai bottles also determine the collection value. For example, "Five-Star" refers to the Moutai Liquor with "Five-Star" labels for domestic sales. To be specific, "Vintage Five-Star" refers to the "Five-Star" liquor manufactured from May 1, 1953 to December 30, 1982. "New Five-Star" is the "Five-Star" liquor manufactured since

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January 1, 1983 till now, and "Regular Five-Star" is the "FiveStar" liquor with conventional packing circulated in the market. "Feitian Moutai" refers to liquor with the "Feitian" label for export sales. To be specific, "Vintage Feitian" is the "Feitian Moutai" produced between 1959 and 1969, "Grand Feitian" is the "Feitian Moutai" manufactured from 1970 to 1985, "Huang (Yellow) Feitian" is the specifically supplied "Feitian Moutai" packed with yellow-brown bottles produced from 1983 to 1985, and "Regular Feitian" is the conventionally packed "Feitian Moutai" in the market. "When a thing is rare, it becomes precious." Special bottle materials usually indicate higher collection value as well. Different bottle materials have different "terms". For example, "Earth Ceramic Bottle" refers to Moutai bottles baked by local ceramic clay. "Bamboo Joint Bottle" is another kind of clay bottle used from early to mid-20th century which looks like bamboo joints due to the unique baking technique. "Caramel Bottle" refers to the specially supplied caramel-color clay bottles during 1980 and 1986. "White Glass Bottle" is the one we are most familiar with, which has been in use since 1966 till now. From the commemorative significance, cultural meaning, aesthetics to the bottle materials and aged aroma, different lines of Kweichow Moutai liquor have their own profundity and reserve value. As Salvador Dali once said, "the connoisseur does not drink wine but tastes of its secrets", we collect Moutai liquor not only for its value as a commodity, but also for the connotation, stories and sense of the times embedded.