OK, so was visiting my mother in-law's new house on an island near Incheon, South Korea and I see some advertisements for local wine around. Knowing that Korea isn't exactly famous for wine production I'm skeptical but willing to give it a shot.
So we stop by a vineyard selling grapes (Korean table grapes are a LOT more like wine/juice grapes than American ones) and a bunch of other stuff and ask them about wine and they pull out a sample. Strong alcohol smell and taste and really sweet. Tastes exactly like grape juice mixed with soju (for soju imagine ****ty vokda mixed 50/50 with sugar water, nasty stuff 40-50 proof or so) because that's exactly what it was. I tell SWMBO that. She tells the dude that, he strongly denies it and pulls out another bottle for a sample. Tastes like slightly aged wine/soju mix. Better but still incredibly obvious that it never saw a speck of yeast.
SWMBO ended up buying a two liter bottle and then not drinking barely any of it. Sigh... At least it was cheap ($13 IIRC).
That's why you get a lot of comments about "adding the alcohol" when homebrewing here in Korea, because that's exactly how a lot of people make their "wine." Strangely enough, a lot of those "wines" taste OK if aged two years, the sweetness fades a bit and the alcohol smell and taste recedes. Still not good, but the blackberry "wines" are decent for a desert wine.
So we stop by a vineyard selling grapes (Korean table grapes are a LOT more like wine/juice grapes than American ones) and a bunch of other stuff and ask them about wine and they pull out a sample. Strong alcohol smell and taste and really sweet. Tastes exactly like grape juice mixed with soju (for soju imagine ****ty vokda mixed 50/50 with sugar water, nasty stuff 40-50 proof or so) because that's exactly what it was. I tell SWMBO that. She tells the dude that, he strongly denies it and pulls out another bottle for a sample. Tastes like slightly aged wine/soju mix. Better but still incredibly obvious that it never saw a speck of yeast.
SWMBO ended up buying a two liter bottle and then not drinking barely any of it. Sigh... At least it was cheap ($13 IIRC).
That's why you get a lot of comments about "adding the alcohol" when homebrewing here in Korea, because that's exactly how a lot of people make their "wine." Strangely enough, a lot of those "wines" taste OK if aged two years, the sweetness fades a bit and the alcohol smell and taste recedes. Still not good, but the blackberry "wines" are decent for a desert wine.