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A view of the Shaoxing Yellow Wine Town. [Photo/VCG]

Chinese yellow wine is one of the world's oldest varieties of alcoholic drink, and Shaoxing in East China's Zhejiang province is its most famous production base. Shaoxing locals have been producing the wine for over 2,500 years, making it almost as old as the city itself.

Dongpu town, which is home to the highest-quality wine in Shaoxing, has been renovated and renamed the Shaoxing Yellow Wine Town as part of the provincial government's efforts to develop Zhejiang's "featured towns", which are tasked with developing specific industries.

Locals in this water town still retain much of their traditional lifestyle: shipping things by boat and running shops that sell handmade wines, jars, and shoes. Shaoxing Yellow Wine brewers in the town use only top-grade glutinous rice and super clear water from Shaoxing's Jianhu Lake as ingredients and adhere to a 12-step, months-long manufacturing process.

However, more and more young people have been entering the town's winemaking industry, injecting new vitality into the age-old tradition. For example, the millennial Wu Hui runs a yellow wine shop in the town, which sells a more modern form of yellow wine, along with ice-cream, milk tea, and other foods made with the ingredients of yellow wine. These new products have proven quite popular among young consumers.

"Inheritance" and "innovation" are two key words for Shaoxing Yellow Wine practitioners. The largest yellow wine cellar in in the world occupies an area of 308 mu (20.53 hectares) and is located in Shaoxing's Yuecheng district. It stores more than 11 million jars of Shaoxing Yellow Wine, the oldest of which have been stored there for nearly 70 years.

Shaoxing plans to explore creative ways to promote its yellow wine, which is deeply connected with its water town lifestyle, said Jin Dong, a head official of the Shaoxing Yellow Wine Town.