Ep. 1189 John Camacho Interviews Oscar Arrivabene | Clubhouse Ambassador's Corner

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This Clubhouse session was taken from the Wine Business Club and Italian Wine Club. Listen in as wine lovers and experts alike engage in some great conversation on a range of topics in wine. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through italianwinepodcast.com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. And remember to subscribe and rate our show wherever you tune in. Okay. Hello, everybody. My name is Davie Kim, and this is the Italian wine club on Clubhouse. And it's the ambassador's corner with Oscar Arriba Beine. It's more like a first chat style, and we've been doing this for such a long time now. Laika. Ciao, Laika. Ciao, Stevie. So what is the episode here? Number episode number 50 something or 60? It's 68. It's 68. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I've I've been sleeping the past few episodes, basically. We're re we've been really super busy for wine to wine. There were some extra episodes as well. Laika, of course, is our clubhouse manager backstage, and she's been doing a wonderful job. Let me just tell you that for those who are unfamiliar, we replay every single episode on the Italian Wine podcast, and we get thousands and thousands. Some of them we got, like, 8,000, 9,000 listens. So super popular. Ambassador's corner here with our Italian wine ambassadors. And today, we have John. Hello, John. Long time no see. Charles TV. Could be here. Yes. John Camacho, or is it Camacho? Camacho. Camacho be that. Camacho. John, where are you? What are you doing now? I haven't seen you in such a long time. Where have you been? Well, since, you and I parted ways in Italy the last time, I've been between New York City and Miami spreading the Italian wine gospel. There's a huge hunger down here in the South Of Miami for Italian wine, so I've been trying to do my best just to get the word out there and taste with as many people as we can. You know, it's it's it's difficult to change that that that mentality of the nice little cocktail, the umbrella next to the beach. And, I've been trying to tell people, hey. There's a lot of wine out there that we could drink, poolside. There's a lot of wine that we drink on the beach, and it doesn't have to be these, these, cocktail sweet drinks that are just, you know, all over the place. So it's been quite interesting and quite challenging, but also a lot of fun. Listen. So you you're living between New York and Miami. Is that correct? Correct. Trying to do the snowbird where take advantage of the, the the seasons. Here in Miami is a window of an opportunity, actually, where it's not extremely hot, and try to be here during those months. And then whenever needed, I go back to New York. But but New York is still the home base in New York, is still, where the love is. So you've started with a Italian wine merchant. You have a very long bio here. Why don't you tell us how you started with Italian wine and what your actual role is? Well, when I left, I used to be in finance. It actually it was quite interesting because I went to work initially to Italian wine merchants because they had an investment fund based on Italian wine. At that particular time back? How many years ago? Oh, this is about fourteen years ago. It was after the first, big adjustment we had in finance, and I just simply hadn't had enough, and I wanted to try something different. I thought I knew wine. I thought I I had a a big of of insight on it. But when I got there, I found out that I was actually totally ignorant. I knew nothing about wine. So I went to work for Italian wine merchants. And surprisingly, Sergio Esposito, when he gave me the opportunity, he asked me a few questions. And and being a salesman, he tried to, you know, try to sell it. And he just called me right on. He's like, you know what? You cannot lie through wine. You really have to know what you're talking about. I'm gonna test you in a couple of things. And if you don't have that down, then you're done. And I I I really hit the books. I studied for about a week. He came in, asked me two questions, patting me on the back. And that helped me because I never wanted to be put in a situation where I would feel that way again, and I tried to learn as much as I can. And instead of selling the investment fund in wine, I actually got into wine education. So it got me a little bit of time, to get and and it's a perpetual thing as you everybody here knows. It's ever evolving, ever changing, and and and it's just one of those wonderful journeys that you you could embark on. So but are you doing a wine full time, or are you still in finance? Business? No. I am a full time wine educator. When I worked with DMP Sedasione, I was an ambassador of Ford, Dominican Calico, and a few other boutique wineries, which was a beautiful experience. Now I go wherever I am needed and, again, trying to to just spread the Italian wine gospel. I've been working with Slow Wine, with La Brusco and Emilia Romagna. So I'm trying to put together some events with them. I'm also trying to do as many educational events as I can here in New York City and in Miami. Like I said, Miami is is a a a thirst of, of Italian wine, so it's been been fun trying to penetrate this market. So I am a full time wine educator. That's excellent. I'm I'm complimente because it's not it's not easy just doing a full time wine as a trade person in terms of education. So we will help you to do this, as much as you can. Of course, John is our what we call the Italian wine, ambassador, program. And, when did you do the course? I can't remember. This was the flagship right after when you opened after COVID, after the pandemic. So that was a year and a half ago, I believe. Right. So, I mean, especially in Miami now, you don't feel like it's COVID at all. Right? There are no mask restrictions, anything like that? You know, it's a different world over here. It's it's just, there aren't any restrictions. It's it's it's, I I guess, it's a little bit of common sense. And one of the advantages where you you have you don't have this condensed metropolis where everybody lives on top of each other. Everything's pretty much spared spared spread out. So that's one of the the reasons, I guess, they feel so laxed. But, you know, being a in a in a a society where you have, you know, it's retirement community, that has changed tremendously, by the way. I think the old, attitude was you go to you retire, you go to Florida. But there's a new generation. There there's there's all these young millennials that I like the word to use like like to use the word millennial, but there's this new generation of wine drinkers, new generation of people in general, entrepreneurs. So that segment or that mentality has also changed. But being that it's so spread out, you know, that again, it's a world of its own, and and they are very relaxed on it. You still have to be very careful, and I try to be diligent. You know? Better safe than sorry is what I say. Okay. Excellent. So I'm real