Recently plunging wine sales at high-end department stores have created a headache due to leftover stock, industry officials said yesterday.

"Sales have dropped coming into the new year," said Chung Jae-wook, a spokesman for Shinsegae Co.'s department store division. "We believe the economic downturn has dampened the appetite for these pricier items, and this may be signaling a change in our wine-consumption trend."

According to the nation's three leading retailers yesterday, wine sales had been rising steadily since the department stores established a separate wine corner in 2000.

But as of this year, the wine corners have begun suffering losses for the first time.

Data shows that wine sales in January and February compared to dropped by 5 percent at Lotte, 3 percent at Hyundai and 4 percent at Shinsegae when compared to a year earlier.

Even from July-December Lotte Department Store had recorded nearly 10 percent of growth when compared to the same period in the previous year.

Korea's wine boom was spurred by studies released in 2001 revealed that the relatively low stroke rate among the French could be attributed to the nation's high consumption of wine. A popular Japanese comic book featuring wine further stoked the boom in 2006.

Hyundai Department Store said it enjoyed 49 percent growth in 2006 when compared to the previous year, 44 percent growth in 2007 and 51 percent growth in 2008.

Coming into the new year, the three to four-month time lag for the imports to reach Korea had led both department stores and wine importers to make orders in advance.

But the sudden slowdown in 2009 has begun an accumulation of old stock, industry insiders say.

Hyundai Department Store said its wine stock has expanded by 30 percent compared to last year. Lotte and Shinsegae said their stock began dropping slowly as of the latter half of 2008, and so their stock volume is currently similar to that of last year. But they say the precise volume has yet to be determined.

"There's been also a rising demand for cheaper alternatives by wine aficionados who would buy more expensive bottles," said Yoon Hyun-sik, a spokesman for Lotte Department Store. "Some consumers who would buy a 100,000 won bottle of wine would now be opting for ones in the 50,000 won range, while those who purchased 50,000 won wines would seek those in the 30,000 won range."

The slowdown has prompted Hyundai Department Store, suffering from a large volume of stock, to launch its yearly promotion campaign today, about a month earlier than previous years. Department stores here have had the tradition of holding the annual wine sales campaign in April.

Shinsegae said it will follow the convention by holding the event in April. Lotte said it plans to launch a regular three-day wine-tasting event tomorrow. Lotte's annual sales campaign will take early April following the norm.

"It's a challenge now for department-store wine buyers because they don't know if they should make new orders, especially with the exchange rate posing more risks," Yoon said.