Shanniang and Xiangxue — the Sweet Huangjiu

Shanniang and xiangxue belong to the huangjiu tradition of Shaoxing and the lower Yangtze, the family of fermented rice wines that Fuchsia Dunlop describes in Land of Fish and Rice as the drink of the Jiangnan table. Both are sweeter and more strongly flavoured than the ordinary dry yuanhong. They are made by the Shaoxing method, in which the starch of steamed glutinous rice is saccharified and fermented together by a wheat-based starter, and they are drunk in the region as a mellow cup rather than a dry one.

Shanniang is a Shaoxing huangjiu in which the fermenting mash is not brewed with plain water alone but with an older huangjiu added to it, so that the yeast works against a sweetness already present and the finished wine keeps much of it. Xiangxue, the name meaning fragrant snow, is a pale, sweet, lightly coloured style of the same family, made with glutinous rice (Oryza sativa var. glutinosa) and noted for its softness. The wines are amber to pale gold, rounded and honeyed, with the caramel and dried-fruit notes of long-aged rice wine and without the sharp dryness of yuanhong. Where the label carries the protected name Shaoxing huangjiu, it belongs to a registered Geographical Indication.

Sweet huangjiu is drunk with the cold dishes and braises of Jiangnan, and Dunlop records the Shaoxing custom of serving huangjiu warmed. Its sweetness answers salt and soy in red-braised pork and in drunken preparations, and its depth meets the richness of fatty meat and the sweetness of freshwater fish and crab. It is also used in the kitchen, where it gives body to sauces in the manner of the drier cooking wines.