Faces of Moutai: Behind the national liquor

The hills of Maotai Town. Photo by Wang Zhuangfei for chinadaily.com.cn

Maotai Town, the birthplace and home of Kweichow Moutai Wine, the gold standard of Chinese baijiu, is filled with rolling hills and lush greenery. Located in the north of Guizhou Province, its pristine winemaking environment is legendary. Everywhere in town, the sweet smell of wine fills the air, an intoxicating fragrance. Enjoying Moutai Wine in its birthplace is a unique pleasure, as is meeting some of the people behind the brand, to learn more about its rich heritage and what the industry means for this relatively undeveloped region of China.

From worker to historian

Hu Jingshi, 63, has been an employee of Kweichow Moutai Company since 1975, when he started as a worker fermenting sorghum and rose to become a leader of his group. He now serves as the company historian, having authored two books on the history of Moutai Wine.

"The factory was set up in 1951, although there were many liquor factories in the area under different names before that, and the history of winemaking in this region can be traced back to a thousand years ago," says Hu.

The liquor has a storied history. In 1935, during the Long March, the Red Army stayed in Maotai Town for three days. "The liquor merchants ran away when they saw the soldiers, because they were scared of them, but the Red Army left money for the liquor they had used to treat their wounds, so they left a good impression," says Hu.

Asked what the company secret is, Hu laughs. "There is no secret! It is the unique environment of Maotai that enables us to brew the best wine," he insists. The liquor, drunk in small shot-glasses, is a sauce-flavored baijiu, with a soy sauce-like aftertaste. At 53% alcohol, it is strong, and goes down like vodka – a true firewater that leaves a distinctive warmth when taken. It is used by Chinese officials to entertain foreign dignitaries, and Moutai issues special editions for events of national importance, such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Sorghum that bought education for his children

Good baijiu begins with organic sorghum, which is grown in the verdant hills and valleys of Guizhou province. In an effort to increase the production of Moutai Wine to meet the rising demand, Kweichow Moutai Company introduced a new policy in 2001 to provide sorghum seeds and technical support free to farmers who would switch from other crops to sorghum, as well as fertilizer at half the market price and a certain amount of compensation if the crop failed.

Tong Fu, 55, and his wife Chen De Rong, 45, decided to take advantage of this policy and switched from farming rice to farming sorghum in 2006.

"It took three years to convert our land from farming rice to farming sorghum, and they were tough years because we were not getting income from the sorghum. We grew red sweet potatoes on the land to help make ends meet," says Tong Fu.

But the risk really paid off, and the sorghum crop changed the fortunes of his whole family, enabling them to send all three of their children off to university – no mean feat for a rural farming family.

"I decided to switch because I had faith in sorghum. It cost less in labor costs and had higher profit margins," says Tong Fu. His son, who recently graduated, decided to major in food science in order to return to work for Kweichow Moutai Company, out of gratitude to the company for lifting them out of poverty.

"My two daughters are studying medicine and finance. When I was a child, there were so many mouths to feed and not enough food to go around. Now, life is much better," says Tong Fu. Last year, his sorghum crop earned him 20,000 yuan, well above the 8000 yuan/capita income of farmers in the region.

Young graduate on the factory floor

Wang Zhihan, 26, is bright and articulate and poised with an answer to every question. A packing worker on the assembly line of the packaging factory of Moutai, she is a group leader in charge of 100 people on her team. She started working for Moutai three years ago, after graduating from Guizhou University.

The factory workers, mostly young women in their twenties and thirties, sit at the assembly line as white ceramic bottles flow towards them, their fleet fingers tying red ribbons to the bottle necks as they pass by.

In another part of the room, sitting on small stools, women pack the white bottles of liquor into golden cardboard boxes before packing them into larger boxes for shipping. The factory floor is airy and light-filled, and above them targets for the number of bottles packed flash in red characters on a screen.

Wang's team packs over 30,000 bottles a day, working six hour shifts. Depending on experience and number of years at the company, workers take home between 100,000 and 150,000 a year, almost twice that of a fresh graduate in a first-tier city.

"It's a good place to start a career," says Wang. "I feel I can develop to my full potential here. For example, I like drawing and there are drawing competitions I can take part in at the company." The daughter of two middle school teachers who grew up in the area, she now earns more than her parents and is in a position of responsibility.

Although Moutai's business has been affected by the austerity measures put in place for government officials in 2013, Wang is upbeat about the product and the company's prospects, and is proud of her job. "I have confidence in the wine," she says, "and no matter who drinks it we package it as if it were packaged for ourselves."

A wine intertwined with China's future

Wandering around the town of Maotai, it is abundantly clear that the fortunes of this town are intimately tied up with the fortunes of its chief export. Whether it is the form of Han dynasty wine cups on the grills of local houses, or the ever-present smell of sweet liquor lingering in the air, wine runs in the blood of the locals here, some of whom have worked for the company for three or more generations.

"In 1957 Chairman Mao said that Maotai should produce 10,000 tonnes of wine a year," says company historian Hu Jing Shi. "Now, the company has surpassed that to produce 40,000 tonnes a year." He, too, is optimistic that the state-owned enterprise will only increase its production in coming years as it implements its ambitious expansion plans.

"Moutai's future is China's future," he says. "If China is thriving, Moutai is thriving."