Fire & Flint: PUJIM K-BBQ with German Precision and Coastal California

Korean barbecue has always paired with either soju or beer, at times both, also known as somaek. Wine paired with K-BBQ is not often spoke about or discussed in seriousness.

The direct-fire technique that defines K-BBQ, the marinades, the char, the fat rendering straight onto hot charcoal, is built for a drink that clears the palate and gets out of the way.

Fire & Flint was set out to explore an alcoholic drink that is meant to be savoured alongside this rich K-BBQ, instead of a drink meant to be chugged as a palate cleanser. The evening was held at PUJIM BBQ's private dining room on Amoy Street, hosted by Editor-in-Chief Jaclene Liew dipWSET.

It opened with a standing tasting of wines from five producers before the room sat down to a six-course Korean barbecue dinner, in the proper K-BBQ sequence.

The producers did the heavy lifting. Klaus-Peter Keller, whose Riesling out of Rheinhessen sets the reference point for what German precision actually means, anchored one end of the lineup. Weingut Seeger brought the same discipline from Baden, in both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. On the Californian side, Sandhi and Domaine de la Côte, both shaped by the same cool-climate, low-intervention hand, made the case that coastal California can taste almost as restrained as Burgundy when the site allows it. Phelan Farm rounded out the lineup, small enough that most of the room would not have crossed paths with it before.