Ensuring that They Make High Quality Wine Favoured by People

"The people are my God" was Chairman Kim Jong Il's motto throughout his life. He made painstaking efforts to provide the people with more varied and richer dietary life. The traces of such deep affections for the people can be easily found everywhere in the DPRK.

The Kanggye Winery far away from the capital city Pyongyang is also associated with his love for the people.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un said:

"General Kim Jong Il's patriotic mind was always filled with the word people. If it is the wish of the people, I will pluck a star from the heavens or grow flowers even on a rock–this was the noble expression of his affection for the people, and his will."

On December 10th, 2009, Chairman Kim Jong Il visited the Kanggye Winery, which he had visited two years before. Highly appreciating that the winery had been modernized beyond recognition, he said with satisfaction that it deserved to win high praise that the beer, makkolli (unrefined rice wine) and cider production processes had been newly built. He continued to say that the working class and citizens in Kanggye and other areas in Jagang Province would be pleased to be provided with high quality wine and soft drinks.

Looking around different production processes of the winery, he said that from the olden times Korean people drank homemade liquor made with folk remedies; at first they had a sweet rice drink and later they enjoyed makkolli (unrefined rice wine), chongju (refined rice wine) and soju (hard liquor). He continued to say that now the wine production process had been industrialized to produce different kinds of hard liquor resembling vodka and baijiu in alcoholic content. He also mentioned that Jagang Province and other parts of Korea were famous for various kinds of excellent wine, and among them were Inphung Wine, Kaesong Insam Wine, blueberry wine and Kamhongro (liquor), all of which had been highly appreciated from the olden times in Korea.

Looking around underground butteries No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3, he said with great satisfaction that the winery, which used to be a small locally-run factory in the past, turned into not only a country's leading modern wine production base but also a rich factory with lots of properties under the meticulous care of President Kim Il Sung and the Party.

He stopped in front of the display case in a corridor and looked with pleasure at various kinds of wine including Paekro Wine, Inphung Wine and Mokryon Wine produced at the winery, saying that the wine produced in the form of champagne should be named Kanggye White Wine.

In the wine showroom, where various kinds of wine made of herbs and fruits were on display, he carefully looked at different labels on the bottles and said that even if the winery produced dozens of wine with different kinds of herbs and fruits, it wouldn't be necessary if the people did not like nor appreciate them. Stressing the need to prove medical properties of the wines in a scientific way, he emphasized that the winery should try to increase the production of wine, instead of increasing the range of wine products and that the Kanggye Winery should make high quality wine favoured by the people.

Chairman Kim Jong Il stressed that the Kanggye Winery should own and preserve the unique taste of its wine as it had a long history.

Bearing in their minds his instructions, the officials of the winery were firmly determined to increase the production of high quality wines favoured and appreciated by the people true to his instructions.