Ep. 2048 Welcome new co-host Barbara Fitzgerald | Masterclass US Wine Market

Who wants to be the next Italian wine Ambassador? Join an exclusive network of four hundred Italian wine ambassadors across forty eight countries. Vineetly International Academy is coming to Chicago on October nineteenth is twenty first. And Walmatikazakhstan from November sixteenth to eighteenth. Don't miss out. Register now at Vineetri dot com. Welcome to Mastercross US Market with me, Juliana Colan, Jelo. This show has been designed to demystify the US market for Italian wineries through interviews of experts in sales and distribution, social media, communications, and so much more. We will quiz each of our esteemed guests at the end of each episode to find the lessons that we've learned. So sharpen your principles, get out your notebooks, and join us each week to learn more about the US market. Hello, everybody. My name is Steve Kim. And today, we would like to introduce to you our new co host Barbara Fitzgerald for Italian Line podcast. So hopefully we can have Beauiana and Barbara fitzgerald on so that we can introduce you to both of them and talk about how we're going to forge ahead in terms of co hosting. So I have Barbara coming on. Hi, Joanna. How are you? Are you? Where are you? How are you? I'm in New York. I'm in for fun. And what about you, Barbara? I'm in Sonoma County. Yes. Okay. So this is it. This is the bicostal US master class getting ready. So, you know, Julianna, how are we going to do this? Yeah. So, I met Barbara a couple of years ago through the Italian White About their program, and she's been a very loyal listener and been giving me good feedback on the show. We met at Van Italy this year. So, I had the thought this summer that it would be interesting to have us as cohost and have a kind of bicosal approach with Barbara, you know, on the West Coast in California, myself here in New York. And co hosting the master class US wine market so that we are truly covering both sides of the market because there's so much going on on both ghosts as well as in between. So I asked Barbara to drag me as a co host and I'm very happy that she accepted. Thank you, Barbara. This is gonna be great. Yeah. Thank you for for the opportunity. I can't wait. This is my favorite topic. Italian wine in the US. So, yes. Juliana, I know it's to give you a little lost of wiggle room, right, because you're super busy now with your new job. It's you're not your own boss anymore. Exactly. Things are busy. That's true for sure and going great, but definitely lots going on and going to be a very, very busy fall. So I'm very grateful. To have Barbara as my partner and and moving forward. So, Barbara, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself to our audience? Yeah. Gosh. I feel like I've given my bio here so many times. So sorry if you've heard it before, but, I kinda grew up in the wine industry here in California. My family's been, part of the California wine industry for almost a hundred years. So, one of the first, kind of true family, establishments in all sectors of the business. So owning a vineyard and a winery, and also an important distribution company. So that's all I've really known my my whole life. And then when I entered the industry, I started, on the marketing side for more, direct to consumer sales and marketing and hospitality. And then I've kind of, like, weaved my way through various parts of of the industry over the last twenty years, working a little bit, in scaling a brand for national distribution here in the US, and then eventually ending up back on the marketing side. So, of course, both Barbara and Juliana, they're very active members of our community. But Now how are we going to organize this? Is it going to be like one week, Barbara, one week, Julianna? How are you going to divide con divide and conquer? What is the program? Juliana, since you are the veteran? Yes. I think that's what we're thinking. You know, biweekly, we'll each have our our shows. We'll still maintain, you know, our perspectives. We'll follow the same format so that we're still giving everyone that that master class style with the three key takeaways and the little quiz at the end. So Barbara will be using the same format for her guests. I think what's really interesting is you heard from Barbara intro. She has a lot of experience on the direct to consumer side and reaching consumers. And and that's what we spoke about when I interviewed Barbara for the podcast. So I think she'll bring more of that lens of, you know, as DTC rises, especially for imported wines, what are those opportunities? And, you know, I'm here in New York epicenter for imports, so a little more on the trade marketing side, especially, you know, in my role now working for an importer and distributor. So I think we'll also have a nice balance between, you know, some more trade, East Coast focus topics for my feet and then for Barbara and more DTC and and West Coast focused guests and topics. So I think it'll be a really a really fun balance. I'm excited. Who gets Texas? Sticking up the chair. Right, Barbara? Yeah. Totally. Texas is also east and west in and of itself. So Right. Exactly. There we go. We have Kansas too. Totally. Barbara, have you got any guests lined up or you're thinking about some potential guests? I have a long I was so this is, like, my personality. I get so excited about things and I make lots of lists. So I have a long list. It was waiting for us to kind of officially announce it here before I started reaching out to people, but I'll do that. It's official. Okay. Alright. So it's going to be on that same time slot, Mondays. Right? So It'll be once Juliana. Don't get confused and once Barbara will mix them all together. And that's it. That's all I wanted to do for today. I know everybody's super busy getting ready for the holidays. I'm working from home today because the fridge blew up, so I had and nobody's working. I had to get a I've called, like, two thousand people. Finally, I think it's gonna get taken care of. So that's it. And I'm going to New York actually as of Friday, so hopefully I can Yeah. See you, Julianna. Yeah. That'd be great. While we're here, if there's anyone in the audience that has any feedback on the show or any topics, question, or potential gap, please, you know, all ears, always can also always ping me and Barbara on Instagrams, LinkedIn, you know, you know, where to find us, but, please always love hearing feedback about the show. If there's anything you wanna dive in more. I'm super excited. I'll be recording tonight a series with Jeremy Hart from song Oh, yes. Tell tell us about that. Yeah. So it's Jeremy and I, and many of you might know Jeremy. He's one of the cool founders of Psalm dot ai. They're the most comprehensive data source for on premise data for the US market. You know, many of us look at Nielsen, but that really only covers off premise. So Jeremy's data covers the on premise. So we'll be looking at trends in Italian wine in restaurants in the US market focusing on some up and coming regions in Italian wine, top wines on wine list, top Italian wines on wine list, and then also non alcoholic and the rise of the non alcoholic package. Oh, you know, it's like the taboo to talk about that. Okay. I know. I know. So but, you know, it is an important topic. So I saw a headline today in fortune. Five hundred and thirty six million dollar industry right now. So I don't think it's, slowing down any attention. So, yeah, we'll cover those three topics, and they'll be released over the series of a few episodes. So that's what you can expect coming up, for for my part, for for August is, some interviews with with Jeremy, which are always really interesting because he gets us, you know, deep into the data and the numbers which which we love. So yeah, that's that's what's coming up with Jeremy and and Sanda AI on my side. These topics, do you wanna preview anything? I know you're working on your guests, but even if you wanna preview Well, you know, I think there's been so many interesting conversations happening right now about the, like, real challenges of of the three tier system in in the US and does it need some kind of reform or something like that? So I have a couple guests, in mind who can talk to us a little bit. About that. And I always love to take a look at it from both sides. Like, what is really challenging, but also why does this maybe still work? Alright. Interesting. Okay. That's it folks. I gotta go. Gotta, you know, we're all busy. So that's it. Guess I gotta get my fridge fixed because nobody's around. Yes. Okay. Thank you ladies and and I will hopefully listen to you and see you soon. Absolutely. Thank you for joining me today. Stay tuned each week for new episodes of Master Class US wine market with me, Juliana Colangelo. And remember if you enjoyed today's show, hit the like and follow buttons wherever you get your podcasts.