How do you create a wine culture where none exists? South Koreans have had a long history of a drinking culture, favoring Soju, a distilled spirit similar to vodka but very cheap. Wine was not on the table, not even in five star restaurants or hotels as recently as the 1990s. That didn’t deter Hi Sang Lee. He is a very patient man. He wanted to share his newly found love of fine wine with friends in Korea. Lee’s wine moment happened on a ski trip with friends in Stowe, Vermont. Up to this point Lee really wasn’t a drinker. One of his wine loving friends opened some good French wine. “It was like paradise,” Lee says, and the wine bug bit. He began buying wine, storing it in a friend’s basement. But he had a problem. How to get it back home to South Korea? “So I started a…
Indie Wineries: Discovering Artisanal Wines Around the World
Some call them garagistes, boutique producers, even rebels bucking the system. These are international winemakers crafting handmade wines on very small scale — sometimes just hundreds of cases, to just under 4500 cases, versus the millions of cases pumped out by the big industrial wineries of the world. They’re producing beautiful, lovely, interesting bottles. Most of these wines would never even make it out of the home country, let alone the local region. They’re the wines you might discover on travels in Italy or France, wines the locals drink. Otherwise, you’d never know they existed. Until now. Indie Wineries is an up an coming wine importer, bringing unique, artisanal wines to the United States market. You know how you go to a party or event and your wine loving friend pulls you aside and says, hey I’ve got this special bottle stashed away I want you to try? …