Uncorking the Past Page 7

  We also had two fast-approaching deadlines: one with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) for approval of the beverage, and the other a grand tasting at Manhattan’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in May 2005, only a few months away. The ATF at first disallowed the use of hawthorn fruit; it was fine as a component of an herbal medicine or tea, but it could not be added to an alcoholic beverage. The distinction, especially since we were using just a small amount, can only be fathomed by a government agency. After endless negotiations, we received the go-ahead.

  After some conditioning in a tank, the Neolithic beverage was bottled and ready for its first public appearance. This initial version was well received, with the media, of course, on hand. A lingering concern, however, flitted in the back of my head. The beverage seemed much more sour than any self-respecting Neolithic villager or shaman would have wanted to drink: we know that sugar and sweetness were prized in antiquity.

  I broached the problem with Sam and Mike, and over the coming months we made progress. With the help of another brewer at Dogfish Head, Bryan Selders, we tweaked the formula to impart a delectable sweet-and-sour taste, a perfect pairing with Chinese food.

  Figure 6. Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery brought this dream-inspired image to reality when he commissioned artist Tara McPherson to create a label for the “oldest alcoholic beverage in the world” thus far discovered. Chateau Jiahu is named after the Neolithic site in China, which yielded a biomolecular archaeological recipe of rice, honey, and fruit (hawthorn fruit and/or grape), whose residues had been preserved inside jars (see figure 3) from the site. Courtesy of Tara McPherson (original acrylic, 12″ × 12″) and Dogfish Head Craft Brewery.

  While all this was going on, Sam had slipped into shamanistic revelry. He recounted a dream in which a naked Chinese Neolithic girl, with long hair flowing down her back and buttocks, had approached him with the beverage. He commissioned a New York design artist, Tara McPherson, to create a provocative label for our Neolithic grog, named Chateau Jiahu. She placed a seemingly enigmatic tattoo, which had also been part of Sam’s dream, on the lower back of the celebrant who graced her label. This tattoo is actually the Chinese sign for wine or any other alcoholic beverage. It shows a jar with three drops of liquid falling from its lip. The sign dates back to the Shang dynasty, as early as 1600 B.C., and has been in continuous use ever since.

  The latest incarnation of Chateau Jiahu hits all the right notes—an inviting, grapy nose, a Champagne-like effervescence with extremely fine bubbles, a tingling aftertaste that invites you to drink more, and a brooding yellowish color worthy of the Yellow Emperor and the Yellow River. The combination of hawthorn fruit and Muscat grapes, wildflower honey, and unhulled rice malt on a sake yeast yielded a beverage that was exotic but immensely satisfying.

  We have since served Chateau Jiahu at special events on the East and West coasts. The East Coast event was at the Cornelia Street Café in New York’s Greenwich Village in October 2006. That was an exuberant affair, emceed by my long-time friend and colleague, the Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann. Intermixing science and art, the tasting was accompanied by music played on wine-filled glasses, a takeoff on Benjamin Franklin’s glass harmonica on display at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute. As possessed bacchanals stomped grapes in tubs at the front of the audience, we ducked to avoid being splashed by the dark red must.

  In December, two related events were sponsored by the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. One was held at the home of Farina Wong-Kingsley, a chef and food writer, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. Surrounded by the sights and smells of a traditional Chinese garden, Farina made an array of Shanghai delicacies to go with the Chateau Jiahu. The following night, a lecture at the museum concluded with a tasting of the Neolithic beverage against several fine Japanese sakes, courtesy of Beau Timken, owner of True Sake. In my estimation, the more complex Chateau Jiahu won hands down.

  AN ERA OF SPECIALIZATION

  The Neolithic inhabitants of Jiahu might have developed an exceptional fermented beverage, but humans never seem to be satisfied, as my studies soon revealed. The Neolithic period culminated in the high shamanistic civilizations of the Xia and Shang dynasties, with their capitals north of the Yellow River, about three hundred kilometers from Jiahu. An overnight train ride with Changsui to Anyang brought us to the most extensively excavated ancient city of the time, called Yin, where we were met by the chief archaeologist, Jigen Tang. He gave us a tour of the site, which covered sixty-two square kilometers during its heyday three thousand years ago and has been continuously excavated for eighty years. Mercifully, he showed us only the highlights and then shuffled us off to a grand banquet on a barge in the Yellow River, replete with fine rice wines.

  Our descent into the tomb of a consort of one of the Shang rulers captured the splendor of the time. A tall, gently sloping passageway led to the burial chamber, where the queen had been buried in all her gold and jade finery, surrounded by horses and chariots. Chariots were used not just for maneuvering around the empire, but also, as recounted in some of the earliest shamanistic texts (e.g., the Zhuangzi, or Book of Master Zhuang, dated to the third century B.C.), for ascending into the heavens. A tomb with chariots also vividly reminded me of the royal tombs of Ur in Mesopotamia (see chapter 3), whose queens were similarly adorned with gold and lapis lazuli jewelry and buried with chariots.

  Back at the Anyang dig house, Jigen brought out what was, to my mind, the real treasure—a liquid sample from inside one of the magnificent bronze vessels of the period. Until then I had had no idea that liquids had been found in Chinese excavations, preserved for more than three thousand years. I was aghast. Jigen suggested that I smell it, and there was no doubt: it had the characteristic fragrance of fine rice or millet wine made the traditional way, slightly oxidized like sherry, with a perfumed bouquet.

  The liquid came from a so-called he vessel. Mounted on a tripod base, with a large handle and lid connected by a metal fitting, and with a long spout protruding from one side, it resembles a teapot; but tea had not yet made its appearance in China. The vessel is of a well-known ceremonial type for serving millet and rice wine. The liquid inside had evaporated down to about a third of the full capacity, but because the lid eventually corroded and stuck tightly to the neck, the vessel was hermetically sealed until its excavation thousands of years later.

  These days, it seems as though bronze vessels filled with liquids are continually being discovered in Chinese excavations, especially in burials, and excitedly announced in the media. In 2003, for example, in an excavation of an upper-class tomb in Xi’an—also famous for the army of terracotta warriors that accompanied the famous Qin dynasty king, Shihuangdi, to his grave in 210 B.C.—a lidded vessel was found containing twenty-six liters of liquid, which was said to have a “delicious aroma and light flavor.” How about a 3,000-year-old vintage? Unfortunately, chemical analysis is yet to be carried out. And drinking royal wine was not necessarily an ethereal experience. The bronze used in the vessels was alloyed with as much as 20 percent free lead, and as they overindulged, the Shang dynasty emperors were poisoning themselves. That may explain why a number of the dynasty’s later kings are said to have gone crazy or committed suicide.

  Figure 7. Shang Dynasty “teapot” (he) from the upper-class tomb of Liu Jiazhuang at the famous capital city of Anyang along the Yellow River (no. M1046:2, ca. 1250–1000 B.C., height 30.1 cm). It is decorated with the enigmatic taotie mask of a bird or dragon and was about a third full when found. The 3,000-year-old liquid still retained a fragrant, sherry-like aroma due to its infusion with elemi tree resin and/or chrysanthemum flower. Illustration courtesy of Jigen Tang/Anyang Field Institute, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

  I hand-carried a sample of the Anyang liquid back to Philadelphia, where we subjected it to a battery of scientific tests. We were able to show that the sealed vessel had once contained a very special millet wine. This was not Neolithic grog: it contai
ned no honey and no fruit. Instead, the presence of two aromatic triterpenoid compounds, β-amyrin and oleanolic acid, pointed to the addition of a tree resin, very likely derived from the elemi family (Burseraceae) of fragrant trees. The chrysanthemum flower, which can yield the same compounds, was another candidate. I was reminded of our discoveries of pine and terebinth resins as additives in Near Eastern grape wines (see chapter 3).

  Could it be that the Anyang liquid represented one developmental stage in China’s long tradition of herbal medicine? Triterpenoids have antioxidant properties, lowering cholesterol and scavenging free radicals that can cause cancer, so a beverage laced with these compounds could definitely have been part of the ancient medical chest. β-amyrin is also an analgesic and has a palatable, citrusy aroma. Recently, I initiated a project (“Archaeological Oncology: Digging for Drug Discovery”) with the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center to explore the therapeutic uses of these compounds in ancient medicine. By trial and error, humans might well have discovered natural remedies over the millennia, which lie buried in our archaeological findings.

  Returning by train to Zhengzhou with Changsui, we next met with Zhiqing Zhang, an archaeologist at the local Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, which is responsible for all of Henan Province. Zhiqing told us about another upper-class tomb in Changzikou in Luyi County, about 250 kilometers farther east. This tomb yielded more than ninety bronze vessels, and when it was first opened, fifty-two lidded examples amazingly still contained liquid, ranging from a quarter to half full. Zhiqing asked me if I would like a sample of the liquid for analysis. He did not have to ask twice, and soon I held a small vial of liquid from a lidded you jar. This tall, elegant vessel was adorned, like the Anyang “teapot,” with the enigmatic, ferocious-looking taotie motif, a mask of a dragon or birdlike figure, with long horns, penetrating eyes, and a curled upper lip.

  To our surprise, the Changzikou you contained not a millet wine, like the Anyang teapot, but a specialized beverage made exclusively from rice. Two monoterpenes, camphor and α-cedrene, gave it a fragrant bouquet even after three thousand years. The camphor smell was not as intense as that we usually associate with the pure compound used to repel moths. In fact, the marker compounds in the beverage probably came from a tree resin (China fir, Cunninghamia lanceolata, is the most likely candidate), a flower (again, chrysanthemum was at the top of our list), or an herb in the Artemisia genus (the same genus that includes wormwood, used in making the very bitter and potent absinthe).

  How would a “medicinal” wine with anesthetic and antimicrobial properties be prepared? Tree resins could be collected and added directly to the wine after fermentation, with the high alcohol helping to dissolve the terpenoids. The active compounds in flowers and plant parts might have been isolated by boiling down in water or extracting with an oil, as in a perfumery decoction. The Changzikou tomb itself provided the likely answer. A large bronze bowl had been filled with the leaves of another aromatic tree—Osmanthus fragrans—and held a ladle, implying that it had once been filled with a liquid. The leaves of this tree, which have a floral aroma, were apparently steeped in the liquid, as tea is made today. Similarly, the Artemisia or chrysanthemum might well have been infused into the rice wine, which was then filtered.

  Figure 8. The author in his laboratory, examining and “sniffing” out a 3,000-year-old millet wine, which was preserved inside a tightly lidded bronze vessel (see figure 7) from an elite tomb at Anyang. Photograph courtesy of Pam Kosty, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

  The Shang dynasty oracle-bone inscriptions, the earliest texts from China, distinguish at least three fermented beverages, including herbal wine (chang); a sweet, low-alcohol rice or millet “beer” (li); and a fully fermented and filtered wine (jiu), probably with an alcohol content of 10 to 15 percent, made from the same grains. A whole retinue of high officials and winemakers oversaw the production, made sure that each member of the royal family received their daily allotment, and ensured that enough of each beverage was on hand for the yearly round of ceremonies and special occasions. The king sometimes inspected the beverages to make sure they passed muster.

  The succeeding Zhou dynasty may have faulted the last Shang king (paradoxically named Zhou, using slightly different characters) for being a crazed carouser who indulged himself in all-night, naked orgies with a “forest of meat” and a “lake of wine.” Nevertheless, the Zhou rulers appear to have liked their wines as much as any other dynasty: the elaborate Shang wine bureaucracy continued to operate and was in fact expanded. At least two more fermented beverages are described in the Rites of Zhou (Zhouli), one made from a fruit (luo) and the other from an unfiltered brew (lao) of fermented rice or millet or, perhaps, unfermented wort. A further evolution in winemaking can also be seen in the Chinese word for physician (i), in which the character for shaman was replaced by the wine sign during the Zhou period, succinctly expressing the trend toward more refined beverages.

  The number of bronze vessels from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, most of which were filled with one of the official alcoholic beverages, is mind-boggling. Many of them have been found in elite burials at the major urban centers along the Yellow River or its tributaries, including Erlitou, Zhengzhou, Taixi, Tianhu, and Anyang. Their shapes, which include ornate tripod vessels (jue and jia), stemmed goblets (gu), vats (zun), and jars (hu, lei, and you), have much to tell us about how the beverages were prepared, stored, served, ceremonially presented, and ultimately drunk.

  For example, according to long-standing Chinese practice, a high tripod vessel, which could be set over a fire, was required to warm wine. A pair of upright posts that projected from the rim—perhaps symbolic of the taotie horns—would get in the way of easy drinking, so these vessels were most likely intended for pouring. However, an appreciation for serving the best wines chilled, even thousands of years ago, is expressed in a verse from the Songs of the South (Chuci), dated to around A.D. 300:

  Jadelike wine, honey-flavored, fills the winged cups;

  Ice-cooled liquor, strained of impurities,

  clear wine, cool and refreshing . . .

  “Winged” or “eared” cups suited the wine perfectly, as these shallow bowls with a single ledge handle were often made of jade.

  Many of the magnificent Chinese bronzes probably held jiu or its herbal equivalent, chang. During Zhou and Han times, chang is said to have been made by infusing resinous plant leaves or adding herbs (yu) to a fermented beverage. Our chemical results support the textual interpretations and also confirm that these specialized beverages were made by mold saccharification or amylolysis, a uniquely Chinese contribution to alcoholic beverage making. This traditional method exploits molds or fungi—including the genera Aspergillus, Rhizopus, Monascus, and others—which are unique to each region of China. The molds break down the carbohydrates in rice and other grains into simple, fermentable sugars. Historically, a special moldand-yeast starter (qu) was first prepared by growing a thick mass of mold on various steamed cereals and pulses. Rice and millet, the principal cereals of prehistoric China, presumably served as early substrates.

  Yeast adventitiously enters the process, either brought in by insects or by falling from the rafters of old wooden buildings, as happens in the lambic breweries of the Brussels area. As many as one hundred special herbs, including Artemisia, are used today to make qu, and some have been shown to increase the yeast activity as much as sevenfold. A congealed white mass inside a jar at Taixi, weighing 8.5 kilograms, was found to be made up entirely of the lees of spent yeast cells, which must have yielded a particularly powerful beverage.

  We may never know all the details of how the earliest Neolithic grog of Jiahu, with its complex ingredients, was made, but we can get a glimpse of how a traditional rice wine, comparable to a Shang dynasty beverage, was produced. In the small town of Shaoxing, a short train ride to the southwest of Shanghai, you can watch the steaming of the rice, t
he double fermentation at high and low temperatures, and the filtering of the brew into jars that are carefully sealed with clay. Before the final closure, the mouth of each vessel is stuffed with bamboo and lotus leaves, and a piece of paper, noting the year of production, is inserted. The exterior of the vessel is often brightly painted with colorful flowers and young women, because traditionally these jars (nuer hong, “red daughter”) were buried in the ground at the birth of a female child and only recovered, opened, and drunk years later, when the girl married.

  According to the oracle bones and other ancient texts, Shaoxing is where Chinese winemaking began. Although our Jiahu analyses have undercut the legend, it is said that the daughter of Da Yu made the first wine around 2000 B.C. Her father, whose name translates as the Mighty Yu, was the founder of the Xia dynasty. According to tradition, he not only survived a great flood, like Noah, but quelled many by building channels and levees and bringing the Yellow and Yangzi rivers under control. He is said to have died at Shaoxing during an inspection tour of the flood controls, and a huge statue of the ruler still stands in imperial splendor in the hall of his mausoleum in the nearby countryside.

  I visited Shaoxing in the company of my microbiologist friend and colleague from Beijing, Guangsheng Cheng. We visited the ancient bars of the town, where we tasted the yellow rice wines for which Shaoxing is famous. Most of these wines, which can be aged for more than fifty years, have sherrylike aromas and tastes that reflect the region’s unique microflora. We ate “stinky” tofu, another delicacy of the region. We heard the tales about the artists who floated their cups of wine down streams and were obliged to compose a poem and drink the wine where the cup came ashore. But despite the temptations of the present, we remained focused on our goal of gaining insights into ancient winemaking. We went from one large, rambling winery to the next, each clinging to tradition in its own way. We gladly accepted the frequent invitations to test their wines as both an enduring pleasure and an opportunity to learn how the wines were made.