Where were wine jars produced?

According to The Thrice Updated Annals of Zhuji County during the Qing Dynasty, 'all jars of Shaoxing Yellow Rice Wine are produced in Zhuji`. Zhuji wine jars, being hard and permeable by air, are suitable for long storage of yellow Rice Wine and add to the mellowness of yellow rice wine as it is cached longer after production. This is especially true for Shaoxing Jiafan wine (high-quality yellow rice wine made with increased amounts of grain). Having Jiafan wine stored in Zhuji jars for more than 3 year years may enable the nutrients in the wine including amino acids to integrate perfectly and thus the long-boarded wine can attain perfection in `color, flavor and taste'. One of the reasons why Zhuji jars are superior in quality is that the clay there is better. There are rich, fine clay resources in the region which covers Tanxi, Fengqiao, Shuangqiao, Anping, Xinbi and Wangjiajing. For quite some time, the region had been the main producing area of Zhuji jars. Even today, you can still see kiln sites here and there on hill slopes in the area. Second, jar-making techniques in Zhuji had been more advanced. Wine jars made with the traditional techniques handed down from ancient times feature manually-made blanks fired in dragon kilns' (kilns on hill slopes that resemble crouching dragons). Because their blanks are made by hand, the jars are more robust than those whose blanks are made by machine. Third, Zhuji, jars are fired with better fuel. It is a tradition in Zhuji to fire wine jars with pine. The burning pine oil gives a smooth, grayish brilliance to the glazed internal and external surfaces of the wine jars. Sections of jar pieces look hepatic. As far as quality is concerned, jars produced in this way are all to some extent superior to those made through mechanized production in tunnel kilns; and the proportion of jars damaged or flawed in this process are lower than that of the jars produced in other areas. However, flawed in this process are lower than that of the jars produced in other areas. However,as the requirements on energy conservation and emission reduction become more and more strict, pine has gradually been replaced by coal, fuel oil or gas, which makes it easier to control the firing temperature and time and the quality of jars.

As the yellow rice wine industry continues to develop, jars produced in Zhuji are no longer able to meet the increasing demands. In 1980s, Gu Yue Long Shan set about surveying the quality of soil in the region and, according to the results, encouraged farmers in Changxing, Zhejiang to carry out firing experiments. After near a decade's conscious nurture, Changxing has grown into a production base of clay jars. Even yellow rice wine producers in Shanghai, Jiangsu etc. are purchasing jars from Changxing.