Chateau Mani & the Korean Wine Train

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The wine train is something Jess' mom told her about right after she arrived. Unfortunately in the madness that is jetlag she completely forgot about it until a friend reminded her, mentioning it would be a fun trip. That was in August. It took a while to get everything together, and it took some doing to make it work, but on Halloween, a group of 9 of us got together and finally made the journey.

It meant having to start very early in the morning (catching a bus from our town at 7am!) as the train left Seoul station at 9, and we were advised to be there by 8:30 at the latest. We had a little seating situation (we were positioned in a line of tables going down the car rather than in a group together) but we managed to 'persuade' the group of ajummas that tried to move us that it was better to let us all sit together. It wasn't too long after the train pulled out that they were putting together platters of food for us, and as soon as those were served we were given our first taste of wine.

Koreans tend to like sweet wines. The first wine we tried was a sparkling white (Asti is VERY popular here & it was similar to that). We were also given a sweet red, a dry red and a raspberry wine. The raspberry just about made us all sick. The taste was reminiscent of cough syrup - and bad cough syrup at that. I think we all found something we could enjoy though. When they came around to give us tastes we were given very little. Fortunately, after the tasting is finished they come back around and ask you which wine you liked best and you are given a full glass of that. You are then able to continue drinking until the train ride is over.

We discovered that our train actually drops us off in Daejeon and then continues on to Busan (the second largest of Korea's cities on the Southwest coast). It then turns around and comes back and picks us up in YeongDong in the evening. None of our guides spoke more than a few words of English so we just followed the Koreans wherever they were going - and they did a really nice job of making sure we weren't left behind... Sort of taking the foreigners under their wings. It certainly made for some interesting forms of communicating.

From the train we hopped aboard a bus which took us to the winery. Our first event there was to eat a 'slow food' lunch. We believe this was the translation of buffet. There was quite the Korean variety and two barrels of pour your own wine to go along with it. After lunch we explored the grounds a little bit & were then given the opportunity to try out the foot baths. We believe they put wine or some essence of wine in them. Of course we don't actually know. All we knew was to follow what all the Koreans were doing without an actual explanation for why. (It was kind of exciting really). After the foot baths we were given a lecture about the winery. Most of us took a nap. (It was a bit awkward - 20 or 30 minutes of nonstop Korean and none of us are fluent enough to translate for the others.)

Following the lecture we made bath balls. The kind you toss into a warm tub and they dissolve and then your skin can (literally) soak up all the good stuff inside them. The winery actually had a whole line of products for your skin & hair. We missed out on the gift shop though and so never got to find out much about them. Our group was split in half for the making of the soap balls. One half suffered a little bit in that they added all of the wine given them to the mixture. We knew this was bad because the bath balls were a bit soggier than the rest. What we discovered later was that they expanded. One blew up all over the inside of Lydia's purse! The other group was assisted by some Koreans who stopped them before they could add too much. Fran also had the added help of an ajumma who basically controlled most of the process - though he was able to form the bath balls himself & he did a really great job!

After that we were given a tour of the winery. We saw the cellars where they keep the bottles and the other cellar where they keep the wine in barrels. It probably would have been very interesting to hear about how they make the wine... They should really consider getting a bilingual guide. But, we amused ourselves and figured out what most things were on our own.

Next we were back on the bus. We thought we were going to drive around the outer parts of the vineyard. We ended up taking a 40 minute drive through the country to see a Ginseng museum. Fran had taken to drinking ginseng recently & all Jess knew was that she abhorred the smell. Apparently it is a miraculous root. It cures all sorts of illnesses, prevents others & overall helps you to live longer than Methuselah. The list of positive effects it is supposed to have are endless though. It sort of makes you wonder, if this particular kind is even better than the rest, and it does all these things, why don't you find it anywhere else in the world? Why aren't they shoving it down our throats in the West?

From the whirlwind tour (about 10-15 minutes) of the ginseng museum we were taken to the ginseng town, a place near YeongDong where we would get the train back. We sat with some locals to try ginseng makkeoli (makkeoli is Korean rice wine... we're not sure if this ginseng makkeoli has ginseng added to it or is made in the same manner but without the rice). Either way, it wasn't as bad as it sounded. And we also had friend ginseng which was pretty good. I suppose nothing is quite so bad once its been fried! After this we walked around the town to see the many products which could be made from ginseng.

Then it was back on the bus, back on our train and back to Seoul! On the train on the way back we were given the wine of our choice to drink & another tray of food. This one had lots of bibeimbap (kind of like Korean sushi but without the fish in it) and some sandwiches as well as fruits. Fran wasn't feeling well & so took a nap - we caught a great photo of it. And after a long day of wine tasting, we thought we would finish with a nice curry in Seoul.

All in all a great day in Korea!
xxFran & Jess

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Photos

Our group
We decided this looked like a shot for a tv show... so watch out, we might air soon!

What an array!
We especially loved the processed cheese slices cut into fours & the tomatoes were also a nice touch :)

Comments

[Tricia]

Nice photo Fran
or should I say Anakin?? As long as you're not going over to the dark side!

[George Spataru]

great
Interesting posts you have here ... I can see that you put a lot of hard work on your blog. I'm sure I'd visit here more often. George from ginseng photos.

[Jan and Georgia]

Wine?
No wonder Fran was sleeping. Great travelogue. Enjoy the holidays and Merry Christmas....according to our minister (who is South Korean) there are lots of Christians in SK.