Staff at Casa del Vino wine bar in Seoul highlight the youth and drive of wine consumption in Seoul.
Something is happening in the Korean wine market. It’s not happening overnight, but I see and feel a ground swell of excitement for drinking wine, especially in consumers in their 20s and 30s.
I just spent 10 days in Seoul and the energy for and interest in wine has never been higher. This is why we are debuting the Great Wines of the World event in Seoul on October 29 at the Four Seasons, as well as returning to Hong Kong and Beijing.
“It’s a much more dynamic market now,” admits Kiho Byun, the head of Winenara, one of the biggest fine wine importers in Korea. “It’s really part of the pop culture now. Wine means a high-end and sophisticated lifestyle. More and more young people are drinking wine, especially women.”
If the turnout for the JamesSuckling.com Naver party at Casa del Vino wine bar in Seoul for the Great Wines of the World last week was any indication, then Byun is certainly not exaggerating. I spoke to about 100 wine lovers and vintners at the event. Most were in their 20s. And I was impressed with their enthusiasm and interest in wine.
“We were lucky enough to win the draw on Naver to come to this reception and we were so excited,” said a female student from Seoul University. She and her friend just started drinking wine and enthused about all the fun they were having. “We go to a lot of small wine bars in the center of Seoul that offer wines by the glass. We want to learn as much as possible about wine.”
The Korean wine market is a healthy one at about 40 million liters of table wine imported per year, according to official government figures for 2018. It grew just about every year in the last five years with an increase of about 16 percent in 2018 compared to 2017. Chile remains the most important supplier of wine to Korea as it has no real domestic wine production. One out of every three bottles of wine imported to Korea is from Chile. France follows with about 15 percent and Italy and Spain at about 14 percent. The United States is at about 10 percent and Australia at about 7 percent.
Korea’s wine growth opportunity
Free trade agreements have been an important factor in the wine market’s consistent growth in recent years. These have reduced the import taxes and duties by about 15 percentage points to around 50 percent of the import value. Most of the key wine producing countries have a trade agreement with the exception of Argentina and South Africa. About four out of five bottles are consumed in Seoul, according to local importers and distributors. Most are sold in supermarkets and wine shops as well as department stores.
Selections of wines are growing. I can only give anecdotal observations on this, but the selections in key wine shops in Seoul including department stores such as Shinsegae are equal to those elsewhere, from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, and are often even better for some American wines. Restaurants and wine bars are important for wine sales in Seoul.
A recent trend is small pubs selling wines by the glass instead of beer. The costs are kept to a few dollars a glass to accompany simple dishes and snacks. The best wine lists are in top Western restaurants but Michelin-starred Korean establishments have good wine programs as well. Markups are usually about 2.5 to three times the purchase price, which is high compared to Hong Kong or other Asian markets. But I seem to always find interesting bottles to drink in restaurants.
Rare wines available in Korea
A recent addition to the wine Seoul wine scene is a the JW Marriott hotel in Gangnam which features about 4,000 selections in its Margaux Grill restaurant.
“After working in Hong Kong, I was surprised to find the availability of so many exciting bottle, even very hard to find wines,” admits Benjamin Barraclough, the head sommelier of the restaurant. I ate at the restaurant a few days ago and was happy to find a 2015 Yvon Metras Fleurie on the list at about US$100, a trendy Beaujolais that’s even hard to find in the most esoteric of wine bars in New York City.
Many high-end wine drinkers bring their own bottles. Corkage fees range from $10-20 a bottle to a percentage of the retail value – something I have never heard of, but have to admit is an original way to price corkage!
All in all, Korea is a fascinating wine market with solid growth due to a growing consumer base of young and affluent consumers. I love the enthusiasm of the young drinkers I meet. They really want to know what to drink and enjoy. A generational change in the wine trade also appears to have been helpful where vintners are more interested in growing the market than maintaining the status quo.
Maybe all this is why our first Great Wines of the World event in Seoul is already almost sold out with 700 people signed up.
– James Suckling, CEO & editor
