Leona De Pasquale heads to Taiwan to discover why the country’s indigenous rice and millet wines deserve a comeback. Millet, an ancient grain found in parts of Africa and Asia, was the staple food of indigenous Taiwanese for millennia. The grain was revered under animistic beliefs for its spiritual significance. That was until the 19th century, when glutinous rice was supplanted for the ancient grain, relegating traditional millet-based wines to mere tourist souvenirs. The past decade has seen a return to tradition, however, and a renaissance of millet wine has emerged, with modern twists bringing it to fine-dining restaurants and retailers throughout Taiwan. This revival is more than a culinary trend; it represents a reclaiming of cultural pride and heritage for Taiwan’s indigenous communities. Millet cultivation in Taiwan dates back at least 5,000 years, with rituals conducted at each stage of cultivation. Millet winemaking was widespread, with the best batches reserved for ceremonies by tribal elders. Immigration from mainland China and colonisation by the Dutch and Japanese forced indigenous communities to abandon ancestral lands. Today, indigenous people make up just over 2% of Taiwan’s 23 million population. The introduction of easier-to-cultivate crops such as glutinous rice, and a monopoly on alcohol production, which banned homemade wines, led to a drastic decline in millet cultivation. The area for millet planting plummeted from 6,000 hectares in the 1960s to just 250ha today. Consequently, the art of millet winemaking was largely lost in the 20th century. Now, what is referred to as “millet
This Article was originally published on The Drink Business - Wine
