Ep. 334 #iobevoacasa - LOCKDOWN SERIES | Juliana Colangelo and Heini Zachariassen

That's a bigger one. Look at the Harold. Big one. Uh-huh. Wait. He's he's a big guy. He jumped in the chair in front of the camera. It's like he knew. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast lockdown series. Every Monday will be connecting with Italian wine people. Join us to find out what they're doing and drinking today. This podcast is brought to you by Colangelo and Partners, the leading fine wine and spirits agency in the US. Visit Colangelo and partners on w w w dot colangeloPR dot com. Hi, everybody. I'm Juliana Colangelo. I am the West Coast director at Colangelo Partners. I'm out here in Berkeley, California. In this beautiful backyard, enjoying some some work from home, outside today. And our guest today is the founder of Vivino, the wine app, Haina Zacharizon. Haina, thank you so much for joining us today. So glad you could be with us. Thank you very much for having me. Glad to meet you. Yeah. So where are you? Where are you? So I'm I'm I'm just north of you. I am, just north of San Francisco. So just go over Golden Gate, it's a place called Miller Valley. Very nice We live up on a hill in a nice view, so it's super nice. Yeah. We're from home in California. I mean, I feel really lucky to be here in quarantine. We have so many great hiking and outdoors to to get access to. It's it's pretty lucky, I'd say. Yeah. It's it's obviously depending on where you live. If you're in a one bedroom in San Francisco, maybe not so interesting, but we live pretty close to nature, and the the sun is always out. It's pretty amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So how are things going for you. I mean, what's going on in Vuna right now? What's it like? Let's start with a lot. The the obviously, there's a lot of people struggling during this pandemic, and it's it's tough for a lot of businesses, but But we are, somewhat, one of the lucky ones, which means that, there's been radically increased demand for wine, you know, for your home during this time, obviously. So we've seen a massive increase in sales over this period. So it's been a very from a business point of view, like, there are a lot of things that are difficult, but from a business point of view, it's been very, very interesting. Yeah. And what happened in Italy with Vivino? Because I know that was a that's a huge market for Vivino and obviously with of the first markets that was impacted by the situation. So what was the situation like for for Vivino, with your Italian producers and suppliers and also the Vivino users in Italy? Yeah. I was, Like Italy, was it really hard, really quickly. So we were, like, super concerned what's gonna happen here. And and what is our role? Is it, hey, should we stop marketing? Should we stop shipping? What do we actually do here? And we quickly realized, no, the right thing to do here is to keep going, to to support the industry, to to help people get the wines they want. So, we're actually based in Northern Italy that was hit hard. And, the team worked incredibly hard We shipped all the way through this. It it wasn't always easy. There were delays and all those things, but people did get their wine. And, so it's been very interesting period for us, for sure. Yeah. Are you seeing in Italy more people? Did you see an increase in sales in Italy also? I know you said an increase in sales globally, but how about, you know, specifically in Italy, what was the the usage like? Oh, yeah. It increased radically in Italy too. I I'd say we we doubled overnight, when this hit. The Italians need their wine. It's simple as that. Right? Like, habits are actually changing. Right? People are seeing how easy and convenient actually is. You know, you used to say, necessities, the mother of invention, which is true, right? But necessity is always, is also the mother of adoption. So we feel like we've had these tools for a long time, and they've been amazing. But apparently, it took a virus to really push people to say, you should really use these tools. Great. So you sounds like you've been pretty busy. I know a lot of people in quarantine, some people are making bread and fermenting things. I'm eating bread. You're eating me too. And I feel like, you know, Financial too. We've been we've been very busy trying to help our clients a lot of different ways. So what have you been able to do in your in your free time? And hopefully, you have had some some breaks from work here and there? Yeah. I, like, honestly, the coolest thing about all this is that the family is together. Right? So I have spent a lot of time with the, with the family here. And again, we live really nice here. So we do get out. I go for a run and a walk. And then I have this special thing that I do, which people think is super weird. It probably is too. But like in the afternoon, because I I usually start early, because I work a lot of Europe, so I start early. So when but in the afternoon starts I drive down to Susalito, and there's there's the, like, this small boat harbor, I just sit there in my car and look out and just work from there, which is where you're sitting in your car. But it's nice if you see the boat, you see a little bit of people. So you're still distancing, but, it's just a different environment. Right. I like that, though. It's good to just get, you know, a change of pace. Like, I'm here today. This is actually my aunt's house. I wish this was my own backyard. Looks amazing. Drinking recently. I mean, everyone I will say I'm drinking more more wine and quarantine. I think, more than usual, obvious. And it's been a cool opportunity to just dig through some bottles. I've been, like, saving, and what am I saving them for in the morning? Yeah. Exactly. You might have a drink that you're going to solve it. I've been drinking all kinds of stuff, but also, you know, both both Italian and everything else. But also, like on Fridays, we have, like, a happy hour since the family is here, we also have boyfriends and girlfriends coming by sometimes. And then we at six o'clock, we'll have drinks and stuff too. So both a lot of wine and a lot of alcohol. And and today, I found this one because I was looking at I knew I had some amarone somewhere, which I ordered on the vino not too long ago, or the bad news is that it's not there anymore. The good news is because we really liked that amarone, it disappeared. So you mentioned your daughter just graduated. Oh, yes. Been kind of a different graduation, for many. So how did you celebrate? Yes. Super, super weird all around. I think for she's, she's twenty two now. She just graduated from from college here in in University of San Francisco. So, she's had a lot of disappointment. She had events and graduation, but she, at some point, she said, okay, it is what it is. Let's just get this done. So this week, there was first a graduation on Sue. There were people are fundamentally disappointed by not having a big party, but but then we had this like, oh, wow. This is this feels pretty real. So that was good. And then on Friday, we went into USF and just opened a pure wireless champagne and and, and took some pictures just us. And then in the evening, we had some Nice. A very small private party where we obviously ate and drank really well here at home. Nice. Did you enjoy gaming, particularly fathers, saying? So, yes. I, you know, I, I love Champagne. I'm not gonna say. But for the for this particular, we had opened a two thousand and six tone pre owned, which is pretty nice. Yeah. Right. What did your daughter think? Can she grow and I get appreciation for wine yet? She learns Well, at least I would say yes because I started out buying these really cheap, probably Italian to sugary mosquitoes, and they are a little bit too much for grown ups. So we've now matured from that stage to actual wine, which sort of so she she likes a, maybe I sell them a block from New Zealand or something like that. So she's definitely maturing already, which is good. Yeah. Very cool. What have you been cooking at home? Just We can't catch any possibility. You're definitely putting me on the spot right there. Not not that much. I will I will say one thing. I haven't done it, like, just now, but I've I've done another thing which is pretty much Italian inspired. I will make my own limoncello, which I think is kind of fun. Yes. So so that I do myself once in a while. Awesome. Let's do it. What's your rescue? It's it's it it doesn't get more simple, actually. It's it's basically three ingredients, right, out of four, few, include water. So we found find some local lemons here. They could be right outside, actually. And, I've tried with these local meyer lemons, which are really nice. And basically it's that, and sugar, and then you can actually buy really strong alcohol here. So, I manage it. It comes from Arizona or somewhere where I think it's legal. It's called Everclear, which is like ninety percent. And obviously, you don't want it down, but I think it gives a little bit of better taste than the limoncello. It sort of sucks up all those things. So when it comes out, it's really, really good. Yeah. I'm actually there's some lemons in, like, this backyard. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, you can make amazing. You can make fantastic on each other of that one. Yeah. It's a little unripe, but, you know, I've picked it a little too early, but, you know, I've seen. So what do you think for the future, Vivienne, now that people are starting to adapt, you know, buying wine online, and, you know, we're seeing this incredible increase of people engaging with wine online. The wine industry, you know, the big players in this industry have said, you know, online is there somewhere. It's like whatever ten percent, but but we're reaching a tipping point on that regime. Okay. This is real now. We have to be serious about online. So all of those guys are gonna have a much better strategy we're gonna use that. There's gonna be more supply, more availability for the people buying online. Right. Yeah. No. Absolutely. I I think it's gonna be, it's gonna be a big check or we're gonna see it globally. Are there in particular high trees where you're seeing people buy more wine online, or where where were some of the early adopters? Yeah. So, obviously, some of these these countries have been hit hard by the the coronavirus, but, but in the south, Italy and Spain have been slowed to about this. So although we've had a lot of users in Italy and Spain, buying has been slower than in the north. And and now there is a real push and they're really catching up. So whereas in in Denmark and Sweden up north, we've also seen growth. Not as aggressive as in the south. So some of the countries that were sort of behind on the digital are now really pushing forward. Oh, interesting. Okay. So you're seeing now some of these countries almost catch up to some other countries and users. Makes a lot of sense. Yep. So we're all working a lot and working at home a lot, and that you sound like you have some really long work days. What do you how do you focus when you're working at home? I think for me, I I I like just to break it up and just go out and do something else. I think that's very, very important. And then I just move around, and I people complain that I don't always have the camera on. It's because I'm sitting on the couch over there or down there or somewhere else because I like to move around and Otherwise, I'll just be, like, stuck somewhere. Right? I need to move. Yeah. No. I feel the same way. It's, like, otherwise, sometimes, if I hop by myself, if I sit for too long, it's not good. No. It's just not good. No. It's just not good. Yeah. How many of your house? I live in a somewhat small apartment. So the working situation between my boyfriend and my roommate, you know, we're kinda crossing our lines a little bit sometimes with conference calls. How was it for you working at home with your family all being there and how's that set up? It's actually, it's like not amazing, but it's fine. I like most of the things I talk about even if I sit in the living room and they're in the kitchen, I can still do that. So so it is okay, but it's, like, not amazing. But I can also also go into our our bedroom where we have a decent setup. So I could move around. But these some of these California houses are, you know, should I sell it not well built? I mean, the walls are thinning. So whatever I say will be hard in the entire house. Yeah. You've watched what you said. Exactly. So your daughter just graduated. What did she have an does she have an interest in wine? Is what are her interests? Well, she is she is moving straight into your business. You know? She, she made it in communications. And, actually, she graduated Friday and started a full time job, this Monday at a at an agency. Oh, that's great. That's exciting. Congratulations. Thank you very much. Very good. It was exciting for her. Yeah. Yeah. That's very cool. I could imagine me graduating right now. It could be a little scary going out into this world and Yeah. Exactly. Like the time that we're faced with. So that's that's awesome for her. I mean, yeah, communications right now is it's still key. So we're we're lucky for sure. Maybe more than ever. During doing doing it. Yeah. Give me more than ever. Yeah. In some ways, for sure. Yeah. Are you just so besides working and drinking wine? Are you doing anything else at the moment? Are you reading anything good? Or Yeah. I do. So, I I don't get to do long walks, sort of on on on weekdays, but in the weekends, and again, I'm also a little bit weird. People go on hikes up the mountains. Like, we have these beautiful hikes here, and I've only heard about them. I go I go down to the small downtown here, walk around here for a couple of hours. Right. And usually what I do, I have ads that I wanna listen to podcasts or audio books, which I also do in exercise. So So I love that. If there's a if there's one podcast I've been listening to lately, which was really, you know, fun for me. There's a there's a podcast called Business Wars. And it's about all these conflicts all kinds of businesses. I don't think there's a lot of wine, but there's like Sony and Nintendo, Coca Cola, and Pepsi, all of them go pretty deep, like, in five episodes, and, it's really, really well made, and I've been, you know, educated and entertained by that for sure. And they talk about the creation of their business and Yes. Just the background and all that. Yeah. Exactly. But, like, in a very good storytelling way. So it's not just it's not a Wikipedia post. They try and set it up as real conversations and so on. So So it becomes really entertaining and, as factual as possible. Yeah. So you created wine to you created mevino to make wine, you know, less intimidating and more accessible for everyday people. What are some tips you would give to somebody today when, you know, they don't have the opportunity to maybe go out to restaurants or go to wineries. How would you recommend today that they learn about wine or discover their new wines? Or are some things, that you discovered early on when you were creating Divino? Yeah. I think I think and that has changed a little bit, you know, when we started, it was a lot about being a supermarket or somewhere in scanning a bottle of wine and seeing if it's good or bad. And the things we've built since then that I'm very, very pleased with are are these new search functions in the app and on the web. So if you wanna learn about new wine, you can really dig down just like when you order a a plane ticket, like you can say, I want a cabernet, I want it to be from California, but these new features in the app, You can even sort of stroll on the taste. How bold do you want it to be? Because we have so much data now. So the people that want to nerd around with that, I think is it those are amazing tools to to find your next wine. So, so, you know, obviously, I'm gonna remain I'd recommend something for Vivo, but, but, I mean, I just the data we have there is amazing. You can really learn a lot about Halloween. That's awesome. Does it also show you, like, how to, you know, like, food pairings, or how to serve it, or how to drink it, Yes, somewhat. Food pairing is relatively basic for us. So there is some food pairing in there, but it's something we're actually looking into making a little bit more sophisticated. Yeah. Oh, very cool. Yeah. People actually go love hearing about food and wine pairing. Yes. I I keep things simple. I I just drink kind of what I wanna drink and eat by a meeting, but, so my philosophy is pretty basic. But what about you? Do you get pretty geeky about food pairings? And No. Yeah. No. I can't say, I do. No. I I would say, you know, I do live meat, and we we do drink a lot of, like, powerful, cats and so on. I think also that's why them are on it disappeared really quickly, along with some stairs. That's why it's all gone. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Now that we're getting into summer too, I mean, grilling outside and red wine, that sounds pretty perfect. That's gonna be good. Yeah. Exactly. Alright. Well, hi Thank you so much for, for joining me today and Thanks for the pleasure. Hoping a little bit about California and wine and Vivino. It was really cool to to hear how it's going for you, and I it's great to see also some of the growth you guys are seeing, and that's super exciting for the whole industry, I think. So, here's to that. Cheers. Thank you very much for having me on. It's been a pleasure. Nice to see your backyard. But even though it's not yours. Thank you. Cheers. See you next Monday for another virtual wine journey Italian wine podcast lockdown series.