Pagoda, Tapai in Chinese (塔牌, 'pagoda brand'), is one of the most respected names in Shaoxing wine. Its fermentation halls sit right on the bank of Jianhu Lake, much as a whisky distillery stands beside its water source, and the lake's water goes into every bottle.
In the 1950s Pagoda became the first Shaoxing rice wine to be exported. That early link with Japan shaped its identity: because its Japanese importer insisted that the wine should not be made by machine, Pagoda kept to traditional handmade methods while much of the industry modernised.
How it is made
The process starts with the 'wine mother' (酒母), made from glutinous rice steeped in lake water. A new batch of glutinous rice is then soaked for about sixteen days in winter, steamed and mixed in open vats with lake water, wheat qu and the wine mother, and left to ferment. The craft is passed from master to apprentice: in 2010 a veteran master brewer, then 86, handed his successor a book recording sixty years of his experience.
A luxury revival
Pagoda's winery is also where Dongqu, a new boutique project led by Chen Zhi, is trying to take Shaoxing wine upmarket, from the kitchen cupboard to fine dining.