What wine - and other drinks - to pair with Korean food (NEW)

If you’ve developed a taste for Korean food - as so many of us now have - you may still be struggling with what drink to pair with it - and whether that should include wine.

The flavours are certainly not subtle. It’s richly spicy and umami, accompanied by fermented and pickled side dishes most notably kimchi, that present their own challenges.

Except in more modern Korean or Korean fusion restaurants dishes tend to be served at the same time so it’s useful to find a drink that will take them all in its stride.

That needn’t necessarily be wine which is just as well as many restaurants offer a limited selection, by the glass at least. But there are a wide range of Korean drinks including soju, which is apparently the world’s best selling spirit and makgeolli, a fermented rice-based drink.

Here are the beverages that you could drink throughout a Korean meal - or at least switch to half way through plus some pairings for popular Korean dishes you might eat on their own. 

Wines that generally go with Korean food

Crisp, zesty whites tend to work with the small plates that appear at the beginning of a Korean meal. Sauvignon blanc - particularly New Zealand sauvignon blanc - would be the obvious choice but consider Rueda, unoaked white Rioja and Austria’s grüner veltliner.

Gewurztraminer and Gewürztraminer blends
Often too powerful for other Asian cuisines Gewürztraminer comes in handy with Korean - whether you drink it as a varietal or a blend with other aromatic varieties like riesling and pinot gris

Orange wines are particularly good especially those that fall into the ‘natural’ category and which are made from aromatic grape varieties like malvasia or pinot gris. Natural wines work well with fermented and pickled foods - take a look at this match with tongdak (rice stuffed chicken) which made my match of the week slot last year.

Strong, dark fruity rosés such as those from Rioja and Navarra in Spain
Better able to stand up to ingredients such as gochujang (the widely used Korean chilli paste) than Provence rosé. Again natural or low intervention rosés work well

Big full-bodied reds, especially cabernet blends. The standout pairing - somewhat to my surprise - but although Korean food is spicy it isn’t often searingly hot. See Korean barbecue below

Other drinks

Beer
The most obvious go-to. Generally a light lager though I’ve found darker beers go well with umami-rich Korean stews. Well known Korean brands are Cass and Hite.

Soju
Either as shots or lighter drinks like Jinro’s widely available Chamisul.

Soju is a high strength spirit as opposed to sake which is fermented and more delicate so you might not want to drink it throughout a meal but it does go well with the punchier dishes of Korean barbecue.

It’s also used in cocktails which is another popular way of kicking off a Korean meal.

Sake
Despite the above sake is a pretty good match for Korean food as is fino sherry.

Makgeolli 
A refreshing cloudy mid-strength sparkling rice wine that makes a refreshing counterpoint to kimchi. Often flavoured though I prefer the plain version particularly if it comes from an artisanal producer like the one above.

Alcohol-free options

Tea, grain and herbal infusions such as barley tea and Solomons seal root tea are popular in Korea. The latter is slightly bitter, tastes of grilled nuts and toasted sesame. Japanese genmaicha would also work

Kombucha and other sparkling tea drinks.
Kombucha works in a similar way to natural wine while Saicho’s nutty Hojicha echoes the toasted sesame in many Korean dishes.

What to pair with popular Korean dishes you might eat on their own

Banchan
The Korean word that refers to small plates that are often served as sides to the main dish but may well arrive first. They often include kimchi and other pickles, gyoza-like dumplings (mandoo) and noodle dishes such as japchae but could also include fried chicken

If you’re going to drink white wine with a Korean meal this is the best stage to do so - zesty whites like unoaked white Rioja and New Zealand sauvignon blanc work well or skin contact whites aka orange wines.

If there’s a fried element like Korean fried chicken you could drink sparkling wine - champagne if you really feel like splashing out but cava or crémant would do perfectly well.

Kimchi
An obligatory side but also features as a light meal in its own right as in kimchi pancakes (above) and Kimchi fried rice for which you can find a recipe here. Makgeolli is a good choice to cool the heat of hotter kimchis but orange wine, natural wines, craft cider and kombucha are also good options.

Bibimbap
Korea’s iconic rice bowl dish can be mild (which it quite often is in a chain restaurant) or punchy. At the restaurant of the same name in London I recently had what was described as a Korean root tea (see above) which tasted of grilled nuts and roasted sesame and had a slightly earthy, woody flavour. A low strength soju drink like Jinro’s Chamisul fresh (17%) or a lager would be good too.

Korean barbecue/Bulgogi
Bulgogi is a dish of marinated steak either seared or cooked on a barbecue and typically served with with doenjang (soy bean paste or a dipping sauce and several sides.

This is where your full-bodied reds come into play in just the same way as they would in any steakhouse. I had a Journey’s End The Pastor’s Blend Bordeaux blend from South Africa with bulgogi at Chung’dam, a Korean BBQ restaurant in Soho and a Veronica Ortega Quite Mencia from Bierzo in my local Korean, Dongnae in Bristol so you can see it covers quite a range of styles. And if a Bordeaux blend why not more modern styles of Bordeaux come to that? Grenache I think would work well too.

In more contemporary Korean-influenced rather than traditional Korean restaurants such as Miga in Hackney the dishes may not be hot and spicy at all. I drank a 2013 Rioja from Lopez de Heredia with a dish of soy braised short ribs with mushrooms which was spot on.

Soju shots also go well with bulgogi and other beef dishes.

Hearty stews and hotpots

A slightly trickier to match main course option, often more like a soup than a stew and flavoured with a miso-ish soy bean paste called doenjang

I struggled to find a good wine match with it - it seems to have the effect of turning reds overly sweet but reckon it would be great with a dark lager or a dark, maybe Belgian Trappist beer.

Since this is my first dive into Korean food and I haven’t yet got to Korea I’d love to hear from those of you who are more familiar with it.

Top image © Kuba Puchajda at shutterstock.com