As the Spring Festival approaches, a distinct sweetness wafts through the air in Changzhou, a canal city in eastern China. It signals the upcoming holiday. The source is “Tianbaijiu” – “sweet white wine” – a traditional, gently fermented brew made from glutinous rice. For many local families, making this wine is as important to preparing for the New Year as sweeping the house or hanging red wedding couplets.
Among the many who still practice this craft, one name stands out. On the banks of Songjian Lake in Yaoguan Township of Jiangsu Changzhou Economic Zone, Jade Snail Spring Winery attracts long lines every New Year. Customers leave not only with cases full of mild brew, but also with a taste of the festival itself – tangible, sustainable, shareable.
This bowl of translucent, sweet rice wine is a flavor inextricably linked to the Spring Festival in Jiangnan, the region south of the Yangtze River. Its history dates back to the Qing Dynasty. Hong Liangji, a Changzhou-born scholar and poet, once wrote wistfully about his homeland while serving in Beijing. In one verse he described “white wine, freshly brewed, the scent of which wafts through the curtain.” This wine was this.
For almost two centuries, the craft of making it was passed down quietly from hand to hand, from kitchen to kitchen and from generation to generation. And in one family – the Zhangs – it was cared for with exceptional care and passed down through five generations.
Zhang Weiming is the third. He is also the officially recognized bearer of the “Changzhou Glutinous Rice Wine Brewing Technique,” a craft now on the city's intangible cultural heritage list, and the head of Jade Snail Spring Winery.
His childhood memories are associated with his grandmother and mother working on the winter stove. Soak the sticky rice. Steam in bamboo baskets. Mixing in a secret plant-based fermentation starter that has been passed down through the family. Pour the mixture into clay pots. Wrap them in old blankets to retain warmth. Wait. Eight steps in total, guided not by a written recipe but by feeling and instinct – the kind of knowledge that only comes from observing and acting, generation after generation.
“Back then, we could only do it in winter,” Zhang remembers. “Once the weather got warmer, it turned sour. There was no way to keep it going.”
The wine was never intended for sale. It was made for family, friends and guests who came over. But over time, its pure taste and the warmth it exuded gained a bad reputation.
Then the visitors came from abroad.
“An American customer came to Changzhou on business,” Zhang said. “I offered him some of my mother's wine. He loved it – and was disappointed he couldn't take any home with him. An Australian friend who lived in Shanghai tried it and he has looked forward to receiving it as a New Year's gift every year since.”
This recognition from across the oceans, as well as the fear that his aging parents might one day take their craft with them, spurred Zhang into action. He worked in the biochemical industry for years. Now he made a decision: to transform the family's handmade tradition into something more – something to share all year round, without additives, without compromise.
The key challenge was stability.
“The principle is simple – respect how nature ferments,” says Zhang. “However, in order for it to function over the long term, modern tools are needed to create the ideal, stable environment.”
His daughter Zhang Qiuhua, the fourth-generation successor, has witnessed the change firsthand.
“My grandmother’s generation completely followed the old customs,” she says. “My father brought innovation. He focused on food safety and precision.” After taking over the day-to-day business, Qiuhua further improved the packaging and introduced pot fermentation to better preserve the delicate aroma of the wine.
Their collective efforts earned the winery provincial recognition as a “Jiangsu Famous, Specialty, and Excellent Small Workshop.” Today, their products are stocked in more than 200 supermarkets across Changzhou and shipped to customers across the country.
Zhang Weiming's parents – both in their 90s – still visit the workshop regularly. You no longer do things on a daily basis. But they are watching. They lead. They ensure that the essential traditional steps are not lost.
The fifth generation has also arrived. Zhang's grandson, now part of the family business, is experimenting with new ways to bring the ancient flavor to younger palates – including rice wine ice cream. The family has also started live streaming in hopes of spreading the scent further than any jar ever could.
The final days before the Spring Festival are busier at Jade Snail Spring Winery than at any other time of the year. Jar after jar of sweet rice wine is packaged, sealed and shipped – across the province, across the country and overseas, often carried abroad by members of the Chinese diaspora returning to their ancestral homes.
The Zhang family's deepest wish is this: that this centuries-old sweetness, born from the waters and soils of Jiangnan, may travel to further corners of the world like a New Year's blessing.
This wish is not her sole wish.
The Jiangsu Changzhou Economic Zone, where the winery is located, has in recent years paid attention to preserving local food traditions. Sweet rice wine is far from the only one. There's Hengshanqiao tofu skin, Songjian Lake fish head, Furong spiral snails and the steamed buns from Qishuyan's Six Corners Pavilion – each bearing the imprint of generations, each a touch of home. The local government is now working to document these crafts not as relics to be preserved, but as living practices. The hope is that these flavors will not only be remembered by older people. Instead, they find their way back to everyday life – and from there into the future.
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