Tuesday 28 April 2009

Majuang Red Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

Gyeongsan, Korea, cork seal

Korean wine? Well I suppose in a country with such ridiculously high import duties even the Soju scullers need the odd cheap bottle of vino or two. A bit of research on the web indicates that the Majuang's range account for 15% of wine sales in Korea though at one stage of their 32 year history they accounted for 90% of wine sales in Korea. I grabbed this last year at Chinese New Year when I visited Korea; I can't remember exactly how much I paid, but I think it was about HK$100 from a convenience store.

This is dark in colour and definitely on the blood red side of things. The nose is pretty faint, but the predominant smell is cassis with a little whiff of bacon and green vegetables. It was initially tight and bitter, but opened up a little in the decanter. It tastes of black berries with faint traces of spice, plum and dried currents, but it's really pretty half hearted. There's a silkiness to this that suggests a few splinters in the mix, but rather than adding flavour the oak just makes it a little easier to chuck down. OK so this is big, full bodied and long, but it's also bitter, devoid of flavour and not particularly tasty.

Visit the strange, strange website listed on the bottle.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy 2010 to you, Andrew.

John D

Andrew said...

Hey John

Thanks mate. I hope you've enjoyed yourself over the Christmas/New Year period. I'm not really sure that I'm impressed to be back at work, but at least there's plenty of good things to blog about from a holiday in Australia.

Cheers
Andrew

Anonymous said...

I had a bottle of this wine in Korea and regretted it.

I agree about the bitter, vegetable quality. Almost rosemary, basil, fenugreek grape.

I was intrigued at first by this novel character, but this wine made me quite sick the next day.
The grapes retain something of Korea's stubborn red clay and the almost tropical humidity of its summers.

Good wines come from dry climates. This one put a pervasive and cloying dampness in my gut.