Con Cuong leaf yeast wine village bustles during Tet season

These days, in any house in the commune, you can see people chopping wood, building stoves, and busy making wine to serve Tet. In this land known as the “land of wine”, Tet seems to come earlier.

We visited the family of Mrs. Lang Thi Than, one of the households with a long tradition of making wine. Mrs. Than was also the first person to sell the village's fermented rice wine to neighboring localities. Mrs. Than said that during the days before Tet, the amount of wine produced by the family often doubled or tripled, but it was still not enough to sell.

The ingredients for making wine are forest leaves that are washed, chopped, and then dried. Photo: Minh Hanh

When coming to Phuc village, you must sit down and sip tea and try a glass of wine, that is considered a visit.

According to Mrs. Than, what makes the difference is the yeast. The Thai people's yeast wine in Phuc village has a sweet, cool, milder taste than other wines. Even when drunk, you still feel light. That is the unique characteristic of yeast wine.

Yeast for making wine is made from Chinese medicinal leaves and glutinous rice flour. To get good yeast and create a unique flavor, the most important secret is to pick leaves from the forest and dry them for later use; forest plants such as cardamom, monkey tree, motherwort, mimosa… are available in nature, all are medicinal herbs with uses such as detoxification and cooling.

Making yeast requires up to 20 flavors combined together. Photo: Minh Hanh

After collecting the forest leaves, the leaves and stems will be separated. The dried leaves will be crushed and mixed with sticky rice flour and unripe rice husks; the stems will be chopped, dried, then distilled, the water will be mixed with the above mixture and squeezed into yeast balls.

The fermentation method and fermentation time depend on the ambient temperature. Each family has its own fermentation secret. The average fermentation time is about 8 days in the summer and 10 days in the winter. The longer the fermentation is, the smoother the wine will be.

Once the yeast is made, the rice must be selected for cooking rice wine. The type of rice chosen for cooking is glutinous rice, washed clean, then put into a jar, after the jar is cooked, let it cool, mixed with yeast, then put into a jar to ferment for 7-10 days, then add water to ferment for another 10 days, then put into the jar to distill into wine. The distillation process must use firewood to heat evenly, not too big or too small so that the wine comes out slowly. Yeast wine becomes valuable because of such elaborate preparation...

The fermentation process also requires a secret. Usually, the yeast is placed in a large tray, with a layer of rice husks spread underneath. Photo: Minh Hanh

After distilling a pot of wine, the wine is poured into jars and left for about 30 days before being sold. At this point, the wine reaches a certain level of deliciousness. When drunk, it is smooth and has a sweet taste on the tip of the tongue. The good thing about this wine is that when you drink it, you don't get the heat rising to your face or a headache...

The atmosphere during the days before Tet here is very lively, bustling with people coming and going. Currently, Don Phuc has established two groups to make wine in Xieng and Phuc villages. The group in Phuc village alone has 14 members led by Ms. Lang Thi Than. Ms. Than said that with 10 kg of sticky rice, 13 liters of wine can be "super-brewed". On average, each member cooks about 150 kg of rice per month; with an average selling price of 40,000 VND/liter, after deducting expenses, the income is over 4 million VND.

The distillation process requires using firewood over a steady fire to slowly release the alcohol. Photo: Minh Hanh

During Tet, the amount of wine sold doubles or triples, and the price fluctuates significantly. Wine is imported by groups for restaurants in the district, with regular customers in Thai Nguyen, Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City.

The traditional Tet holiday is approaching, the most delicious batches of fermented rice wine are being brewed by the locals here to supply the market. For a long time, Don Phuc fermented rice wine has become a very special drink of the ethnic minorities in the mountainous areas, an indispensable spice during the holidays and Tet.

Minh Hanh