Pagoda 10 Year Aged Shaoxing Wine
So I’ve been dabbling a bit in Chinese cooking, and encountered the ubiquitous Shaoxing cooking wine, and wanted to try the real thing, which led me to this bottle. I have no idea if this is considered a quality wine or not but it came in really elaborate packaging that was fun to open.
Pours a dark mahogany color with some visible sediment floating around, smells of sherry, raisins, and a hint of vinegar. The taste is dry and lightly sweet with flavors of caramel, toasted rice, brown sugar, and fig on a slick, thin body. The finish is long and lightly warm with minimal bitterness, featuring notes of toasted rice, cinnamon, clove, and subtle hazelnut. Overall it’s quite different from sake, but of course this has wheat in the mash in addition to rice and has been aged (presumably in a clay pot, perhaps this one it came in) for a decade. I’m interested to try cooking with this and to see how it pairs with food!