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Valles Sabrina Christine, an American working at Win-Some Trading Co in Hangzhou, makes Shaoxing huangjiu with the help of Xu Hailong, a local veteran winemaker. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

During the trip, Xu demonstrated to the foreigners some of the steps required in the early stages of winemaking.

Valles Sabrina Christine, an American who works at Win-Some Trading Co in Hangzhou, said she was particularly wowed by how the winemaker handled the rice.

"I absolutely loved making huangjiu here in Shaoxing. I sometimes brew beer at home, so getting to see how huangjiu is made and seeing how the rice is handled and fermented was something really cool and exciting," she said.

The techniques employed by local brewers like Xu are hardly different from those used by their ancestors thousands of years ago. In 2006, the process of making Shaoxing yellow rice wine was listed as an intangible cultural heritage under State protection.

According to Wang Jinjin, a national first-class winemaker and wine taster, the ancient methods are laborious but produce better tasting wine than modern means.

"Using the former method requires the rice to be first placed into vats to ferment for the entire winter and early spring. Following this, the fermented rice needs to be pressed, filtered, pasteurized and aged before being bottled for sales around the world," Wang said.