Ep. 619 Deborah Parker Wong | Get US Market Ready With Italian Wine People

Thanks for tuning into my new show. Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people. I'm Steve Ray, author of the book how to get US Market Ready. And in my previous podcast, I shared some of the lessons I've learned from thirty years in wine and spirits business helping brands enter and grow in the US market. This series will be dedicated to the personalities who have been working in the Italian wine sector in the US, their experiences, challenges, and personal stories. I'll uncover the roads that they walked shedding light on current trends, business strategies, and their unique brands. So thanks for listening in, and let's get to the interview. Before the show, here's the shout out to our new sponsor, Feroine. Feroine has been the largest wine shop in Italy since nineteen twenty. They have generously supplied us with our new t shirt. Would you like one? Just don't add fifty euros and it's all yours. Plus, we'll throw in our new book jumbo shrimp guide to international grape varieties in Italy. For more info, go to Italiancoin Podcast dot com and click donate or check out Italian wine podcast on Instagram. Hi. Welcome to this week's edition of Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people. I'm Steve Ray, the host, and I'd like to introduce you to a good friend of mine. Deborah Parker Long, and it's hard to, categorize who Deb is and what she does, which is really what we're gonna be talking about in this, Deb. Welcome to the show. And why don't you give us a brief outline of how you got here? For the warm welcome, Steve. I'm honored to be called a friend. Thank you. My journey oh my goodness. My journey is has been motivated by curiosity largely. I intentionally chose the wine business as my third career. And so that was very intentional. I didn't end up here by serendipity, but but I came to wine through food, Steve. I put myself through junior college. That would be your associate's degree working as a chef in residence. I was essentially Julia and Julia before Julia and Julia. I hadn't I I worked on a working avocado and citrus ranch. I I grew in organic garden. I raised beef. For for meals at the ranch, I I basically really immersed in farm to table, before well before farm to table. This is going way back. So your country before country was cool. Well, I would say that, you know, Santa Barbara is, you know, was a sleepy hamlet when I was there, but lots of history in Santa Barbara, but this is a very beautiful place on the central coast. So, you know, just an hour and a half north of LA and just a few hours south of San Francisco. So, you know, it wasn't exactly the sticks. There were important visitors to the ranch, and I discovered my passion for cooking and for, for, the, the whole farm to table thing. So when I came to San Francisco to finish my education at that time at San Francisco State University, the first place, of course, I headed with J. Pines, because that was, of course, the That is the, you know, ground zero for farm to table here in Northern California. So I definitely, food and, and, regional cuisine had definitely influenced my journey to one. And let's start off with something that I know you're particularly excited and proud about is slow one. Tell us a little bit about your involvement and, how it relates to Italy and so forth. Well, I am so honored and thrilled to be the national editor of the slow line guide USA. I was appointed national editor in twenty twenty, early on in that that you know, rather compelling year there. We managed. Yep. We managed to produce a print edition of the twenty twenty one slow wine guide. Of course, we worked on the guide in twenty twenty. And so I called it my pandemic miracle. But, this is the fifth year. We're now, right at this moment, we're working on the twenty twenty two guide as we speak, but this is the fifth year for slow wine USA. I've been involved in the project now for four years. And we have, come a long way baby. We now have, two hundred and eighty five US wineries, in the, in the twenty twenty one guide, and we hope to have more than three hundred next year. Slow wine falls under the banner of slow food. And slow food, many of your listeners may well know was started by Carlo Petrini in nineteen eighty six, in response to the incursion of industrial food, into Italy, specifically in response to McDonald's wanting to open, a franchise on the Spanish steps in Rome. And there was this very visceral reaction to that and slow food has grown ever since. Now, slow food is well established here in the United States. There are chapters several chapters here in Northern California alone, but there are chapters all over the US. And those slow food chapters have recently been told about the slow line guide because I've been collaborating with slow food to make sure that their eighty thousand members know about us. Which leads me to a subject. You and I have talked about before when we were, preparing for this interview, and it has to do with the jargon and the, and the language that is used in the world of wine both at the educator level, at the general population level, and at the trade level. And a lot of discussion about what are the right words and so forth. And I know we'll get into this later, but you're a judge and do a whole bunch of other things. So, vocabulary is really important. Then we get, camera data's coming out with clean wine. And the whole wine trade kind of went, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, that, no, she can't do that. There's no such thing, yada, what's your point of view on, on the whole concept of a clean wine? Well, that this is this is a this is a loaded topic. Absolutely. She, you know, her adoption of that particular word, that adjective hit an emotional button that caused an uproar. It it well, a tempest in a tea kettle. I don't know here in the in the wine industry itself. But, you know, the whole idea of the the hypothesis of linguistic relativity that words do shape our experience and putting words to wine, really do form our our deepest feelings about wine. It's really very important. There's a whole philosophy. There's a, there's a whole philosophy behind how relevant the words we use are. And for myself, as a wine educator, clean simply means wine that doesn't have any flaws or faults. For me, it's black and white. It's very straightforward. Either the wine is clean. It's in condition or it's out of condition. It has a flaw, a defect, or it's faulted. It's undrinkable. So, over here in this camp, it's it's very straightforward. But we, at the slow one guy do not use the word clean to describe wines because we're only going to tell you about wines that are in good condition. Right? So that would be the the the technical way of talking about wine being clean. Now that's not the way that miss Diaz and and the, you know, the group of folks that have adopted that word to talk and market their products, talk about their products and market their products. That's not the way they're using the word. And so for me, it just becomes another, adjective that that has in candlen confusion to what they're talking about? Yeah. I think from a marketing point of view, it's pretty smart because she's positioning everything else as unclean. Line, kind of by default, and that's not the case. And what does she mean by that in terms of everything from we've all heard the discussion about sulfites in line and all the other additives and use of ice and glass and what's organic and whatnot. We'll get into that in a minute. But so that's kind of the popular issue that I think is the trade is reacting to. And then we go into other words that are commonly used but aren't necessarily meaning the same thing to everybody else. And I, I start with acid. You know, I, racy, tart, bracing, refreshing. We're working on a project with a celebrity now, and she uses the word sharp, and it was easy for me to figure out what she meant by sharp. Was acid that was what she was reacting to, but the word she used was sharp. So but how does that common use of this language, which you're not using that same jargon in what what you're teaching? No. Actually, I'm, I'm using a very specific, specific language, and it's called the systematic approach to tasting. It's the wine and spirit education trust rubric for tasting wine. And what it does I I teach it. I practice it. It has served me very well since I first, began WSET in early two thousands. It teaches everyone to speak the same language. So when It's like if if you were to speaking to me in in Sherman, I might I certainly wouldn't understand everything you said, right? Likewise, if I were speaking to you in Cantonese, you wouldn't catch much. So we're both speaking English. We both speak the same language. That means we can have a better understanding. If, let's say I have a student, for example, who writes a tasting note about a wine, which they do all the time, using the SAT, I have a very, very good idea about what that wine is like. I could decide to write about it, buy it, taste it, drink it, sell it. You know, whatever. I could be I could have some confidence that I understand that students' language because we're both on the same page. And so this idea of using a common language to describe wine keeps us sane. It keeps we educators and we wine writers sane, actually. That part's fine, but I deal a lot with consumers. And, a lack of that level of knowledge and imprecision in use of language, and a lack of commonality of what something means. My feeling is that when somebody wants to buy a a bottle of wine in a store. They wanna know two things. What does it taste like in words that I'm familiar with? Two, we will go with what I'm having tonight. And anything beyond that, I think, you know, I think can be considered overreach by the industry. I've seen back labels I'm sure you guys have you know, that that are using all kinds of jargon and bricks and all this other stuff, which is meaningless to them, and maybe misdirection when you talk about things like, sugar content at harvest and German wines when you brought up Germany. So let's move the subject to, a related argument, and that is the idea of sustainable versus organic. Can you comment on that? Absolutely. And that is that's something I have to speak to on a daily basis, Steve. So I I pretty much, have my, positioning, establish on that event. And, you know, as the national editor for the small wine guide and collaborating with senior editor, Pamela Strayer, who is my subject matter in organic and biodynamic wine growing and conventional wine growing for that matter. I am very fortunate in that I have learned to use those terms. They organic organic and biodynamic are legally defined terms. And I have a much greater respect for them now and how we use them in the guide. So we are not misleading consumers, and we're not misrepresenting what those terms mean. I'd no longer and cavalier about the way I use those terms. I'm very prescribed, and that hopefully is something that the twenty plus contributing field editors to the slowing guide do as well too, but at any rate, sustainability is not proving to have much traction with consumers, Steve. Organic is the only term that seems to be resonating with consumers based on the data, and there's plenty of statistics about it. Sustainability is too big. It's not compelling enough to, hit that emotional button for a consumer, but organic seems to be where where consumers are, we're confident in making a purchase decision, for an organic product. You know, we have organic q tip, Steve's, or organic has permeated every aspect of our lives. It's completely infiltrated consumer goods. You know, you can have organic cotton pads. You know, they're it's it's everywhere. So it it's much more pervasive. We don't talk about sustainable q tips. We talk about organic q tips, q tips made with organic cotton. Right? So that organic being so pervasive now, has really moved it along. We don't see sustainability as, being a valid term in for the small wine guide because people hide behind the guise of sustainability. Right. To me, that's the big difference. Exactly that. Organic is legal term. It means something it's defined as regulated by USDA in the United States. And while in some places, some people might use the terms interchangeably. They are, absolutely different. People will talk about, being organic when what they mean is we practice organic farming practices. So we we farm using organic methods, but that doesn't make them organic. So it's, you know, it's linguistics, and there's a fine line. Okay. So but to the consumer, how do they view the word? And does it mean better quality? Does it, incorporate the idea that it would cost more to them? Well, we do know, anecdotally, we all know that organic produce cost more because you can see the price stickers. You can see the broccoli crowns that are conventional and the broccoli crowns that are organic side by side at the grocery. And, you know, we know which one it is more costly, but because many consumers are willing to you know, accept that additional cost because they understand what that's paying for. It's paying for protecting our environment. It's paying for, you know, practices that protect farm workers. It's paying for so many things. So when you're buying, when you're, you know, shelling out that extra buck a pound for that organic broccoli, your money's well spent. And I think a lot of consumers, certainly in the Bay Area field that way. Yeah. California or the country of California. So, but the question is how does that, apply in the, in the wine business? It's one of the key questions I deal with a lot with my clients is you know, can we charge more for this in line? And I I have a point of view on that, but I wanna hear your point of view. When I look on a I look on a back label or a front label from that matter and I see nave with organically grown grapes, I'm really happy. My when I see organic wine, I'm very, very happy because I know those folks are certified, but made with organically grown grapes makes me happy as well too. But what we what we see, and, actually Pam Strayer, wonderful Pam Strayer just published some data, a study that shows the increase in organic acre organically certified, Windgrave acreage in Annampa County. And it's growing. And that is really that is an absolute sign of encouragement, and it's a reason to celebrate because, you know, Napothalli commands some of the highest prices in the world for its wines. And if those wines are being farmed organically and are being marketed as such, that means that organic is, you know, is part of that price point that they can command. Right? Now, this is a small percentage of the market, but it's it's one that's highly influential. One thing we know, Steve, is that consumers of luxury products actually care less. About things like organic. Plenty of data out there to prove that. And and I scratch my head. I really would love to know the psychology behind that. But if Nampa Valley is increasing its organic acreage and using that to market their wines to the consumers of luxury wine, for the most part, ultra premium or luxury wines, then that's an indication that it's starting to resonate with them. So maybe that's a very small case study, but it's it could be a tipping point for me. Let's relay that back. To Italy. And the fundamental difference, one fundamental difference is for export brands, and the, the use of the word organic in the country they're in is regulated by either the EU, if it's in Europe or whatever the NASH regulatory entity is, and it's not necessarily exportable using that name here in the US. So what's going on in Italy and what are the opportunities for Italian wine to address or participate in, the organic wine market in the US. Right. I think that's a great question. And it's really one that I can speak to really only anecdotally based on the exposure that I've had to wines that are being actively proactively marketed as being organic. And and and then looking at how that is translating to either their performance here in the United States or their sales, You know, I do I do market updates, for US market updates for Italian audiences, trade audiences. And one thing we know is that the most popular Italian wines in the US that picture hasn't changed for a while. You know, it's Bernelo and Keonti and Barolo, and then it's, Amarrone and going on down the line. The white wines are a little farther down the line. But if you're looking at the the largest percentage of Italian wines, the you've got those that are the most popular, you need to then look at, okay, what's happening with organic, sustainability, organic initiatives in those regions. For those wines, because those are the wines that are the ones that, you know, are the most popular here in U. S. So I can certainly, for Valpolicello, I can certainly talk about a program they have, the three R's, and understand that they are gaining more traction for that. More of their producers are signing up. I mean, probably, for me, the flagship producer of organic wine, in Valpolicella would be, the producer of, Morar Valentina Kubi. And she just sell had a big milestone celebrating a decade of organic production, which I believe it was a decade might have been twenty of organic production. And that, was for some something for me to shout about and to celebrate. You know, I think that producers like that who have long term commitments to very rigorous standards are really setting setting the pace and leading the way for others to follow. Circle back and talk a little bit about you. And, when I had asked you early on what you do, you have a graphic tool that you used to define the It's a tight turn of all the things that you do. And the two that you held out as being the most important were wine education, and then, the writing part, the field research, writer journals. Let's take those in sequence and talk about wine education and Tell me where you're teaching how that's going. Well, I started teaching wine, in the wine is for wine and spirit education trust. I started, gosh, it's been a long time ago. Now I started about, I don't know, twelve years ago, but I worked for many years as an educator for someone else's school who had someone, someone else who had a was an approved program provider for WSET. And I really cut my teeth there. I started teaching level two classes, I and level three classes, and I became the director of education for that school, which has now been disbanded. And then I formed my own school. I I have my own, WSET school, but I'm a private APP, I assemble cohorts of students that come from, my, largely from my junior college classes and people who follow my writing and want certification. And I really enjoy working with those students because after I've spent a semester, with a student at Santa Rosa junior college or Cabrillo college, you know, leading them through a WSTT certification is just that much more enjoyable. So there's a lot of synergy between the types of education that I'm doing. I'm teaching in the wine studies programs at Santa Rosa junior College and Cabrillo College down in Altos. I was going to do some teaching for Sonoma State, but the program, of course, was put on hold due to the struggles that we've been having. So hopefully that'll come back around. And then the very related to that, especially relative to if we were talking about the jargon and and all that is the wine judging. Talk to me about that. Where you've judged and what that's all about. Well, very interestingly, all my professional activities are interrelated and that synergy between all of the multiple things that I do is is it's very dynamic and very inspiring. Wine judging, is one of my favorite professional activities, and I am paid to judge wine. Many competitions don't pay their judges, but, some do, and I really like those. But I judge in internationally, and I've been very fortunate to, to attend international competitions. As a judge, right now, I'm involved with the Concord Montial du Sauvignon. I'm on their editorial board, and I also judge the competition. And, the in the Concord competitions, but I've judged in Portugal, in Pulia, in Italy all over the world. And of course, I judge here in the US whenever I can. I judge the Finger Lakes International, the Virginia Governors's Cup, judge to hear, of course, in Northern California, when the the smaller ABAs have their competitions, I always wanna get out there and participate in those. Wine competitions are an incredible snapshot. Of what's happening, particularly if they're focused on one region. There's no better no better way to taste blind and and get a fairly accurate snapshot of what's happening with quality and style in addition. So You've been doing that for a long time. Has it given you some perspective, some insights, some, wisdom that, you can share with us? Yes. And and I every time I judge a wine competition, I learn something either about the wines from the regions that I'm judging, my fellow judges or myself. So there's no, you know, there's always some revelation that's involved. And and, the minute that you think that you understand what to expect from a migrating region, you'll encounter a complete you'll encounter something completely off the radar. And and it just it just keeps you very humble. It keeps you curious. It's it keeps it's a moving target. You know, regions evolve, wines evolve, climate change is definitely having an impact. So we have to stay on top of it. We have to keep dasting. I mean, as a global pallet, that's my LO. I've gotta keep doing that and keep my eyes in ears wide open for, you know, it's like your antenna are out, and you're, you're kind of following the changes that are occurring. So you can I can in turn convey that to my students, through my editorial writing and the speaking that I do? So to that end, California once again is in the middle of a major heat wave. We've heard all kinds of stories about Washington and the challenges that they're facing because of those high temperatures and the effect on pinot more. Talk about that and, you know, I'm last year or two years ago, both was smoke taint, and now it's the heat is logical that that's climate change, but how can wineries adapt? What are, you know, gee, a hundred and fifteen degrees? That's challenging. Yeah. Yeah. Adaptation is adaptation is something that's going to have to happen sooner than later. And certainly, you know, not to focus solely on California, but we have, UC Davis has done some excellent research, and we have some more heat tolerant and diseases resistant varieties because disease resistance is also part of the equation as well because with climate shift comes different pressures in the vineyard. And, you know, having plants that have some disease resistance built in, it drought tolerant grape varieties. Varieties that can, that can still produce quality wine, you know, in more extreme, temperature conditions, you know, all of these things. But the, you know, this industry, it's ag. It moves very slowly. It takes, you know, forever to establish a new vineyard, not quite as long as it does to establish a court forest or, to, to propagate orchids for that matter, but but Vitifinifera takes a while to get going. Right? You're gonna be five, seven years or more. Before you can get a new vineyard, up and going. So, unless you're maybe, you know, field grafting or something, but, it's a slow business. So we need to start sooner than later. There's, there's so much of good work being done, and we know that there's a lot of, r and d and kind of trial vineyards, you know, being planted. But it's, it's at the very, very earliest stages. I just want to, encourage the folks that are doing that work. And hopefully we'll speed the adoption, you know, of great varieties before before it's too late or before Yeah. Well, I'm having, some very pricey English fizz tonight. With dinner. And who would have ever thought that was gonna be a thing? Ten years ago. Yes. I know. Well, it makes me think about our dearly departed Steven Spruyer. Did you know him? Yes. I judged with him. He was my page made at Psalm Journal for More than a more than a decade. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's just jump over there because the other thing you do is is writing and you don't define yourself as a journalist, but a field researcher, a writer. Who do you write for? And, tell us about that side of your business? Well, I began writing about wine when the tasting panel was in its first iteration as Patterson's beverage journal, and I contributed few articles. You know, it's two thousand four, I think, was my debut. And I've been collaborating and working with Meredith May, who owns both Tasting panel and song journal ever since. And it's been a wonderful experience. I don't think I would be a journalist, if it weren't for Meredith May. And for my long time editor, David Gadd, who was my editor for the first ten years of my writing career. Cool. For the, to the people who are listening who are familiar with it, tasting panel, was kind of because of its evolution from Patterson, a West Coast oriented thing. It's less so now, but, very focused on new products. And some journal was something that Meredith, who's going to be a guest, in coming weeks, who took over that publication and has really brought a level of professionalism to the Somier community. And who knows what's going to happen post COVID will be talking with her about that. But explain to me what you mean by field research. Well, field research, Steve means getting out in the vineyard, getting out into the winery. You know, that's where the rubber meets the road. That's where your your initial impressions take place. I mean, that, you know, as an experiential learner, which is my learning style, it's absolutely essential for me to be in the field. Now, when wine writers are invited to go and do field research, they're often invited on what's called a press trip, but a press trip is really nothing more than field research with some lovely hospitality attached. And, as a technical writer and as a serious academic, field research is, part and parcel of absolutely everything that I do. Okay. So where does Italian mind fit into you know, in terms of field research, you're in America, you're in California. There's a lot of wine grown out there, but none of us have been able to get on a plane for the last year and a half. Well, I've been let the last year and a half define the amount of field research that I've been I've been, able to do in Italy, courtesy of the producer groups and the consortiums in Italy who want to educate, educators and journalists who write about wine. I have I'm very grateful for the opportunities that I've had to conduct field research, and I use that field research constantly, Steve. As much as the world of wine is a moving target, there are many things that are evergreen, and those things continue to to inspire me, and I continue to share my photos. I spent a lot of time taking photos, technical photos of vineyard architecture, of Terro Wars, and those that archive has been indispensable in my teaching. It enriches my teaching to the point that students are just they're wowed. You you know, their discussion assignments are filled with, you know, dreams and fantasies about traveling. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's that's a big part of why I'm in the business too. Although, as I said, I haven't been anywhere for a year and a half. Yeah. It's okay. Just a year. It's like a little hiatus. A little sabbatical now. Yeah. Elder, I get the less of a percentage a year makes. Anyway, let's kind of bring this in. If people wanna get in touch with you, what's the best way that they can reach you? Oh, I'm very fundable. I'm very accessible. The quickest way to reach me is to send me an email and simply my name Deborah parker Wong at gmail dot com, but a quick search on a quick internet search, you'll find me in a heartbeat. So on social media, some what what handled you. Is it? Yeah. Absolutely. If you wanna see me on Instagram, I'm Deborah Parker Wong. On Facebook. I'm also Deborah Parker Wong. Oh, pretty consistent. That's great. Yeah. At Twitter. I'm at Parker Wong and and LinkedIn and YouTube and everywhere else. So the name is the game. So one of the things that I like to do within interviews with, a big takeaway. We talked about this. So give some thought to some of the things we just talked about and had talked about in our, preparatory conversation. What's a big takeaway from that you can share with people who are listening to this now? I think my biggest my biggest hindsight or my biggest insight, you wanna call that into my current, you know, my current work in the wine industry is that, you know, I didn't really fit into a pigeonhole anywhere in the business. And so I made my own I created my own job description. And I told people it's kind of the definition of the gig economy, but again, that's a bit cavalier because I've deeply invested in all my professional activities. But I am a multitasker. I have about five core professional activities that I pursue at all times. I'm always teaching. There's never there's rarely a time when I am not teaching something. And I'm always writing, and then the other activities, the judging, the consulting, speaking, whatever, occur, less frequently, but they are constant year round. So the idea is I found, a way to pursue my passion in the wine industry because I can multitask. I can keep all those balls in the air. And that is not that's not something that's a good fit for everyone. I think it lends itself to this industry pretty well because it is a relatively small industry. You have to wear a number of different hats, whether you're working at a winery, whether you're, a journalist, whether you're in the trade or distributor or a salesperson, an importer, whatever it happens to be. I know on my end, one of the things I always wanted to get to was to not be the guy who has to, package up all the samples and send them out. And I just came back from, a UPS run where I, you know, pack all the samples and all that. That's something you'll do. Hey, we are we are chief cookie bottle washer over here, boy. I have sent out five hundred slow wine guides, and I am so happy to be taping those boxes up. I can't even begin to tell you. I send each guide out with a little kiss goodbye because I am just so, so gratified to see that people want to read something that I, I can claim as a lead author. So Cool beans. Okay. Once again, Deb Parker Wong, thank you very much. Appreciate your time. It's always a pleasure. And, wish you the best of luck Thank you so much, Steve. This is Steve Ray. Thanks again for listening. On behalf of the Italian wine podcast.