Cotton Pickin' Pocket Picker

So, Hong Kong has decided to abolish duty on wine and beer. This could be serious news for the fine wine drinkers out there with Hong Kong and mainland China already being a substantial market for the worlds top wines. It will have little impact on me I am sure, my money doesn't stretch that far. It would be nice to see a similar move here though eh.? With a 15% import tariff a 30% liquour tax and a 10% education(!) tax before we get to VAT and the extremely greedy mark-ups the wine industry is up against it here. Yet it still shows fantastic growth. With a reduction in these costs perhaps we could see a real explosion in wine consumption in Korea. Perhaps someone would like to set up a nationwide wine distribution company with access to all the supermarkets, convenience stores, department stores etc without the sort of price protectionism that I suspect is going on now.

Had a Cono Sur Pinot Noir from Hynudai for 20,000w last week. Fruity and fragrant it wasn't too bad at all. If you like the lighter bodied reds you could do a lot worse.
Also, Sileni Semillon for 28,000w, a bit pricey yes, but a really delicious white that I will give a proper write up soon.

“No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.”

Yeah, spring is on us..........

I had plans of getting the Vespa out of the second bedroom this week and then we had more snow than we have all winter. I swear to god the birds are nesting though......

Anyway, my illustrious Herald career continues with a highly optimistic spring submission. Read it here.

This weeks drinking has included a Norton Sauvignon Blanc which was pretty boring. Showed all the SB characteristics and was completely uninspiring.
I had a completely unremarkable 2000 Margaux as well. I won't bother telling you the Chateau as I really don't want anyone buying it. Rubbish, rubbish Bordeaux which nicely indicated to me no matter how good the vintage you still need to be choosy.
The Tormenta Viognier mentioned in this weeks article is good but a bit much for me. Really is a punch in the face.
Shindong wines website shows they have a new arrival of Sherry which is exciting. I can't get over the idea of liking the stuff. Also Madeira has suddenly appeared. An almost indestructible wine, you can keep it open pretty much as long as you want, that makes superb gravy. I will be getting a bottle.

Folks with decent cable TV should be getting Alice channel, loads of pretty dull but informative wine programming on an evening.

COEX Inter-Continental Lunch

Yesterday we had the excitement of going for two Michelin star rated food in Seoul. Previous attempts at fine dining here had seen us having to serve ourselves a starter from a buffet. Carpaccio looks pretty when arranged by a chef, when arranged by a cack-handed, half drunk northerner it looks like a pile of raw meat. That's why we have chefs.

Coex Inter-Continental is a pretty soulless hotel, very much the chain in a big old department store hotel but the lift was fast and the view from the Sky Lounge on the 30th floor was pretty good. River views, mountain views and Seoul traffic views. You can't ask for too much more.

It is a nice dining room set up to take advantage of the views, which seems a no brainer but you would be surprised how many places get it wrong. We have tables set with linen, we have nice crockery and glassware. All good.

Lunch had two menus, one at 65,000w, about £33, and one at 55,000w, roughly £28. The more expensive had the choice of lamb(!) or beef for the meat course with an additional course of saffron risotto. Saffron is pound for pound one of the most expensive foodstuffs around and anyone with half a taste bud knows it is minging. It is one of those flavours that could be so subtle as to be indistinguishable and I would still distinguish it. Hate the stuff. It once ruined a meal in Milan sat at the table next to Benito Carbone. Anyway, because of saffron I opted for the cheaper menu. Unusual for me....

First up was a glass of Piper Heidseck. Now, I should have learned from the £25 glass of Bangkok Moet but when you are out for a good meal it really is difficult not to start with Champagne. Isn't it? This was a reasonable 20,000w(£10) glass and was very yeasty and was to match up with the first two courses.

On to the food. First up was goose liver with scampi. A thin slice of rich, fatty goose liver topped with a langouistine/scampi/Dublin Bay Prawn. Call it what you like, I love em. The plate was topped with three big strawberries. The goose liver was Foie Gras, unethical and delicious, the scampi was everything a tiger prawn isn't and the strawberry worked really well to cut through the richness of it all Though three strawberries were excessive they made my pairing of the Champagne with the first two courses look inspired.

Next up was a Lobster Ravioli, three corn yellow ravioli served up with a nice chunk of pure lobster meat, three tiny cubes of beetroot. a fat oyster and a garish pink sauce/foam. This was pretty subtle and a touch disappointing. The ravioli were good, combining that lobster sweetness with a hint of the sea, the oyster was very good in a should I really be eating this fashion, the beetroot was pointless, give me a decent slice of the beets so I can really taste it, and the sauce really let it down. It was creamy and pink, possibly under-seasoned and dare I say it, possibly microwaved. I very much doubt this but there was evidence of a skin and it did come out very quickly.

The third course was the beef and this consisted of a beef tartare with beef and polenta. The plate is presented with a tower of tartare, ground raw beef topped with a tapenade topped with a tiny, raw quails egg yolk. To its right sat 2 slices of rareish beef and two diamonds of polenta in a rich brown jus/gravy. One polenta was topped with a tiny slice of truffle. I've never had a tartare before, my fair share of raw beef yes(Yukhoe was one of my first Korean dishes and is still one of my favourites), but never the classic tartare. This was good but the tapenade was a pretty strong flavour and masked pretty much everything else. I guess raw beef and raw egg yolk aren't exactly hammering home their flavours but it just seemed a touch over the top. The grilled beef to the right was everything a meat dish should be in a place like this, perfectly seasoned with a jus/gravy that really brings out the meatiness of it all. The polenta I didn't like. Give me potatoes over grain this just tasted a bit healthy for a plate like this. The truffle was earthy.

We drank a Chianti Classico with this and despite being a 2005 and my fears of it being too young it was a very modern cherry rich glass with a smell of the sweaty leather in there. A good match to the cooked beef, the tapenade herbiness messed with it a bit.

Pudding/Dessert was an apricot thingamybob. It is hard to describe fancy puddings. There was a sorbet whose flavour I couldn't distinguish atop a set vanilla cream atop some poached apricots atop a spongey, biscuity fella. Served with a fantastic, I mean really fantastic, black fruit compote and three cubes of apricot jelly stuff. Like I say, it is difficult to describe fancy puddings. It was good though.

All in all it was a pleasure to be eating in that manner in Seoul. Fine dining is not something that seems to be easy to come by here and I will be honest, I miss it. I don't eat like that often for sure but as an occasional treat there are few more pleasurable ways to spend ones time. Tokyo has just been showered with stars in its first Michelin review. I simply cannot see that happening here. You can eat incredibly well in Korea. Incredibly well. However at the top end of things, when we move out of the peasant, homely cooking that is the basis for all cuisines into the subtle, well presented and exciting, there seems to be nowhere to go. This is a shame. There is food here that could be elevated into the sublime at the hands of a truly skilled chef.

Tables that came in after us all went for the most expensive menu and all had lamb. We need to start seeing lamb here!!!

Christ, that was long. Spring feels like it is coming and I have gone white wine crazy. Wednesday is the next Herald article and it is going to be on a white theme I reckon. Sauv Blanc, Viognier, Chardonnay and Semillion. I just need to find a cheap bottle because everything I have bought recently has been over 20,000. A sign of inflation or something else?

Tyke That!

AHHH! hahahahahaha
ahahhaahaha

hahahaha

Ow.

and.....

Thursday's Herald

That chap above is the Italian 2 Michelin Star chef Gaetano Trovato. Why is he sitting up there stacking crockery? Because he is coming to Seoul to cook for a couple of weeks. Details here. I am not going to miss the chance of eating Michelin rated food here and so have a table booked for the final Saturday. I believe on the Friday he is doing a menu paired with some pretty tasty looking wines but 150,000w is a bit steep for me this month. The lunch is a more palatable 55,000w. No doubt they will try and rob me of my money with the wine list, it is a fact that us drinkers subsidise non-drinkers in restaurants, but I will not be weak. The price I paid for 2 glasses of Champagne in Bangkok has taught me a valuable lesson.

Today sees the third exciting installment of my Herald articles. It can be read here. I'm not going to bother posting it below, I think the editing went well this time with the exception of the "er" before the "they are convenient". I don't use er.
I'm not sure why it has appeared in Thursday’s edition.

SS Wine of the Month Club, DP 96 and a Port as Old as Me.

First off I just want to give a nod to the SS Wine of the Month Club, that's SeoulSteves not Waffen. I missed the tasting of these but it looks to me to be the best of the mixed cases that they have had on offer so far and well worth checking out. So check it.

It was my birthday last month and so I decided to crack open the Dom Perignon 1996 that I had bought in Lotte Department Store, Jamsil, last year. I have a compulsion to buy as much Champagne as I can and I do find it very difficult to resist vintages like the 96. I hadn't intended opening this for some time yet but we had a bottle at Christmas that went down very nicely and Jancis was raving about how well it was drinking and it was my birthday after all so what the hell. Right?

So having cleansed my palate of the Paris Baguette cake I had been shoveling into my face we got stuck into the booze.

It is a fairly deep colour with a persistent mousse that is not that fine, certainly nowhere near the bublleage of the Krug. The nose is knockout, intense honeyed green apples with a yeasty, nutty aspect. A real powerhouse bouquet this.
Just like the Krug this is an incredibly fine, elegant glass of wine. It is full bodied and intense with smooth honey balanced by good acidity and with brilliant length. The finish has apples and an almost creamy vanilla bread sweetness. Jancis calls this 'a caress of a wine' and who am I to disagree.
If you see it, buy it.

The second bottle for review here, and probably the last from my Christmas drinking, is the Quarles Harris Port from 1977, just one year my junior.
Good Port is one of life’s great pleasures I reckon. Vintage Port is one of those wines you really do have to sit on for quite some time, they are hugely tannic and acidic in youth and mellow into a smooth and decadent glass of wine.
After a typical struggle with a cork of this age, half of which was dug out with my mams best cutlery, we decanted and poured a glass of ruby with a cherry, brown tinged rim. Still looking fairly youthful then.
The nose was not fantastic, slightly nutty, slightly fruity with some cherry and cranberry and also ever so slightly vegetal.
To drink it was a delight though. Very fresh cherry/strawberry fruit smoothed over with caramel and a long nutty finish. It was also blessed with a floral quality like Charbonnel et Walker Rose and Violets. After 24 hours it had developed a fantastic dried fig aroma and all in was a very good wine.

So, the end of the Christmas write ups. I bought a 5th growth Bordeaux from 2000 in Hong Kong airport last week in the hope that the 2000 vintage was as good as they say and it is drinking now. I'll let you know.

D'Yquem, Expectations and Tasting Equipment

Chateau d'Yquem, 1988 Sauternes, France Price: No Idea.

He is a nice bloke my old man. We had been in discussions about the Christmas wine and I had spotted a Sauternes at Majestic wine that I thought was going to be pretty spectacular. It seemed the rest of the UK thought so too and so they sold out of the Rieussec before we got chance to pick up a bottle. Not a huge problem, we had plenty of other good bottles to get through and he had picked up some cheaper Sauternes from Marks and Spencers that Jancis had recommended. I was happy enough.
A couple of days after Christmas he is a bit excited and shoots off to another room only to return with two bottles, a Chateau Climens Barsac 1989 and a d'Yquem 1988! Wow! A proper surprise and a really exciting one. The internet reveals Parker points of 90-95 and 99(!) respectively and we start planning when to drink these wonder bottles.

The thing about tasting wine is you need frames of reference. This is why you drink as much as you can and you take notes, they act as an aide memoir and allow you to make comparisons much more easily. The other thing about tasting wine is very often there are many factors that will influence your experience of a bottle. Mood, setting, expectation can all change your experience of a wine. A cheapy Touraine Sauvignon tastes so much better with the sun on your face in a small French town than it does in a flat in Bethnal Green in February.

On opening the d'Yquem I had 2 problems to contend with then, no real frame of reference, I had only ever tasted 2 standard Sauternes before then and expectation, I think I was expecting angels and horns and fruit footed fairies to dance on my tongue. I can confirm now that this did not happen and will so have to wait until I drink a 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild.

So, despite that, how was it? Good!
It was a fairly deep gold, much much deeper than the one year younger Barsac and actually looked a little like Irn Bru. Obviously it clinged to the glass like a new born and really was very pretty. The nose has a real burnt caramel character with obvious honey and apples. It is ever so slightly nutty and had a hint of citrus peel, more orange than lemon. It wasn't very tropical at all and smelled nowhere near as fresh and sprightly as the other, younger Sauternes I had experience with.
This is an incredibly smooth glass of wine, luscious and unctuous it is a real caramel honey drink, I would recommend it if you have a sore throat. Much better than a Locket. I was expecting it to have much more acidity but this could be an example of really well integrated acidity to the extent that I missed it. I have described the length as reasonable, not great but that doesn't seem accurate now, I remember it had a nice pineapple finish and also had a fairly obvious brown apple thing going on. You know, apples that have been cut up and left to oxidise a bit.

My notes are actually really short as I got a bit annoyed with trying to concentrate so much on the flavour I forgot to enjoy the drink. I spent far too long looking into space concentrating on my cheeks. Not a good look. It really did open up and evolve in the glass as well but I just stopped taking notes.

Let's get one thing straight this was an excellent wine and we all really enjoyed it. I suspect it had no chance of living up to my expectation and so the only solution is for me to get another bottle with my expectations lowered suitably. Now all I need to do is raise my bank balance suitably as well.

What's in Your Cabernet?

The Herald article number 2 can be found here and the article submitted can be found below. Given that the my column is only published once a fortnight it really does bring home how rubbish I am at posting usually. I will write up the Sauternes tasting soon though. A couple of people might be interested after all.

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What’s in Your Cabernet?

There was a time when it felt like Cabernet Sauvignon was taking over the world. Every self-respecting New World (Australia, Chile, and North America) vineyard owner was ripping up their vines and re-planting this most distinguished varietal. With good reason too. Cabernet Sauvignon is responsible for arguably the world’s greatest wines.

When we get a true expression of Cabernet Sauvignon we can expect a wine with good primary fruit flavours, most commonly blackcurrant, but also many secondary flavours often very specific to the region or winemaker involved. It is this diversity of flavour combined with its ability to remain so very Cabernet Sauvignon that has led to the wine world’s romance with this grape.

Good Cabernet driven Bordeaux are well out of my price range unfortunately and so I am left with a hunt for reasonably priced expressions of Cabernet Sauvignon. This invariably leads to the New World and more often than not, single varietal wines. Today we have three bottles for review each with suitably different takes on the grape in question.

First up we have the Adobe Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Chile (10,000w, Lotte Dept. Store Myongdong). There was a time when it was a widely held belief that any Chilean Cab Sauv would be good quality at a good price. There are plenty of bottles on the shelves in Korea that belie that belief but fortunately this is not one of them. This is an organic wine from a very strong budget priced Chilean producer. This is a fruit forward wine with blackcurrant so powerful you could be forgiven for thinking you had been given a glass of Ribena (blackcurrant juice). It also has those hints of cedar you might expect but this is not an overly complex wine. On the palate that blackcurrant keeps coming with sour plums and a really good, subtle mint finish. Though it suffers from slightly bitter tannins this is a cracking value bottle of wine. You have seen the price of Organic produce here haven’t you?

The final two bottles are both from a renowned Burgundy producer, Michel Laroche. These are interesting in that one is from France, Laroche Vin De Pays D’Oc 2005 (Vins De Maeils, 16,000w) the other from Chile, Laroche Punto Nino 2005 (Les Vins Maeils, 22,000w). We have an Old World/New World battle from the same producer! The French has a very un-giving nose, not especially fruity with a hint of dried fruit. It has a weedy mouth feel with some raisin and little else. It is not unpleasant but is difficult to recommend. The Chilean is much more upfront with a strong berry driven nose, blueberry, raspberry and strawberry. This is much softer fruit than I would expect though there is a touch of brambly, plum fruit and some subtle vanilla. It has a good, intense palate with tobacco, and bay leaf countering the chocolate and plums. It has really well integrated tannins and is, essentially, a lovely Cabernet Sauvignon.

As a footnote, the Lunar New Year has led to call centres being installed in many wine shops, (what better gift?) so if you can’t find, ask.

Vine, Kabinett and a couple of bargains.

We had a day out and about yesterday which, as always, revolved around wine. We were in the Myeongdong area so were able to hit up a couple of wine shops in a short space of time. Shinsegae department store has a wonderful fine wine area that I had somehow missed in the past. Slightly shambolic and disorganised but with some real cracking bottles well out of my price range.

On to Lotte department store who appear to have put a call centre at the back of the shop. Whilst it bodes well for their business clients I am not sure if the walk through customers are benefiting. It was something of a battle to get near the sale items at the back of the shop, especially as they appear to employ 2 staff for every potential customer. It's a shame because every time I go there I seem to find some pretty good bargains. The Adobe Cabernet Sauvignon pictured above being one. 10,000w for an organically produced wine from a decent Chilean producer. I haven't tasted it yet but I know that in past vintages it was a wine that has punched well above its price point. I also picked up a bottle of South African Cab Sauv, again 10,000w, so I could do a comparison. You can't beat a good comparison.

I find shopping pretty knackering so we had a rest at the Vine wine bar in the Lotte hotel. It is a nice enough little hotel wine bar with pretty unappealing prices. I had a decent Barossa Shiraz at an indecent 24,000w, standard measure. Slightly better value was the Moet at 19,000w though unfortunately it was a little tired. You do get a nice selection of nuts though.

Then it was on to Itaewon to check out Kabinett. It has been reviewed endlessly recently and I won't add to those reviews just yet. I will say that it is a nice enough space, though it did feel like something was missing and that the wines by the glass were a little disappointing. The Groot Constantia Merlot is pretty good though and at a Happy Hour(6-8) price of about 8000w certainly much more palatable than the Vine prices.

The ever useful SeoulSteves have their wine of the month offer on the South African wines this month. Check it out.

Aggh, The Heralds Strangely Grim

Fa la la la laaa, la la la laaaaa.


Edit: Now directly links to the Herald article thanks to EFL Geek. I knew there would be a way around it but I didn't think it would be that simple. 9 years in IT and what do I know? Nothing.

Now don't get me wrong, I am really happy to have the chance to write for a national newspaper and I really appreciate what the Herald has done. It is me that is the problem. I mean, I had nightmares about this last night. I should be excited to see my name in print for the first time since I did a poem for a local newspaper when I was 12. I should be, yet I just feel a great unease. My name there. My thoughts there. Appalling! I suspect that it is some cowardly belief that if you put your head above the parapet you are going to get shot at.

However, it is good to see the article published with very few changes. Next time, 2 weeks now folks, I will provide my own strap line if I can. I am not sure if beating up on the national drink in big black letters is such a great idea myself.

Anyway, parents, here is the link to the Heralds version. You need to click the Expat Living tab on the left, underneath Weekly. I still can't direct link, if anyone knows how..........

And here is the version I submitted to them this very Saturday:

It is an exciting time to be a wine drinker in Korea. Whilst you are sure to have frustrations, be they related to price or to range, it is difficult not to get caught up with the sheer enthusiasm in this rapidly developing market. When flicking through the TV channels it is no surprise to see a smartly be-suited man or woman wearing white gloves explaining to an eagerly nodding presenter about the joys of the particular bottle. They nod, smile, sniff and let out an appreciative 'Waahh!'. I love it. Pretentious, naff and ever so slightly silly yes, but it sure beats the hell out of Soju shots and beer bombs.

Wine lovers are much like record or book collectors, we love the thrill of the hunt. Perusing bottle after bottle, vintage after vintage, looking for that one stand out bottle that manages to combine great quality at a great price. If you can throw out some preconceived notions of how much a bottle of wine should cost, be your currency Dollars or Pounds, and work solely in Won then the bargains are here to be had. Whilst there is no alternative to the "Three Buck Chuck", in the 10 to 20,000 won range there is plenty of real quality and in the 20 to 50,000 won range you are spoilt for choice. Relatively speaking.

At this time of year it is traditional to turn your back on the finer things in life in the name of fitness(diet) and health(drink). The traditional January abstinence is all very well and good but as one of the more miserable months on the calendar I say why not instead embrace life's pleasures and save yourself the guilt of failure. Certainly it may be good to drink less but let's all drink better. Put down that pitcher, shy away from the soju and instead enjoy "Wine that maketh glad the heart of man."(The Book of Psalms, 104:15). My intention with this column is to highlight the wines that I think are worth drinking at the best prices I can find. There will be no 100 point rating system, merely a description and an opinion, wine is highly subjective and there is very rarely a right or wrong opinion on a particular bottle.

So, for this inaugural column we get to the first review and an absolute stand out bottle in terms of price. Argentinian wines are making some headway in the specialist wine shops and convenience stores here and this is good news for us consumers. There are a number of poor quality Chilean wines on the market and so the introduction of some South American competition can only lead to a boost in quality levels. The 2006 Alamos Malbec(11,000 won,Shindong wines, Hyundai department stores and elsewhere) is a textbook new world Malbec. Deep red in colour it offers up a good nasal hit of black fruit, blackcurrant and black cherry underpinned with some chocolate notes. This all follows through on the palate in a lovely, soft and fruity style that is wonderfully approachable. It is the kind of bottle that you will finish without realising. There is an Alamos Pinot at the same price which is also rather good and trust me, is a steal at the price.

Krug Grand Cuvee

Krug Grand Cuvee NV.
Champagne, France.

Having been upgraded to business class on our Asiana flight to Heathrow Christmas got off to a good start in terms of Champagne consumption. They really do ply you with booze at the front of the plane! The Champagne on-board was Charles Heidseck, one of my favourite cheaper non vintage Champagnes. It is quite a rich, toasty style but has an excellent level of fruit to carry it through. It was much more satisfying than the single can of Cass I had in cattle class coming back.

Christmas 2007 was very much the booze Christmas at my house and one of the highlights for me was the Krug we had on Christmas eve. People talk about Krug a lot, for people in the wine industry it seems to be the favourite of all the Champagnes and I had been itching to try it. However the price is a little out of my reach. A staff discount and generous parents meant that this was my year to try.

It comes in a beautiful box and the bottle itself is very appealing. It is all very decadent. The mousse is very fine, tiny and persistent bubbles in a fairly deep, almost straw coloured wine. The nose is not the most giving of Champagnes I have had, it has delicate yeasty characteristics with a little apple and citrus.

When you take your first drink it is instantly apparent you are drinking a fine, fine Champagne. The first thought I had was elegant. It has very smooth, frothy bubbles with superb acidity and wonderfully balanced body and alcohol. It is supremely easy to drink and had, as my old man put it, "No edges". You get a good burst of fruit that is actually quite red, cherries at the forefront, followed by green fruit and citrus on the mid-palate with a long toasted nut finish.

This really is as good as they say. Drinking it next to another NV Champagne is very unfair and I certainly now have a favourite Champagne. My poor wallet. I am not sure what the best price in Korea is but lets just call it expensive. If you have something to celebrate and are a fan of the fizz I would say it is worth it anyway. What price pleasure eh?

Tuesday should see my first article in the new expat guide section of the Korea Herald. Given that this was meant to be a diary of my drinking I am a little uneasy about it all but also excited. Parker had better watch his back.

Christmas 2007

Yes, Christmas 2007 was a beezer one for a boozer like me. I drank some real quality and just wish I had more time to get more in. I will post up some of the notes I made, Krug, Dom Perignon 96, Barsac and d'Yquem. They have little relation to my drinking in Korea but this is as good a place as any to gloat.

Pictured above is something far more humble but a real revelation for me, Sloe Gin. This was home made using handpicked South Downs sloes and London Gin by my parents. Given my fathers autistic meticulousness and my mothers abilities as a cook then it was always going to be good. Oh, it was good.

Now this is a Christmas drink, a beautiful deep, almost opaque, red it fair clings to the glass. That will be the alcohol and the sugar. On the nose there is little clue you are essentially drinking neat Gin. The botanics are masked by the intense fruitiness of the plum aromas. There is also a hint of almond that due to the sweetness is reminiscent of marzipan. I'd drink that!
It manages to be very tart and also very sweet, the perfect combination of mouthwatering fruit with sugary smoothness. It is like essence of stewed plums with almonds and a nicely integrated alcoholic backbone. It really is a great Christmas drink and is a throw back to fruit puddings you may have eaten as a child.

I have never seen Sloe Gin here and am pretty sure you cannot get hold of the fruit either. I am going to do some research to see if sloes can be replaced with particularly tart plums but I suspect that this is an import only prospect. A shame really as it is the sort of experience you want others to share.

Contrasting Countries Drink Safety Campaigns

Thanks to Mongdori for this find. I have no idea what they are singing about, though I did understand the part about the headache.



In the UK at Christmas we get much more sombre and hard hitting drink driving campaigns. Worth taking note of.....

Korea's Taste for Expensive Wines Growing

So says the Chosun Ilbo here.

Great to see growth and although I advocate spending more on each bottle of wine I hope it isn't all put out of balance by the top-top end. It still amazes me when I see the 1,000,000 won bottles of white Burgundy from not that great vintages. Somebody, somewhere, is getting right royally ripped off.

Champagne Supernova

Christmas is nearly upon us and so it is a time to think about the serious business of drinking. Baby Jesus was born unto us so we would have an excuse to get blind drunk and vomit on the boss's shoes? No?

Well, it is a time for spending that little bit extra on our drink and I have found a couple of bargains for you. I haven't hunted down quite so much this year as I will be spending Christmas back in Blighty but will pass on my discoveries none the less.

The best discovery of the year by far is affordable non-vintage Champagne. Lotte department store have a sale on fizz that sees Lanson Black Label at 43,000 won and another even cheaper bottle at 41,000 won that I can't remember the name of. Lanson Black Label is a decent Champagne, good acidity with a crisp green apple character and a delicate yeasty nose. Perfect for Christmas.
The star Champagne find for me though is Pol Roger NV for 60,000won. You won't find it much cheaper than that in the UK and Pol Roger is a lovely rich style of Champagne, floral and soft with zesty fruit and real depth.

For reds I really recommend getting to a Hyundai department store and investigating Shindong wines Argentinians. The Alamos Malbec and Pinot are stunning value at 11,000 won and both offer a perfect easy drinking style. With the money you save on these you can stretch to another bottle of Champagne no? If you fancy something a little more robust then the wine store in Shinsegae department store has some good Australians to work on. Saltram Next Chapter Barossa Shiraz offers up a well structured fruity and spicy text book Shiraz at 29,000 won and if you can stretch a bit further they have Wynns of Coonawara wines starting at 40,000 won. It will be money well spent.

The last bottle I would recommend is the Royal Tokaji Aszu 5 puttonyos. At 40,000 won it is a little over priced(actually, a lot over priced) but there is something incredibly decadent and satisfying about a good dessert wine at Christmas. It has fantastic acidity and really is an amber nectar; honey, orange, spices and all that is nice in one glass. If you think you don't like sweet wines this is a glass that will change your mind.

Merry Christmas!

Wine and Korean Food.

Chalk and cheese up there ^.

Jancis Robinson has done a couple of articles on Korea recently and one dealt with the issue of matching wine to Korean food. The first point worth making about this is the rather dismissive way in which we Westerners deal with the food of the East. We have this tendency to lump the cuisine of huge and diverse nations into a catch all phrase and so talk about Chinese food and Korean food. Whilst it is fair to see certain ingredients and methods in each countries cuisines when it comes to wine matching the method becomes somewhat redundant. Do we talk about matching wine to French food or to Italian food? No, we talk about matching wine to individual dishes. The match for Boeuf Bourguignon and Bouillabaisse are not the same. So, the match for Bibimbap and Bulgogi will not be the same. There is one other point worth making about the matching of wine and Korean food and that is the prevalence of Banchan. We have found the perfect wine to drink with our Dweji Galbi and then we have sides of crab, pancake, creamy salad and of course kimchi. That lovingly selected bottle of New Zealand Pinot is suddenly a little overwhelmed.

Can a match be made then? Of course, if we talk about individual dishes. For your grilled meats, bulgogi, galbi et all, you are looking for a fruity, low tannin red, the aforementioned NZ Pinot Noir being a good example of this.

For seafood we need to be looking to a thirst quencher with brisk acidity. Rieslings will fit the bill perfectly and may have enough acidity to cope with some of the spices. Bear in mind that overly spicy food, like the bul dak, are going to be too much for any wine. Go for the beer or soju.

Finally, this website here, recommends sherry with Korean tapas. I can certainly see that the strength of flavour of a good sherry might be able to stand up to some of the bolder flavours. So, head over to Les Vins Maeils an pick up some sherry, we need to be supporting the pioneers!

The Jancis Robinson article was based on information from Jeanine Cho Lee, soon to be Asia's first Master of Wine. It is great to have a Korean born woman pioneering in the Asian wine world and as someone who is studying for the WSET Diploma, considered one step behind Master of Wine(heh, get me!), I have nothing but respect for her commitment and dedication to her studies. Being outside of the wine industry and in a developing country, in terms of wine, makes it all the more difficult. Fair play to her.

"....so gauche, so crashingly crass...."

Not related to Korea in any way and not really related to wine but this story caught my eye this morning. If you had a spare £35,000, an odd $70,000, a meagre 70,000,000 won lying around then what better way to spend it than on a single drink. It actually doesn't sound very good to me, certainly it is not very imaginative and we all know that Rosé Champagne is a right rip off. Don't we? I would be worried about the diamond ring as well. I reckon if I were to buy this drink I would have to be pretty drunk already so there is a good chance I am going to choke on it.

I have had Cristal before. I can't really remember it but I seem to recall it being a little underwhelming. Interesting thing about Cristal, the reason it comes in a clear bottle is it was created for Tsar Alexander the Second who was worried that people wanted to 'do him in'. Therefore he demanded that the bottles were made clear so a bomb couldn't be hidden in them/poison couldn't be hidden in them(I have heard both stories), the bottles were made with crystal glass hence the name. I actually think they look quite unappealing when unwrapped from their lucozade style wrapping.

The most I have ever spent on a single drink? Probably £14 for a glass of champagne in the Mandarin Oriental, London. I have also spent £8 on a pint of Stella here. I am pretty sure that doesn't represent value.

I am very excited about the fight tomorrow. I believe they are showing it on KBS sports here. I will be cheering Hatton on eating chip butties and drinking Duvel. Neither gauche nor crashingly crass but perhaps ever so slightly vulgar.

The Argentinians Are Coming

Look how happy every ones favourite Argentinian looks. That is a bit like me in Hyundai Shindong wines the other day.

There are an increasing number of Argentinian wines kicking about in Korea. This is great news. Whilst they don't necessarily make the worlds great fine wines I think that they currently offer better bang for your buck than the oft lauded Chilean wines. I will write up a proper tasting for some of these but we have had an Argento Cabernet Sauvignon which was fruity, uncomplicated and absolutely delicious. Buy The Way about 17,000 won.

Shindong wines, which appears to have a branch in every Hyundai department store are currently having something of a sale. The highlights? The Argentinians. Alamos Malbec and Alamos Pinot Noir, 11,000won. A Pinot for 11,000 won is pretty incredible. I haven't tried the Pinot yet but the Malbec is a great, slightly green peppery, black fruit wine which would be excellent with a good Argentinian steak.


Spanish Wines on the Rise

The Korea Herald, who annoyingly won't let me link directly to a page so you have to click weekender on the left and then click the article on Spanish wines, has an article on Spanish wines. Not all that interesting except for one line :- "According to Bada, the Protos Verdejo 2006 is selling in Korea now." I haven't seen this but another new white varietal coming on sale has to be good news. With this and the arrival of the Argentinians perhaps we can look forward to seeing some Torrontes too.

Valdespino Inocente Fino Sherry

Valdespino Inocente Fino Sherry, Spain, Les Vins Maeils, Jamsil. 20,000won(ish)

The time has come. The moment we have all been waiting for. The Sherry post. I get my hands on the drink forever associated with old women, tramps and Father Christmas. With the Sherry Institute, many notable restaurateurs, importers and the wine trade all banging away at how fashionable and food friendly Sherry really is I have been beaten. I am convinced that this is the perfect, complex, aged wine at a reasonable price that I have been looking for.

As far as I am aware the only place to get hold of sherry in Korea is from Les Vins Maeils. With the coming of Tapas bars here perhaps we can look forward to seeing more, though I have yet to visit a Tapas place in Seoul and so cannot vouch for their authenticity. Getting hold of something that I previously couldn't is a real bonus though and gives me hope for better variety across the board as the Wine industry here grows.

Sherry is an interesting wine, the process of vinification is fairly complex with a solera system that guarantees consistency within the product year after year. It means that although there is no vintage date on the wine, due to blending across the vintage, you are getting a wine that has been aged for at least three years. Usually at a very reasonable price.

The Inocente Fino, pictured above, is produced by Valdespino, the oldest Jerez bodega has around 700 years history of making the stuff. You would hope they have mastered the art. Thankfully I think they have. Unfortunately I am not sure I like it so much.

It is a pale straw colour in the glass with legs giving an indication of the 15% alcohol. I really liked the nose on this. It is very, very nutty. It has pistachio, almost like Pistachio ice cream, walnut, a little leather, yeast and an appealing fresh wet wood thing going on. Lots to think about and really nice then.

In the mouth it is quite delicate, light bodied with really well integrated alcohol. You get a bitter, green olive burst which is quickly chased away by a long Willy Wonkaesque finish. It is like Christmas days nut mix with almonds, walnuts, pistachio and the freshly polished leather of the seat you are sitting in. It keeps on giving with some vanilla tones which adds to the ice cream hints on the nose and has a slightly herbal quality to it.

When I describe this wine I love it. In fact when I was doing the tasting note I loved it. It was only when I was sitting in front of the TV just having a drink that I decided I didn't like it. It is just a bit much maybe. I suspect it will definitely benefit from pairing with food, see the link above, but I can't imagine too many situations where this is the drink I would want to crack open. The aromas and flavours are fantastic, complex and well balanced but there is something just so.......Sherry about it.

I would recommend trying a bottle. It is an interesting and really well made bottle of wine. Just have an occasion to open it. It is not a wine to drink whilst watching the footy.

The New Look.

Having updated the look of the blog I could do with some feedback. If you had an epilectic fit reading the above then let me know and I will change the black. I am conflicted. I quite like the black but suspect it is not so easy on the eye.

Beaujolais Nouveau

Thorin Beaujolais Nouveau 2007
Burgundy, France.
16,000won GS Mart

Ahem. One, two. One two. Is this thing on?

November came and November has pretty much gone with Wine Korea neglecting his duties terribly. I apologise unreservedly.

November, the third Thursday in November to be exact, sees the release of Beaujolais Nouveau(BN from now on), a wine made from Burgundy's third grape, Gamay. Japan and Germany are the two biggest markets but Korea is a real growth area and the posters are up in all the convenience stores and wine bars are doing their promotions.

I had never tried BN before. I have tasted Grand Cru Beaujolais and found them OK in a 'I am not really bothered if I try this again' sort of way. They lack a bit of depth but perhaps I have never tried a great one. However, when your local Family Mart owner excitedly tells you about his new wine you have to ask yourself two questions, do I drink too much and should I be trying this exciting new(NOUVEAU!) drink. Yes to both questions and so I bought from GS Mart in order to hide any alcoholic tendencies from Mr Kim. I baulked at the 16,000 won price tag but figured it was the equivalent of three pitchers of Prime Max and can you put a price on new experiences?

It comes in a very exciting bottle, it seems very festive and has explosions of fireworks or flowers or something. It felt like an occasion! In the glass it is very pale, as you would expect. Beaujolais is produced using a process called carbonic maceration(I won't go into the details here) which essentially means there is little colour and tannin extraction going on. It looks like pop.

It has a bubblegum nose with bananas that are just about to be inedible. It is fruity as well with typical red fruit smells, confected strawberry and cherry. Also smelling like old skool alcopops (before they had worked out how to make alcohol taste good for kids) and swimming pools, it is not the most appealing bouquet.

Drinking is not much better I am afraid. Thin and sharp with no body to speak of you get cranberry juice and a follow through of strawberries and cherries but I couldn't get past the vomit like quality. I don't like my wines to taste of sick. Apparently 2007 was a reasonable vintage and I know it is a simple wine that is meant to be short of body and length but I just can't help thinking you could spend your money in so many better ways. I saw a bottle of Chilean Pinot Noir for 20,000won in Jamsil and though I haven't tasted it I am almost certain it will be another light, fruity red but with bags more character than BN.

I picked up a sherry! 20,000 won(ish) for a half bottle of Fino. I thought it was quite over priced until I checked the internet and saw that this is actually a very fair price. I have my almonds ready and will do a tasting this weekend. I know you are all very excited.

Oh! Also check out SeoulSteves for a Pieroth wine deal. They have put together a monthly wine club at Kabinett and a half case offer. It reminds me I must check out the bar and put together my own Christmas wine list.