Wine and Korea
To many people this would sound like an oxymoron, or at least a good recipe for trouble. The truth is, trying to deal French wine in Korea used to be a slam-dunk, and while in an official position I did help a few companies slam-dunk some stuff here. 54%+ of all red wine imports used to come from France, and I guess we’re lucky to have 35% market share now. White wine stats were never a happy sight note to spelling-handicapped guys: it’s *sight*, not site, with Germany leading the pack of cheap white headache-inducing plonk, and the situation hasn’t improved any… We lead in champagne, but since only French sparkling wine made in the Champagne region can be called Champagne, this ain’t too difficult an achievement. The situation is marginally better in spirits, where our market share never was that big, but was predominant in sub-categories where we were present, like Cognac and Armagnac.
But the most aggravating fact while trying to sell wine here is not the shady business ethics that permeates the society, the endless price negociations, the so-called euro disadvantage, New World plonk seemingly sold in oil tankers [hello Chile?], or even the lack of knowledge of the people supposed to provide the market with stuff they’re supposed to know about. It’s the busted tastebuds. I’m telling you, kimch’i is bad for your tastebuds. And steaming hot soup. And pimiento. And shit. Really.
Last Thursday, I had dinner with my importer, a wonderful guy who spent the last 12 years or so importing wine that nobody seemed to want to try and drink. Since he needs money, too, he also imports Nuevo Mundo plonk, and I don’t mean Italian, so that drinkers of chemically-enhanced beverages can subsidise imports of good, traditional stuff. So we had dinner in a very nice, but oh so small Italian-fusion restaurant near the Coex. Before you reach for your cannon, Italian-Fusion doesn’t do any justice to this hole in the wall, where the food is very good. The steaks are juicy and properly cooked, the salad and the soup edible, and the wines are of course very good, since my importer is the main provider there! We had three bottles of wine, two of them propely put into decanters a couple of hours ahead, the third one opened later. One of them was the main item this importer is buying from me, a Pomerol that costs €€ – not too bad in .fr, but serious money in Korea, once the gubmint has taxed it to the gills, and then everybody in the distribution took another hit. The two others were from other Pomerol wineries, but back home they wouldn’t appear on the same table for a comparative tasting, as they are definitely in a lower category, and not just in price. The two cheapos were okay, but nothing that would have me plunking down a wad of cash and say “I want that!”. The third one, “mine”, was as usual, pure ambrosia. The kind of stuff that make Petrus taste like vinegar (not!). It was a nice dinner, with way too much wine, and the owner joined us at the end, blind-tasting the three wines. My importer had told me which one she would pick out as her first choice, and there was no mistake: she went for one of the cheapos, a very tannic thing that yells its flavours for the first few moments, and then disappears as if nothing had ever happened. Sad really…
My importer told me that when doing comparative tastings, our wine, which himself he loves very much, will always come out second when compared with that kind of wines. Our wine has beaten in Europe and the US very very famous wines during blind tastings, embarrassingly so, sometimes [like, all our wine was drunk, and most of the others left untouched after the first glass]. But apparently Korean tastebuds need products that advertise themselves with neon signs and lots of blink. Nanta-like. Lots of noise, sure, but where’s the music?
I suppose crane operators have difficulties driving Minis, too…