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…

aka fact checking at its worst:

Vallini said he was determined to get back the 1.2 million euros ($988,000) in local funds that were given to Hurd’s company.

This “journalist” prolly has heard that there is a 20% difference in the exchange rate between the USD and the European local funds (whatever that bloody effin’ means). However he sure hasn’t kept up with the Euro news, and the fact that oil costs our oil companies 20% less than it would have 4 years ago, on constant prices, or that European exports have been suffering for quite a while, thanks to a depreciation of the USD, and an overheating of the Euro, since around January 2003. People who’ve been doing business remember, painfully so. So it’s not 1.2 - 20% but 1.2 + 20%. Dude.

Why is it that people want me to write code that parses in some way or other some XML data? Do I look like an XML parser? I’m not even an expat [pun intended] any more… And when the XML I get has illegal UTF-8 characters, making the source look like a Jürchen-Chinese glossary, what I am supposed to do? Hire the UN?

… in one shot. Let’s have it now:

The shopping list in itself represents – with Korea’s bi-yearly artificial inflation of agricultural prices – quite a bunch of money, which would be better spent on other things, but I should stop digressing on that particular subject before I get angry and start rambling madly on the subject of the womenfolk slaving madly while the men fart the 名節 away, and the 큰 아버지 in many families spoils his brothers and sisters – and sometimes his own father – of the inheritance, but refuses to do the 祭祀 because it is too much work, or his wife goes to church [but still accepted the money when it came] – there you go I started rambling… Stop. Breathe. Relax. Alright. The interesting point is, I hope you got it from my mad ravings, that the preparation of way too much food for way too many idle people isn’t exactly an option, but rather a compulsory, “of course” thing. You pretend to be in pre-modern Korea for a few hours, like, say, the 1930s, and supposedly honour the long dead ancestors you don’t give a flying fuck about, smelling the socks of relatives you probably care less about than your next-door neighbour while bowing very low, and then you gorge on enough food to feed, say, Liberia. And it costs quite a bit. And people these days don’t have too much money. And many people are deeper in debt than LG Card, and don’t think both bankrupcies are not related. There you go, rambling again…

This little notepad my mother in law made her shopping list on was “given” [never, ever, believe that 謝恩品 are free; they are paid for by the clients/users]. It has some advertising on it, and I am not sure she even paid attention to it. Me, it hit me as soon as I saw it. It’s an ad for a last resort money lender. At the bottom, you have a few examples of borrowed amounts and repayment terms. I took just one example, and calculated the yearly interest rate:

500만원 = 97일x60,000원
5 million won = 97 days x 60,000 won.
That’s a little above 60% yearly. I’ll let you imagine what it must be to repay every day 60 bucks, for the next 3 months or so, on a 4,800$ lump sum. Not a pretty thought.

I am an extremely light packer. Or rather, compact. It wasn’t always so, I managed in my [late] youth to pass 70 kgs of luggage – with an eco ticket – but since I started flying professionally, I stopped fooling around and learned a few keep it to the essential skills. I once took a 2-month biz trip + vacation + biz trip on a single carry on suitcase and computer bag. The first night, arriving in Paris, I went to stay a few days with friends. My friend picked me up at the station and took me home. He took the carry-on from the trunk, and after his wife greeted me, she told him Luc, you’d better bring the rest of his luggage now, maybe it’s not safe to leave it in the car… We both smiled, and Luc told his wife: I have. The rest of his luggage is on his shoulder. Of course it was a major shock for her, and she laughed hard for a while, and told the story thereafter to anyone who’d listen.

Now, check out this:

I have a wine tasting event, plus a private one-on-one tasting. And I am trying to promote some non-Bordeaux French wine, a hard task here. That’s eight bottles you are looking at, and soon they will be empty, sigh… And other products are coming as I speak – I hope! – by air mail. dda the wine peddler. It sure beats lugging technical documentations or samples of – litterally – nuts and bolts, but I am thankful for my Flying Blue Platinum card. Twenty Ks excess luggage – 19 + 18 checked in, an undetermined amount, around 12, with me – access to the lounges, and, more often than not when the plane is a bit crowded – a regular occurence on Paris<>Seoul – upgrade to the next class. So the flight itself was nice, thank you very mucho. The schlepp uphill behind the Sofitel, at 8am, under heavy rains [wdf? 장마 in September?] less so. The 3 floors up, sans lift, with aforementionned luggage, a definite mood-killer.

토란국 and 송편 were consumed thereafter, sleep, more food, sleep, and repeat. This is 秋夕 after all, where people have a 3-day hogfest, why shouldn’t I partake in the best of what Korea has to offer. Sad I can’t use some of the booze to complement the food, Hite Prime it is instead…