Korean Kiwi Wine

It's festival season in Jinju. From Yesterday until the 12th of this month, Jinju will be saturated with people looking at floating lanterns, or people competing in sporting events.

The wife an I took a stroll down to the Drama/Lantern festival today. It was raining so we didn't cover the full distance. We stopped at a booth that was promoting local products.

Part of my wife's job is that she helps train Korean kiwi farmers. Her company takes people down to New Zealand to learn all about Kiwis.

In the past she told me about this Kiwi wine product. I had never tried it before, but it is for sale in the Jinju Galleria department store.

This product is called "Da Lrae." 다래, is the Korean name for the species of Kiwi that is used in this wine. This particular wine comes from the city just south of Jinju called Sacheon.

Most of the time when you think of Korean wines, you think of rice wines like makeoli, dong dong ju, or bub joo. I like all of those things. Korea also produces bok boon ja, and maeshil. I enjoy maeshil, because it is nice and tangy. Bok boon ja is a bit too sweet.

Then there is the disaster known as Jinro house wine. I'm pretty sure that stuff is just soju with grape drink poured into it.

Anyway back to the Kiwi stuff. This stuff is pretty good. It has a real dry wine essence. It actually tastes like wine, but it kind of leaves you wanting to taste some grape in the flavor. It doesn't matter though because it is satisfying without the grape.

It has a really fresh and clean taste to it, and the color is like any chardonnay.

Long story short. If you want to send something home to the folks, friends, or if you live in Seoul and you have some Korean co-workers who you want to impress after you take a visit down to the south coast, get them this stuff. It's pretty delicious. This is a myung poom item to the max.

I don't know if you can get it in other parts of Korea, but it is for sale at Jinju's Galleria department store. They also have a booth with the Bio 21 center at Jinju's drama fest. It was 20,000 per bottle.

All the more reason to get ur asses down here for the Jinju festivals.