'Hidden Treasure Wine Discovery' Service Launches

[Start人] Park Hye-jung, CEO of Cellavie
"Discovering high-quality wines that are not well known and connecting them with consumers"

Hyejeong Park, CEO of Cellavie

"The domestic wine market suffers from severe information asymmetry. Consumers want to verify whether they purchased wine at a fair price after buying it. Since prices vary by seller, consumer dissatisfaction accumulates, and trust in the market declines," diagnosed Park Hye-jung, CEO of CellarV, regarding the problems in the domestic wine market. Although it is estimated to be worth about 2 trillion won and is recognized globally as a notable wine consumption market, the price structure is opaque, and product information is insufficient. The damage inevitably falls on consumers, which is the current reality. CEO Park has thrown down the gauntlet to change this unfair distribution structure.

On the 13th, CEO Park said, "We will directly connect with overseas producers whose wines have not been imported to Korea and discover and introduce high-quality wines that are little known among those imported domestically." The solution CellarV has proposed to solve the domestic wine market's problems is a ‘Wine DTC (Direct To Customer)’ service. This service connects consumers directly to producers for direct purchase in a direct-buy format, and by skipping distribution processes such as wholesale and retail for wines imported domestically?allowing wines to go straight from importers to consumers?it is expected that consumers can enjoy wine at reasonable prices. CellarV plans to discover good-quality wines mainly priced in the 30,000 to 40,000 won range.

Regarding why many high-quality wines that have entered the domestic market remain little known, CEO Park pointed to marketing issues. Wine marketing often relies on traditional methods such as tastings at offline stores, which are costly. Moreover, since there is no reliable standard to judge whether a wine is worth purchasing at this price range, consumers tend to seek only famous wines based on conventional expert ratings. As a result, only those wines sell well, and wines that have not invested in marketing, despite being high quality, tend to be overlooked. CEO Park said, "Although various wines are imported, many remain little known. Only wines with significant marketing costs sell, and those costs are reflected in the wine prices, increasing the burden on consumers."

Hyejeong Park, CEO of Cellavie

CEO Park plans to solve this problem based on her experience and capabilities in marketing specialized for online and mobile businesses that she has built so far. After graduating from Seoul National University with a degree in Aesthetics, she gained experience in the e-commerce and O2O (online-to-offline) service industries through companies such as TMON, Mesh Korea, and Catch Fashion. CEO Park explained, "Many consumers rely on experts or recommendations from acquaintances for wine, but we will operate a differentiated expert tasting panel, disclose the process by which they select wines, and create a rating system specialized for the Korean market."

Although expert recommendation methods have existed, they were one-sided. CellarV plans to provide storytelling on how wines are selected. The producers' brewing philosophies will also be introduced as stories. The recommendation function among users is another strategy CEO Park is focusing on. Currently, recommendations occur among acquaintances or in wine club cafes, but CellarV intends to incorporate this feature into the app to accumulate data on wines. CEO Park introduced this as "a reward system where consumers become sommeliers for each other."

CellarV is currently conducting a pilot test in web form. Although no separate advertising was done, hundreds of people registered within 2-3 days, confirming demand. The company is gaining market attention after securing seed investment from Fast Ventures. The official app service is planned for early next year. To this end, contracts have been signed with wholesale partners in Germany and other countries to secure overseas production volumes, and discussions on partnerships with about ten wine producers are underway. Depending on market response, direct import is also being considered. If imported and distributed directly, the margin structure will be transparently disclosed.

What does a good wine mean to CEO Park, who is ‘sincere’ about wine? She said, "A good wine is one that the consumer likes," adding, "Although quality is complex, we plan to find and introduce various wines that provide higher satisfaction compared to other wines at similar prices."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.