Look at the wine.
Get drunk with the wines various fine colors.
After filling 2/3 of the cup with wine, observe the turbidity (the degree of clarity) and color.
Turbidity differs from one wine to another, but a good wine is clear and not cloudy.
The basic color of traditional Korean wine is gold. The lighter the color of the wine is, the more natural its taste, and the stronger the color of the wine is, the stronger its taste. The colors of the wines vary depending on the color of the ingredients, such as red medicinal herbs and purple flower leaves.
The Korean ancestors found the wines colors very beautiful; they thus named the wines baekhaju (its color makes it seem like a white haze) and nokpaju (its color seems like ocean blue).
Smell the fragrance of the wine.
Get drunk with the fragrance of the wine.
The way of smelling the fragrance of the wine is as follows:
First, put the cup near your nose and smell the wines basic fragrance.
Then gently swirl the cup around and smell the various fragrances in the wine
The most basic fragrance is from nuruk. The fragrance differs depending on the ingredients that are used and where they are from. The fragrance of nuruk is very important. According to your taste preference, you can choose yakju. Moreover, you can smell the fragrance of apples and pears, of the acacia flower, of mandarin, of medicinal herbs, or of rice, depending on the ingredients. The light fragrance of fruits such as apples and pears is generated from the process of fermentation and is rich in yakju maturated in a low temperature.
Taste the wine.
Enjoy the smooth aftertaste of the wine.
The sweet and sour tastes of traditional Korean wines are inclined to be stronger.
The wines brewed through the traditional method would be sweeter and sourer.
It is not correct to say, however, that traditional Korean wines are too sweet or too sour because traditional Korean wines have unique tastes. Generally, the six kinds of tastes are present in such wines, such as sweet, sour, acerbic, gusuhan mat (a Korean word that refers to a tempting taste that stimulates ones appetite), bitter, and hot and refreshing. Certain tastes are not too strong or too weak, but these six tastes should get along well together and will make the best wines.
The Western grape wine quickly ferments, and its taste easily passes from dry to sweet according to the amount of the remaining glucose. The alcohol percentage and sweetness of the traditional Korean wines depend on the number of distillation processes that are conducted. When the alcohol percentage goes beyond a certain point, because the speed of glucose formation exceeds the speed of alcohol dissolution, only sweetness is left.
TIP : Generally, stopping normal fermentation on purpose generates a component that causes headaches. When choosing yakju based on the degree of sweetness, therefore, check where the sweetness is coming from: whether from an artificial sweetener or from deotsulbeop.
What is deotsulbeop? As the yeast dissolves in alcohol, its sweetness decreases. Rice (or another ingredient) and nuruk are then added and are fermented again. The alcohol percentage will differ depending on the amount of rice (or other ingredients) and nuruk added.
The sour taste of traditional Korean wines is due to the various organic acids that they contain, such as lactic acid, citric acid, malic acid, and succinic acid, based on the formation of microorganisms or lactic-acid bacteria, and on the progress of the fermentation, which is benign and refreshing as it is natural.
TIP : When the wine is too sour or smells like very old kimchi or vinegar, it could have been acidified and spoiled via contamination by microorganisms. Therefore, smell the wine before tasting it.
You can taste the bitterness, acerbity, gusuhan mat, and hot taste of yakju.
The bitter taste is the result of the metabolism of the yeast and other ingredients, but it could be caused by the addition of medicinal herbs. A slightly bitter taste stimulates the appetite and refreshes the mouth after eating.
Acerbity is similar to the taste of persimmon or acorn. It goes well with side dishes made of meat.
Gusuhan mat is a unique characteristic of wines made from fermented grains. It is a natural taste that is created by dissolving the protein in grain husks into amino acid, which makes the taste of wine much smoother.
The hot taste is from alcohol, but as it combines with the sweet, sour, and various other tastes, it isnt very strong.
What is the proper temperature for testing traditional Korean wines?
The taste and fragrance of traditional Korean wines differ depending on the temperature of the wine. The Korean ancestors enjoyed drinking the wine in various temperatures, according to the kind of wine or the flavor.
According to the old classic [Gyu Hap Chong Seo], Eat meals like spring, eat soup like summer, eat jang (doenjang: soybean paste; ganjang: soy sauce; gochujang: hot pepper paste) like autumn, and drink wines like winter. For example, on daeboreum (the years first full moon), among the Koreans season-related customs, the Koreans drink a cup of cold cheongju, which is called gwibalgi-sul (hearing-enhancing wine) in Korean.
The Korean ancestors also used to drink wine by doing geonaeng, which pertains to taking the chill off the wine by putting the vessel inside a boiling pot. Usually, a person who likes the natural taste of wine is advised to drink the wine cold, and one who likes a rich taste and fragrance is advised to drink the wine warm.
Tavern: Jusageobae ()> by Sin, Yunbok
The painting depicts the hostess of the tavern as doing gaeneung
What kinds of cups are fit to be used for drinking traditional Korean wine?
There are two kinds of cups that are fit to be used for drinking traditional Korean wine: jan and bae (jan is relatively smaller than bae).
For drinking yakju, the ceramic ware that maintains its contents temperature is preferred. When using a glass, the part of the glass that touches the lips (the upper part of the glass) must be wider than the bottom so that you can smell the full fragrance of the wine.
Dont forget the side dishes for the wine!
Lets look at the foods that go well with traditional Korean wines.
There is an essential prerequisite to enjoying traditional Korean wine: the food that will go well with it. The Koreans call this jaun-sang (ju means wine, an means food, and sang refers to a table). In the olden times in Korea, when guests came to ones home, the hostess served juan-sang with wine and side dishes. The juan-sang consisted of home-brewed or seasonal wine and seasonal side dishes, and the food was served in a shape that made it easy for one to pick it up.
Dried foods such as jerked beef, dried fish, pine nut kernel and walnut, pan-fried foods made of fish, beef, or vegetables, stews, raw oysters, sliced raw fish, eoriguljeot (salted oysters with hot pepper), changranjeot (aged and seasoned intestines of Alaska pollack), and pyunyuk (slices of boiled meat) used to be served as side dishes.
Generally, richly flavored and tasty wine goes well with meat, and light and natural-tasting wine goes well with fish. Less sweet and sourer wine will stimulate ones appetite, and sweeter and less sour wine is good with rice cakes and other light refreshments after a meal.
Finally, allow us to introduce to you the different ways of storing traditional Korean wines so as to make them tastier and to make them last longer.
To store wine well is important for enjoying tasty wine. As the traditional Korean wines are made via fermentation, they are easily spoiled because the microorganisms (yeast, lactic-acid bacteria, etc.) in them will deteriorate easily if the wine will be stored for a long time rather than drunk right after brewing. There are various things that can be done to prevent this problem from arising.
Generally, sulphur dioxide is used as an antioxidant for wines. For cheongju, sterilization is done via heating, and other chemicals are used. For traditional Korean wines, however, only pasteurization heating is used, which makes them real health foods. Since artificial chemical preservatives are not used, though, their flavors can easily change, which explains why traditional Korean wines should be stored in a cool and shaded place. If they are exposed to sunlight for a long time, their color, taste, and fragrance will change due to certain chemical reactions. Moreover, high temperature will easily change their taste and fragrance. Therefore, where traditional Korean wines are to be stored will spell a difference in their taste and fragrance.
