Ep 2381 Alexandr Averianov of Champagne Wine Gallery | Asia Wine Market: Almaty Special Edition

Alexandra Avariana is a head somewhere at group of companies, which include Champine wine gallery, which operates not just as an importer and distributor, but also runs a restaurant, a wine store, and a wine school. And also includes a by an Angel restaurants at Almatis, one of the most scenic spots. For today, our three key learning objectives are. First of all, we are going to understand Champan's import strategy and how Italian wines are positioned within their portfolio. Second, we are going to explore how Champagne engages consumers through its restaurant store and wine education prompt. And also, we are going to learn how Assembly sells and positions Italian wines in a premium restaurant setting. So let's dive in. Welcome to Asia wine market Almati special edition with me, your host Rosa. In this special series, we're exploring the growing wine culture of Kazakhstan, With almighty at the heart of it all, each episode will meet with Italian wine professionals, importers, psalms, and producers who are shaping the future of wine in central Asia. Whether you are a winery looking to expand into new markets or local export curious about the market dynamics, you are in the right place. Hello, and welcome to Asia wine market Almati special edition. And today, I am excited to welcome Alexander Avariano He's a head somewhere a group of companies, which include Champagne wine gallery, which operates not just as an importer and distributor, but also runs a restaurant, a wine store, and a wine store, and also includes a buy and inju restaurants, at Almaty is one of the most scenic spots. In this episode, we'll explore Champagne's important strategy, portfolio, their consumer facing projects, and the art of selling wines in premium restaurants in Almaty. So welcome, Alexander. We're very happy to have you here today. Hello. I'm here with you. You can start. Okay. Before we dive in into today's main topics, could you please tell us briefly about yourself and how you started your wine journey? So I start seventeen years ago. It was a long way, and I think we don't have a time to explain each year what I do. But I work in a champagne company as I had so many eight years already. And four years ago, we start our import project. So I'm here in this group. And as far as I know, you also worked in Moscow as a homeland, right? You started your journey there. Yes. I started there seventeen years ago. I was studying, famous Moscow school in Austria. It was first step. I studied six months there, and I work on a different premium restaurant in Moscow. I have to remember how many restaurants I changed because I'm not working one place more than two years. So I changed maybe four restaurant in my career in Moscow and all of them was one of the best and famous restaurant in City. Okay. Got it. And now you're here. And now I'm here ten years. I'm here already. And now you're here at Champagne for eight years now already. Yes. That's a good sign. Yes. Okay. So for today, our three key learning objectives are. First of all, we are going to understand Champagne's imports strategy and how Italian wines are positioned within their portfolio. Second, we're going to explore how Champagne engages consumers through its restaurant, retail store, and wine education program. And also we are going to learn how as soon as sales and positions Italian wines in a premium restaurant setting. So let's dive in. As a start, I would like to ask you to break down the operational system of the group of companies where you work, most importantly, Champagne. So which channels and regions do you cover? And what is your main role within this company? We started four years ago when we think to open our shop in the beginning. We do direct distribution first contract. We signed it four years ago, and we think that we need this wine just for ourself. I mean, for our group, not for Horica, retail, and other clients. So in the beginning, when we start to import Italian wines, we think about our group. Our wine lists in, all restaurants. So we don't think to go out from our company. So four years ago, we start. It was small quantity of wines. It was first to bring Italian wines, and then we continue to sell in our group. And three years ago, two and a half. I think, yeah, we opened our wine gallery shop the middle of almaty, and we also think to bring more Italian producers this time. So one year ago, we already understand that we have a little bit power to go outside from our group and we start to work with premium restaurants in Almaty and the hotels. So now we not go out from Almaty. Our distribution line stay in Almaty. So we not work with the other city so hard black here. And our portfolio of restaurants, we have best places in our city like Delmar, Lavera, it's restaurants, and we work with Ritz Carrollton also. So a lot of famous names we have now Okay. Got it. Thank you a lot. And let's move to your portfolio. So how many producers do you currently import? And what is the percentage of those producers are Italian? And can you share maybe some names? Of Italian wineries do you currently represent? We're a small company. We not have a lot of big names in our portfolio. We have, but not a lot. And Italian portfolio, it's one of the largest in our wine list, in our price list, we have twelve producers from different region. Just two of them coming from Tuscany. It's Torita, very famous name, and Fattoria Capa. It's small guys and the young, but they do fantastic job and wines. And we cover it, Pierremont with bourgogneo, we cover it north of the Italy Alto Ajierge. It was named Kaltari Kortic. We work with the nice names and families called Duque de Dolly. They produce fantastic prosecco. Then we go to the Calabrio. We have a producer from there, Apollo So it's nice family and a long time produced wine. Also, we have a famous producer from Apulia. Filini. This is a blue fantastic job and our client's enrollment is like it's so much this region. We have a little bit wines from Veneto, a little bit, but very famous name, Delfurno Romano. It's Amaroni, Valipol, and we signed with them first contract when we start thinking about import. Delfurno was first contact with whom we talk, it was difficult talk. I can imagine. Because they don't have a wine for Pakistan, and they sell everything before they produce. And I ride them around four years to get a location. Mhmm. Like this. Okay. But it's very impressive. Like, the first contract ever as an importer with Delfurno Romano. That was a good start. Yeah. It's a good start. We're still working with them. We're happy. Okay. Thank you. And could you please tell us what is your future plan for Italian wines and Italian wine categories? Are there any Italian wine categories or regions you think have the potential in Kazakhstan them. And also, what are some of the wines you are planning to introduce to? It's a good question. In the beginning, Kazakhstan, it's, how to say it's a big part of Italian wines. I think because our clients, our guests, in the restaurants, they like so much Italian wines from different region. Of course, it's famous region, it's Tuscany, and Veneto in the beginning when I came to Kazakhstan, Italian wines was already famous here. And still what's plan we wanna do? We wanna think about new producers. Our vision, we're not looking for so big company from any kind of countries or region. If we talk about Italy, we're now looking to find it some small producers with a good quality, good history, and we're looking for winemakers who start to do job with organic and biogenomic way. So like this, our future, maybe we sign contact with Franca Corta because now in the market, no French Yeah. We talked about it actually with Roman from Echatrade, and he told me the same. There is no frontal Corta available at the market. I told him a story that in Astana two years ago, I was trying to find French Corta. I found one. It was too expensive just for myself to buy and drink, so that is why I decided not to. But he told me that I was lucky because I could find one at that time. Really is difficult to find it. We have to push a little bit our clients to drink this fantastic region, fantastic Franceicorta. I think we need some help from this region, some help from producers, and like we do now in Italy. So if in this year or second, we invite more producers from this region. It's a little bit open mind for our clients, I think, So we have to make some marketing with this region. Because for Samilier, this wines, French Chicorte is fantastic wines. And if you ask me, you like from Chicorte, I will answer yes, of course, and because it's very good quality of Italian sparkling wine. I think it's a best Italian sparkling, what I tried from this region. So we have to little bit do some marketing with French support. So it should work both ways. I mean, wine professionals here interested to work with this region. But we're afraid. We're afraid because of what the price, and we need some, like I say, some marketing help from the region. I hope the French Corte consortium will listen to our conversation. Okay. So right now, let's move on to your on premise projects. So beyond importing and distributing wines, your group also connects directly with consumers through its own hospitality project. So could you tell us more about a Champine wine gallery and also a bai in jewel restaurants, these two projects? We can start with Champine wine gallery, conception of this beautiful wine shop, but we think about this conception five years ago, and we opened it the shop three years ago. So this is one of the biggest shop in at central Asia. We have eight hundred Meterson site and around six or seven. I have to ask my friend who is director here, position labels inside. So also conception was like inside, we have familiar school, we have a cigar rooms, and also inside, we have a restaurant campaign. So this is like one project including three Seger rooms, shop, maybe for restaurant and wine school. So the idea was like this, and, you know, also the true about this shop was coming when we understand that each company here in Kazakhstan, I mean, importers. They have one shop, but they sell just what they bring by themselves. They're not looking for other importers. So this is a problem. It was a problem in Almaty. For example, if you talk about very famous company, Kazakhstan wine company, everybody know them. It's, I think, number one now in the market. So they opened the shops. It's called Brute three or four. I think three. But what they do, they sell just what they breed. Also, if you talk about Montebianco, beautiful company. I like them so much, KLS also, we work with them. But the idea is they sell just the wine they import by themselves. So our idea is organize all importers inside Champagne wine gallery. So let the our clients make step inside the wine gallery and find what they want, don't push them by our import. They have to choose, for example, they want more at Chandon, they want Franca Corta Corte, and they like some labels. For example, they're coming to us and looking for Rudger easy buy it. Rudgeri Preseca, but we not push them buying our input. But maybe next time, they will bought our perseca. So idea, let the clients choose what they want. That's why we open the big and largest sure. So if we start talking about restaurants in, to be a by in June, so first, we opened eight years ago. It was two thousand seventeen. It's a year where I came to work there. So this is a beautiful place, touristic place. We stay in the mountain. Thousand one hundred meters up. And, of course, there's a lot of clients from different countries coming and visit us. Hawaii, it's a Kazakhstan fusion cuisine. In June, it's a European cuisine with element of Spanish food because our chef, Janara, she was working in Madrid. We put element of Spain in our cuisine. So this is very famous projects, and I have a lot of clients from different country, and most of them, they ask Italian wines. If you're looking at my wine list, it's around one thousand position inside, and I think thirty percent or thirty five percent of all position inside. Wind list is Italian. I don't remember. You asked me about the famous original in the wine list is Well, that would be nice. If you could share it with us, that would be nice too. Yes. Of course, we have found five very famous position. When the guests don't need the familiar, they ask always it's first is Proseco. Proseco is number one. We sell it too much. I don't know really how many I have to check it in my restaurant, but last year we sold around two thousand six hundred bottle by the year. So this is how many pilots, four pilots we sell in one restaurant. So per second is number one in the market. I think also, if we talk about sparkling. And second in my restaurant, Pina Grijo, it doesn't matter from which region, outdoor energy or Frioli or Veneto. So it doesn't matter. So the people prefer the grape, not the city grape, light. So, of course, this is the number two. The third, I think we're going to Tuscany, Tuscany reds, Kianchi, this number three in my wine list for selling. So that a lot of people, clients, our guests, they know Tuscany, and they know, of course, the famous name. The one of them, it's Kianchi, of course, the number fourth. I don't know exactly what in my sellers, I do good job with Verintino from Legura. Okay. But, yeah, it's very nice because I think I like Verintino so much. That's why I saw it. And also, we have a producer in our portfolio. I also run to him two years, and he gives for us wines. His name is Iman Giuliani from Malibuya. So the number five, I hope it will be PMmont in the future. But now in number five, it's different region we sell. Okay. Got it. And thank you for such a good breakdown of what is selling well in the restaurants. Very practical information. Thanks a lot. And right now, let's move on to the clients, to the consumers. So who are your typical consumers? What do we know about their age interests or gender wise? You already mentioned Avayan and Drew, you said that there are a lot of tourists. Is there anything else you could add about the consumers? Of course, in a restaurant, Bay and Jewel, we have a lot of tourists from different countries. I like that because, you know, I always start to understand which country, which wine prefer. So I have a lot of clients, for example, from Europe of corporate people. They understand wines, how to produce, and they have a very good taste. So for me as a family, it's very nice to meet clients who understand wines when I have a talk with this guest. Not like guests just to order wine and ice skate. I like to be with guests all the time when he came from aperitif, until he going out from our restaurant. And other clients who have a local different clients and we have a high net worth customers. They prefer coming to our restaurants because they know me, you know, our chefs, they know our service. And, of course, we try to do the best we can. And in my restaurants, I have a wine cellar downstairs. This is a prewatt place. There is a five thousand five hundred labels, and I have very expensive wine there. And if we talk about different clients, we have now the young generation, the people who just finished a study. For example, in the Europe, they come back to family, and they have a good job. They work as a manager, top manager here in Kazakhstan, and they really, really interesting for wine and they have a money, of course, understanding how to spend, and they really, like I say, the new generation, I think for the future, the Italian wine's future, it's coming with them together. Hand by hand. Okay. That is very promising to know, and I'm very happy to hear that. We're going to have a new generation of wine consumers here, especially because everyone in the world is talking about gen z and the decline in wine consumption, especially among younger consumers. It's good to know. Okay. And let me move back to Champagne now. First of all, what I wanted to say and I didn't want to interrupt you. I love the concept of the wine gallery. And as you said, your concept is not just selling your own wines, but also selling the wines from other importers. That is a very good concept, I think. Yes. I think we let the other company think also working with other importers. So we have I don't know how many, but a lot of wine shops in Almaty, because when we start talking, I not say that Almaty, it's, CT where the wine culture start and continue. For example, if you're going to Astana, you're not find a lot of wine places like in Almaty, you're not finding Sommelier, I think, I don't know how many, but we have a lot of familiar working in in restaurants in Almati. In, Astana, you not find it in each restaurant, Samilier, who introduced wine list, who introduced Italian wines in the place, Like I say Almata, it's a very famous city in Kazakhstan and you find a lot of wine places here and many restaurants here awarded by international magazines here in Almati wine spectator also and I think, we need to also do some fantastic job because we have a lot of a lot of wine producers who start thinking that Kazakhstan is not just for vodka and beer. Of course, this part of market is very big and they fine take ten or five persons from vodka in Kazakhstan or we'll be so happy. Well, I hope maybe not taking from their market, but also working together. Why not working together with those who sell vodka and beer here? I think it's important to work together. And, again, Champagne wine gallery, as I said, I like this concept because it brings everyone to to work together, which is very good. If we are looking at the big picture, it's very good for the market. It's not like each of the companies trying to sell just their own, but it's good to develop together. Exactly. And they also will not say about our school. So the wine school inside the champagne gallery. Our ideology, all distributor can come in a school and open his wines so we open for anyone. So the school is a first step to make our clients more understandable wines because, you know, we start from beginning here in a school. We give information for our guests. Some of them sometimes also become very wine drinking. And here, I've got a question about the wine schools. So for example, let's say if Italian wineries that are not imported here or maybe even Italian consorts For example, you mentioned Franco Corte. Okay. If they, for example, text you or contact the school, reach out to you somehow, can they be featured in the classes that you give at your school? For example. Of course, they can. We think about this. We weighed them. We need some, not some. We need all producers from Italy to present them in our school. So we can work together with our, association of this is good way to do this job together. For example, wine producer from Farfetch quarter. He interesting to be in the market for future. But if he not coming alone, it will be maybe three or four wine producers from this region, and we have everything to be online, make it online presentation. So producers send it to us wines. It's possible. Not too much six bottles per person. So this is a logistic way it's working. And then we check the date and we do online presentation in our school. I think it's a good step to let our familiar understand the region. If we talk about a financial quarter, So I think it's a good idea and we have to push this idea together with, any consortium of Italian wines and together with our school and Kazakhstan cessation, and we Okay. That is also good to know that you are very open for the cooperation. Okay. We already talked about Abai and Andrew. We already talked about cuisine. Right now, could you please recommend us some of the very nice wine pairings with traditional cuisine from Central Asia, not just Casa, central Asia altogether, with Italian wines. What comes to your mind? I can recommend a lot of dishes with a lot of Italian wines. I do this job every day, and this is a good wine pairing because, you know, Casa cuisine, we have a lot of meat in the dishes. So we like Italians with horse meat, too much horse meat. I don't remember invented horse meat. It's also popular. Oh, yeah. It is it's popular in Veneto in some parts of Sicily too, like other southern Italian regions. So if we talk about food pairing, I recommend Beech Parmark. We talk about the pasta, the fat pasta with the horse meat with different pieces of meat inside this dish. And I liked Italian wrestling so much from Vermont. It's not grape, which is very popular in Italy, but for me, it's very nice. But we can take, for example, not international grape, the local Timarasso. If we take Timarasso, white wines with a good acidity together with a fatty dish like Bejman market will be incredible in your mouth. You have to feed it. If we take other dish, it's called twelve have some ingredients, little bit, you know, spicy and sweet inside. It will be very nice to order it together with alto adagie givers per minute because this grape had a little bit sweetness in the end of dry and very nice working together with cloth. So these two dish two wines is enough, or I can con you not stop me? No. I think for now, we're gonna be good. And others, I think, who is curious, you just visit Almaty and visit Abayan in Jewel restaurants. Because as I already said, they're located in a very scenic spot. Enolmente, a very touristic place. So that would be nice. And, again, when I talk to Raman, I ask him a question about lesser known wines and brands in a premium dining environment. How difficult, how challenging is it to sell those points. Depends. It depends of the place. Depends of the restaurant as, of course, it depends of the person as a sommelier. So if we now talk about the private labels and expensive wines, We sell, not a lot. It's not part of celebrity, but named like Susicaiah, I sell each month. For example, three bottles in in a month. Last week, one guest takeaway, not opened in a restaurant, He take four bottles of, maceto, two thousand nineteen vintage. But they're kinda well known, but what about some lesser known brands or grapes, for example? It's easy to sell when you have a family inside your restaurant and he will explain and let guests understand what they drink. So it's easy when you explain for guests. For example, nobody know we have wine in our portfolio. Sabignum Blum is aging in a cat serve wood It's fantastic. Seven young blonde, but guests not choose if somebody cannot help him. Mhmm. And when he tries this wine, he's, how to explain. If you like seven young, yeah, if you like seven young blonde, of course, you have to try different styles. But when the guest open wine list results, similarly, of course, he will go in a part when he know exactly what he want. So we need to help for guests. This is our job. And, I can, I say for myself, give it to me any Italian wines, and they sell these wines in my place? This depends of the style, depends of the food. Everything is working together. And also if you're a Vermentino from liguria, it helps with Alexander because we already know he likes it. Yes. This is my grape. I like it so much. Okay. And it's almost time for us to wrap it up. But before we do that, I got three rapid questions for you just to finish our conversation to put the final full stop to our today's episode. So the first one, what's one key thing Italian winery should keep in mind when entering the market? As I already said, it's a good way to introduce Italian wines and producers to make a festival of wines. Winefest is like in Italy, and better also, maybe others. So my restaurants also my place in the mountain is very famous like I also say before, and we talk about a buying a jewelry stand, but we forget to say that we have a cock to be whole also in the mountain. This is place for five hundred person. We can, make celebration at any events inside. So this is, like, first class of the blanket hole in, Kazakhstan. We opened just two years ago. Everything is new inside. Why I say about this. So we invite all the producers inside this place and we can organize together with a Italian group of producers or, consortiums together some Italian fest not like we need to be in Gamora also something different because if you see our importers, a lot of importers have found inside his portfolio, Italian wines, each one. So if each importer, invite his producers to Almati, and we make it this face in a place like I say in our mountain. It's called to be a call, to be great. This this is some idea for future. But also, like, the wines that are not imported yet, the wineries that are not Yes. Exactly. We can do some part of the places in this festival for new searching importers producers like this. Okay. Got it. Thank you for your answer. And Again, if you could introduce one new wine trends or grape variety to Kazakhstan, what would it be and white? It's a good question. We have to try to bring all grape from Italy to Kazakhstan and introduce all styles of wine. I mean, I'm not against that. We are not against that. That would be great. Looking for portfolio, our distributors and importers. I think we have a lot of, regions, from Italy, which we cover it in our portfolio. We're not covering Sunchicorta. Like I say, we're not covering a place like Calabrio, basilica. No. We have basilicata, but small quantity of producers. I think one or two. So I don't know how to answer for this question. I think it will be all wine grapes interesting for our market. I wanna do some fast like I said before for your question. I answer for your question because it will be really great to organize the each region coming and make it fast in our and open the wine, which would maybe not dry it before. Okay. Okay. Got it. Thank you. And the third question, which is not related to wine. So, actually, if suddenly you've got an allergy on alcohol, If you aren't working in wine, what other profession or industry could you see yourself in? You know, I think I will be coached in a football team maybe because, you know, I studied before a little bit. And, maybe I organize some events, like, I say organize events, wine events. Why not? I cannot drinking there. Just just watching. Just watching. And, what I do now now, for example, I not drink too much. And, this is a way because I'm going to support Jim. So maybe I can become in the future with a coach of Jim. Also, I don't know. I don't think about it. I will stay in my job. Got it. And we hope that in the future, everything will be great with your job, and you will not even have a possibility to consider something else Thank you very much. And they wanna say, for Italian producers, they also have to invite our family to the region to make some fast inside Italy because for us, it's not difficult to get a visa. And going to Italy. So some regions they already do, for example, in the sardinia, they do some fantastic wine fest, and they invite person from different countries. And these regions, they pay. Everything can close tickets and hotels for this client. So this is also important. It's it's my opinion. Mhmm. Okay. Got it. Thank you, Alexander. That was a very fun conversation and also very practical. Thank you for all the breakdowns. Hope to see you in almaty on seventh of July. I will be there. Of course, I already registered it. Okay. That's nice. That's good to know. Okay. Thank you so much. And Kjell. Kjell. Thanks for listening to Asia wine markets, Almaty special edition. Don't forget to subscribe and follow the Italian wine podcast wherever you get your parts. And if you are curious to discover more about the central Asian wine scene, join us at the Vineet Lake Calleksson roadshow on July seventh. See you in the next episode. And until then, cheers from Almaty.