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Museles is a wine produced inXinjiang,China. It is commonly made for local consumption, but is now also produced commercially for export outside the region.[1]
China'sXinjiang Autonomous Region have an ancient history ofviticulture going back to around the 4th century BC, whenGreek settlers brought thevine and more advanced irrigation techniques. The area aroundTurfan was, and still is, particularly noted for its grape production, and its production ofgrape wines is mentioned in the historical record as well. Its wine was noted during theTang dynasty,Marco Polo also mentioned thatCarachoco (the name he used for Turfan) produced fine grape wines. The modern wine industry is largely patterned after French methods, with a concentration on varieties likeCabernet. However, theUighur traditional technique has survived, especially in counties surroundingKashgar.
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The Uighur home-madewine generally called "museles" (from Arabic "المثلث", meaning "the triangle") is still being brewed by households in many villages. Unlike wines west of Xinjiang, the brewing of museles requires crushing of local varieties of grapes by hand, then strained using the Uighuratlas silk, then boiled with an amount of water equal to the juice and desired portion of sugar, until the volume of the mixture is down to the original volume of the juice, then stored in clayurns together with folk recipes varying by localities---in some counties, traditional Uighurherbal medicines, andgoji,mulberries,sea-buckthorn,cloves, etc. in others, and even raw and unfeatheredpheasants or poussins in others.
The brew usually takes more than a month to accomplish. It is then un-urned, filtered and bottled to be stored for long periods. In some villages, the ritual of communally gathering a mixture of folk museles brews in a large village urn marks the occasion following the harvest and process of grapes.
Museles is now being standardized by thewine producing industry in China and marketed under the brand-name ofMerceles.
