Friday, April 03, 2009

Friendship Over Wine

There was a sighting of Yong Joon on the 28th of March in Busan. happiebb shared that on her blog. Today there's an article translated by suehan on BYJ's Quilt which explained why he was in Busan.

Much thanks suehan for the transalation.

Read this...

[Sohn Yongseok’s Wine &] even takes care of sommelier’s wedding..BYJ’s sweet love towards wine.

A wedding took pIace at a five star hotel hall in Busan on Saturday, the 28th of last month at 2:00 pm. The wedding hall was noisy due to the appearance of an unexpected guest. Because Hallyu star, Bae Yong Joon showed up. The groom wasn’t an employee of the company that he is operating, nor a celebrity of the entertainment world. What made BYJ come to Busan, he who usually does not attend filming functions or drama awards, to attend the wedding?

The groom was a sommelier of the domestic wine import company and ‘a close wine friend’ of Mr. Bae, whom he drinks wine with often. Mr. Bae left the wedding after he toasted the finest French wine like Chateau Mouton-Rothschild and Chateau Latour with the groom

He has a special love for wine. In the later part of 2007, the Italian wine, Gravello was introduced in a Japanese comic book, “Drops of God”, was being served with Kimchee. When this story was released to Korea, the domestic wine importers flew to France to acquire the exclusive rights to import Gravello competitively, but it was in vain. All of them heard the following sad news, “We already made a contract with an entertainment company in your country.” They asked around about the company that made the contract, and found out the company’s name, BOF, and that Mr. Bae is the major shareholder. The official importer of Gravello is now Lotte Liquor, but they pay a certain portion of the sales to BOF as a fee.

It’s probable that the friendship between Mr. Bae and the author Agi Tadashi of “Drops of God” worked here as well. Agi Tadashi is a devoted fan of ‘Yonsama’ and even used Mr. Bae’s image as the genuine sommelier in his comic books. There is a rumor that they met and were engaged in animated conversation about wine. Just recently, Mr. Bae plunged himself in the drama production of Korean version “Drops of God.”

(omitted)

Sohn Yongseok, Forbes Korea Reporter

p.s. the power of Yonsama made the deal with Gravello possible. I'm not surprised at all. ^^ I wonder hope they're doing with the other wines involved in 'Kami No Shizuku' manga.

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