[Gu Eun-mo's Sake Story] Seobugeon Sanmeoru Farm Owner "Will Enhance Tourist Attraction Competitiveness and Contribute to Local Economic Revitalization"

<4> Paju 'Sanmeoru Farm'②

Deep Concerns Over Distribution Channels as Much as Quality... Offering Various Attractions and Experience Facilities
Rare 73m Wine Aging Tunnel Built in Korea... A Milestone for Becoming a Tourist Spot
Once Attracted 80,000 Visitors Annually Including Foreign Tourists
Preparing for a Rebound After COVID-19... Exploring New Paths Like Camping Wine and Tunnel Expansion

Sanmeoru Farm Underground Aging Tunnel

73m Wine Tunnel, Growing Beyond Wine Production into a Tourist Attraction

[Asia Economy Reporter Gu Eun-mo] “We want to expand the wine tunnel further to enhance its competitiveness as a tourist attraction and contribute to revitalizing the local economy.”

Seo Bu-geon, CEO of Seobugeon Sanmeoru Farm, expressed in an interview with Asia Economy on the 15th that he is as concerned about distribution channels as he is about product quality. Most traditional liquor companies, which are small-scale, find it difficult to secure business sustainability if they cannot establish a smooth distribution structure despite producing high-quality products. Seo also believes that relying on conventional distribution channels alone is not enough to survive, so he is exploring possibilities by attracting tourists with various attractions and experiential facilities at the winery, and promoting sales and marketing through these efforts.

Sanmeoru Farm has a rare wine aging tunnel in Korea. The underground tunnel, 15 meters deep and 73 meters long, was built by Seo Woo-seok and Seo Bu-geon, former and current CEOs of Sanmeoru Farm, who are father and son. Seo said, “As we expanded from cultivating meoru (wild grape) to the meoru wine business, we needed wine aging facilities. Since we were going to build the facility anyway, we thought it would be better to create an aging cellar that tourists could visit and explore, rather than just a warehouse.” Thus, in 2004, with support from Paju City, a natural underground wine storage cellar was created, maintaining a temperature around 15 degrees Celsius year-round.

The wine aging tunnel became a turning point for Sanmeoru Farm to grow beyond a winery into a tourist destination. With the addition of experiential programs such as making meoru wine and jam in 2009 to the natural wine cellar, the number of tourists gradually increased. However, relying solely on domestic tourists revealed clear limitations due to the distinct peak season in autumn for meoru picking experiences and the off-season periods.

Bottled Meoru wine stored in the wine tunnel aging cellar.

Seo turned his attention to foreign tourists. He said, “I created promotional materials about the winery and visited the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization. At first, they were skeptical, but after touring the winery and tunnel, they seemed to think it was good.” Since then, Seo actively participated in overseas sales schedules organized by the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization, and from December 2012, foreign tourists began to visit. As the number of tourists increased, income from visitors grew to rival that from wine sales, with annual visitors exceeding 80,000 at times.

However, the heyday did not last forever. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, visits from both foreign and domestic tourists abruptly stopped. Seo recalled, “It was an extremely difficult period that no one could have predicted. We almost had to close overnight.” He added, “Fortunately, we have recently been showing signs of recovery, and we are looking forward to next year. We have business trips planned to Singapore and Vietnam in October and November, and we plan to resume attracting foreign tourists.”

Seobugeon Sanmeoru Farm Owner

Rebound through Wine Tunnel Expansion... New Attempts with Camping Wine

Seo has nurtured his dream of becoming a farmer since childhood. He said, “I naturally wanted to follow this path by watching and learning from my father. Since my father pioneered a previously non-existent market with meoru, I thought it would be a shame to let the legacy die out.” After graduating from high school, he enrolled as part of the first class at Korea National College of Agriculture and Fisheries and joined Sanmeoru Farm immediately after graduation. Since 2012, he has taken over as CEO following his father, Seo Woo-seok.

Seo said that since his father laid the foundation for wine production facilities, his goal is to grow the winery and products into an integrated brand based on meoru wine brands such as “Meoru de Seo.” Recently, he has been exploring new avenues by partnering with the traditional liquor content and distribution platform “Daedongyeoju-do” to launch camping pack wine. Seo explained, “With the recent boom in traditional liquor and the growing camping population, we released a product that is convenient to carry and store targeting that market. The initial response has been positive, and export discussions are underway, so we have high expectations.”

Looking further ahead, Seo plans to expand the wine tunnel and increase tourist attraction by linking with local dairy farms in Paju to produce and sell wine and cheese. The plan is to extend the wine tunnel beyond 100 meters to enhance its competitiveness as a tourist site and to serve as an aging facility and sales outlet for dairy products like cheese, which require similar aging conditions.

He said, “Although there is a recent wine craze, it has not yet extended to domestic wines. Based on high-quality meoru wine, I want to attract customers to the site, contributing not only to the growth of Sanmeoru Farm but also to revitalizing the local economy.”