Ep. 39 Monty Waldin interviews VIA Italian Wine Ambassador Zhu Mi (Amazon China) | Education meets Business

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast with me Monty Walden. I'm talking to Zumi, who's a candidate studying to become an ambassador for the Vin Italy International Academy. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. How are you doing, ma'am? I'm doing pretty good now. What we need to hear from you is, how hard is the study? It was pretty intense, you know. Let's say it was a lot higher than college. Okay. So what actually is the point of the study? Would you would you actually study in grape varieties wines in Italian? Definitely, grape variety was a big part of the study, and, as well as the different, wine region in Italy, you know, in China, you know, we don't have a lot of chance to really get to know a lot of Italian wine, particularly. So, you know, as we all know, in China, we we feel a lot of importers with a lot of wine classes, mainly more about Australia and France. So there's a really good opportunity for me to come over here and get the firsthand stuff for the expert, one expert, Iain Dagara. So, what is the typical day studying for you? Are you looking at great varieties regions in Italy? Every day, we, we, we look at different, it's hand grape varieties, Mavazia. We learn about different trevianos in different wine regions, and that was a big part of it in the, in the morning. And, we would actually do tasting in the afternoon and see the different style of, each varietal, how different producer make the wine from the same grape varietal, but have, quite a big different, in style. So do you have any particular favorites? Actually, LaBusco, So, for me, you know, I previously before I came over here, I always had, I didn't think it was a very serious wine, you know, I thought it was just like, Coca Cola, you know, something you drink. You put ice cube in there in summertime. But I was very, interesting that we learn on, like, brewisco, Sobara. We learn about La Pusco Esparosa and Salaminos, and that was that was very interesting. So Do you remember where the Salamino variety of numbers could get his name from? My favorite fruit, my favorite time food, salami. An advance of that one correctly. We we beat you out of the studio. So what, obviously, you're studying about the Italian GreatRise. What will be your job when you, when you finish? What is your job now? Why are you doing this? What's it gonna do for your career? Well, you know, it does benefit me in two ways because I'm a buyer for Amazon in China. So we actually buy a lot of wines around the world. So, it was pretty easy for us to buy a wine from Australia. We used by Sierra or cabernet and France, you buy wines from Broadau, burgundy, Cort Home. It was always difficult to, you know, to find in which time line to import because all the information we got before was just Kianti, Balolo, and maybe some of the Neil Davada in, sincerely. So, with this course, definitely, I know the different bridle across, all the Italian wine regions and the different local grapes, native to grapes, you know, are actually very interesting that I think actually fit the Chinese palette in a way, because, I don't think Chinese consumer, they like something too panicked to, bowl So it's actually, at the time wine, present a pretty large, different diversity of, different wines. I think is actually, it goes really well with a lot of Chinese cuisine from the, you know, something that we know's Cantones style cuisine to more spicy your dishes like sichuan cuisine. So, you know, italian wines are perfect. You know, they are always very friendly. So, yep. Okay. So how are you going to you're getting the knowledge now and you're gonna share your knowledge with your potential consumers via Amazon? How will you do that directly? Well, you know, definitely, we will definitely help hope to a partner within Italy to launch promotions in online as well as, doing offline events. And actually, we started off last year in Shanghai with a Shanghai Fu on one festival in Saint Tampa in Shanghai, where we had, two booths that was only focused on Italian wines. So this this year definitely with, you know, with a more knowledge, we will, present more wines for the consumers to try. It was last year. It was pretty focused on Puscany. We have some wines from the Trinto area, La Grange and some wines from Balolla, but that was it. So now, actually, with the course, the, the knowledge I learned in the last five days, I will try my best to bring in wines from different part of regions such as, Montepucciano for Abruccio, some, Tribiano or soave. So, so what's the demographic you're aiming at? Are you aiming at the wholesalers and retailers or younger consumers? A consumer's, a hundred percent B2C. Okay. So mainly, customer age from twenty five to, forty. Majority, women. So that's very important. Yep. Yep. Yeah. That's a big part of our business is, female customers. So, and they, are they particularly looking for semi sparkling ones like Lambrisco? Brusco, sweet, and Mercado Bianco. So these are some a lot of very popular, Italian wines right now in the Chinese market. So are there any important rules to be in terms of presentation how the bottle is presented like labeling, colors on the labels? It it, it does help. You know, when you have a fancy, the good looking bottle, it does help to, sell. It does, it really does. Okay. One particular colors. The bottles with flowers always help. Because at this one, sparkling wine in a bush that is is for it's Italy right now. It's very popular in China. In Chinese, it's called, and that's ever has a very fancy bottle. It has a flower. It's a very easy to drink wine, you know, people is very popular in Shanghai. Do you see long term that you'll start bringing Chinese people over to Italy to see the vineyards and wineries direct, or is that a step too far perhaps? Well, you know, Chinese people has been coming to Italy for many years. They always be a big fan of a Italian fashion. So I think there's only one more step, you know, isn't it? So people are being going to, floor Rome Milan. Verona is perfect, you know, it's middle of everywhere, you know. It's on the way to Venice. So, I mean, for, for sure, the the the food here is is great, you know. I think it is definitely something interesting to do in the future. Zoomy, brilliant to meet you, very dynamic young man, very articulate as well. You got a a man with a plan, and we wish you every success selling wine and selling Italian wine in China. Thank you, Montey. Follow Italian White Podcast on Facebook and Instagram.