Home Plus Wines

Normally I am an E-mart shopper, but Eli, my boyfriend, has recently persuaded me to go to Home Plus. I'd been to Home Plus once before and hadn't been impressed, but I hadn't seen the wine section yet.

Home Plus is a joint venture between Samsung and Tesco - with Tesco owning 94% of the shares. This changes everything. I shopped at a Tesco when I lived in Prague, when I lived in Shanghai. Therefore far from a stranger, Home Plus is actually an old friend in disguise. With its global reach, Tesco produces and imports into Korea its own wines. The star of which is its Cava.

Cava is well described as the Spanish version of champagne. This one is delightful - perhaps because it is produced in its home country! With pizza and a light salad or with a fettucini alfredo dinner, this bubbly delivers just the right flavor. It brings me back to the first time I tasted it in Barcelona. What an unexpected pleasure to find it in Seoul for 12,000W!

The label of this bottle has gotten Eli and I to jokingly refer to it as the "Martha Stewart Wine." The quality of this bottle doesn't quite match up with that of the Cava, but nevertheless, it is the best of the 9,000W wines I have had in Korea. Yup. 9,000W for a decent Malbec. It isn't awesome, but it really hits the spot when you'd rather not spend more than 15,000W for a bottle of wine.