Seomjinspring

Winery and distillery, Gwangyang, KR

Seomjinspring is Lee Jong Ki's second house. In Mungyeong, deep inland, he spent forty years turning omija into wine and built OmyNara. In 2023 he went to the other end of the country, to where the Seomjin River meets the southern sea, and founded a house of his own under his own name — a different fruit, but the same hand: ferment, distil, let it rest.

A name that states the place

The Seomjin is among the clearest rivers in Korea; it rises at Demisaem in Jinan and skirts the southern flank of Jirisan on its way to the coast. The house carries the name of the river and of the season in which its fruit ripens.

The strongest light in Korea

Gwangyang lies at 34.9° north, the latitude of Crete. The name says as much: 光陽, light and sun. The orchards stand on river-facing slopes that catch the light thrown back off the water — the same principle behind the vineyards of the Rhine.

Why the Seomjin

Forty years with a single fruit taught Lee Jong Ki that a wine is decided less by the recipe than by the place: latitude, light, water, the ground under the tree. So when he looked for a second house, he was not looking for a facility but for a site. Gwangyang had what he needed — the strongest light in the country, a clear river throwing it back, and a fruit that is allowed to ripen here instead of being picked green.

What he brought with him was the craft. With OmyRosé he made Korea's first omija sparkling wine; he holds a master's in distilling from Heriot-Watt University and was the first in Korea to distil a malt whisky. That hand is on Seomjin Byol — carrying a second fermentation without losing the fruit is experience, not luck.

Korean apricot, left to turn golden

Around a third of Korea's maesil grows here. In Gwangyang it is left on the branch until it turns golden and soft — the Korean apricot, botanically closer to a true apricot than to the hard green plum picked in Korea in early summer. Alongside it ripen yuja, the aromatic Korean citron, and sweet Korean pears.

Seomjin Byol | The star of the river

Seomjin Byol is a Korean apricot sparkling wine — and a blend. Lee Jong Ki builds it from the golden, fully ripened fruit together with two others from the same river valley: yuja and Korean wild pear.

The reason is acidity. Maesil picked green carries an acidity close to omija's, too high to make wine from. In the far south the fruit stays on the branch until it turns golden: the acidity falls, the flesh softens, the aroma gains depth. What the ripe fruit gives up in tension, the blend puts back — yuja sets the citrus axis, the wild pear gives body and length.

Fermented in tank by the Charmat method, with at least ten months of rest. Dry, finely beaded, carried by a fruit found in no European sparkling wine.