Tintoralba’s Cooperative Blog
November 18th, 2007
South Korea, Seoul
Bodegas Tintoralba finally did it! We have started a blog.
Together with some 30 wine and food producers from Spain, we arrived today at the Shilla Hotel. Currently, it’s 1:25 am, and as a result of my jet lag, I’m completely awake, so I thought I should write my first official “Tintoralba post”.
We really have no idea what to expect from this Spanish “showroom” as it is called by the organizing body ICEX (Wines from Spain + Foods From Spain). Nevertheless, the quality level of the wines is high. I took a quick look around in the wine room, where tomorrow (19 November at 9:30 am) will start the show. Castaño, Agapito Rico, Barahonda, Finca los Aljibes, Sonsierra, Castiblanque, La Purisima, Resalte, Fontana, are some of the wineries I recall seeing around the room.
South Korea has become a popular country for wine exports. The wine consumption grows annually in the double digits. South Korea, and especially Seoul, where 10 of the 40 million Koreans live is certainly one of the cities to be in Asia, together with Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Lucky for us, we already have some imports in Asia. In Korea, we have been working since 2006 with Wine Castle. In Japan, Mottox has been our importer over the past three years. And a month ago, I met Solymer in Singapore, who just started working with us. The reason why I’m here is to meet my importer and to visit his department stores called Homever, in addition to learning from the Koreans who enjoy Spanish wine.
In general, Spain is not doing very well yet in Asia. France has a dominant position, especially as far as the top wines are concerned. At this moment, Chilean wines are very popular. Just for your information: the prices of Chilean wines in Korea are much lower that any other wine because of a bilateral agreement in commerce between Korea and Chile. So in a way, I’m still not much further in my investigation.
Well, let’s see what happens tomorrow… oh well, in a few hours.
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