Korea is a country at the far eastern extremity of East Asia, situated on a large peninsula jutting southwards from north-eastern China. It has been divided into North Korea and South Korea since 1945, when the country was liberated by the Allied Forces from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule. From north to south the Korean Peninsula measures 500 miles (800km), and on average just less than half that from east to west. Its west coast faces China across the Yellow Sea, while its east coast is separated from Japan by just 100 miles.
Korea's latitude (33–41 degrees south) aligns it with Spain in the northern hemisphere and the North Island of New Zealand in the southern hemisphere. Just like these two world-class wine regions (which also measure approximately 500 miles from north to south), Korea is bounded on two sides by ocean. Given these commonalities, one might be forgiven for assuming Korea is a prime viticultural area bursting with potential, like New Zealand less than a century ago. But in reality, the complexities of climatology and terroir go far beyond latitude, scale and coastal location. The vastness of the neighboring Asian continent is hard to overstate, and its effect on the climate is substantial. Korean winters are cold and harsh, while summers are warm and humid. These conditions are not conducive to quality viticulture: if vines survive the freezing and thawing of winter, they are faced with months of fungal diseases and vineyard pests throughout the summer and autumn. Very little wine of export quality is made on the Korean Peninsula, and only in certain isolated pockets is quality viniculture practicable at all.
Despite these challenges, Korea has long been a producer of table grapes. Its first ventures into the wine world were as recent as 1977, when the DooSan Baekwha beverages group established its Majuang label. The main varieties used for this early venture are Riesling and several strains of Muscat, the grape family which seems to have found its way to almost every tropical wine region on earth. Plantings remain small, however, because of the cost of transporting grapes from multiple far-flung locations, which drives prices up and quality down.
Korea's first wine was produced for religious reasons (this story is also common to almost all countries in South America, including modern wine giants Chile and Argentina), as the country's Catholic population grew during the 20th century. In the 2005 census one in three South Koreans listed their religion as Christianity, and Korea's main wine consumer base sits within this demographic. As the nation becomes increasingly industrialized, Westernized and commercialized, so the interest in foreign wine imports increases.
The preferred alcoholic beverage of most Koreans is soju, which is often compared to Japan's sake. Like sake, soju is a rice wine at its core, but it can also be made with additions of other starchy ingredients such as sweet potato, tapioca and cereal grains. Soju was present in Korea long before the arrival of the Japanese Empire; the drink was the legacy of a much older invasion, that of the Mongols in the late 13th century. At that time it was seen more as a medicine than a luxury beverage. The ceremony and tradition around soju drinking are elaborate, and bear a striking resemblance to those seen just across the sea in Japan.
