Ep. 674 Adam Levy | 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 the 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. This episode is proudly sponsored by Vivino, the world's largest online wine marketplace. The Vivino app makes it easy to choose wine. Enjoy expert team support door to door delivery and honest wine reviews to help you choose the perfect wine for every occasion. Vivino, download the app on Apple or Android and discover an easier way to choose wine. Hi. This is Steve Ray. And welcome to this week's episode of Get US Market Ready with Italian wine people on the Italian wine podcast. I'm pleased today to have as a guest, an an old friend in the industry, and I stress the word old. Adam Levy. Adam is the proprietor of a group of wine and spirits, rating, and competition events, under the umbrella of New York International. So, Adam, welcome to the show. And why don't you give us, a headline on what, the New York International Organization is all about and how you got here because my understanding is you're a tech guy, not a wine guy. Well, I appreciate uncle Steve, since you are the older women of the, of of the of this grouping here. So, yeah, I founded the New York International Spirit competition first, thirteen years ago. Followed by the wine competition in the beer competition, New York. And then I expanded globally eight years ago to Berlin and Melbourne where we run beer wine spirits competitions there. And then five years ago, our Asia competition is based in Hong Kong. At this time, and that all falls on the our group, the international beverage competition group, which would probably be changing a bit soon because we recently added a cheese competition, which you just held back in July, two months Go, which was an interesting experience deal with perishable products compared to deal with beer wine and spirits and their type of audience and judging. But, yeah, so we've been around for thirteen years. I did come from I still have an internet security company. Based in New York, but, my passion and my love is definitely, the world we live in today, your wine spirits, and things I can consume. Okay. I like to say bad things for you that you can put into your mouth. I used to work in ice cream and cigars. So that's kind of where those fit in. Yeah. Okay. You like wine. There's a lot of people that like wine and spirits and all that kind of stuff. But but this it's a big big ask. I mean, it's it's it's a big deal to put on these competitions. How do you you've got a day job running another company? How do you find the time to do this and why do you think you're continuing to do it? What's the reward that you get at the end of the day? I really enjoy this industry. To be honest, the the tech world is a very, restrictive world for me. It's I can't be creative. I can't launch new things. I I'm not able to, let my creative mind go since I moved into that security. I don't like being creative into into that security. They're like things locked down. Disaster recovery is the main theme and intrusion protections, the main thing. So wanna be creative, go somewhere else. In this world, we live in beer wine and spirits. It's definitely more creative. And, you know, working with producers, I've always said for years, the winemaker, the distiller, the brewer, they're they're artists. And what's in the bottle or can is that's their canvas. And I enjoy working with creative people on that end who enjoy creating products and creating things people can consume and enjoy much more than dealing with the ones and zeros and firewalls. One of the big issues in the industry in my consulting side advising new brands coming to the US market is the first question everybody gets is do you have scores? Comment on that and how people should respond to to the that kind of a a vague question. Well, that's the nature of the beast to ignore that. It's the it doesn't make sense. I mean, basically, if someone's walking into a store or a distributor meeting or an import meeting, how do you score how I can make how I can make my life easier when I get in front of a potential buyer? Or audience. And they wanna see the metal, they wanna see the score. That's the ecosystem we live in. And hopefully, I'm a good vassal for, a new or an established producers looking to get into New York market or more the US market or other markets we work at. To get there because we're the only competition out there or judges of trade buyers. That that was my next question. So you got ahead of me there. But tell us what differentiates your competition from some of the other. Well, definitely differentiates our competition from all the other competitions out there and from my from the beginning, is that all our judges are trade buyers. And we judge the liquid by its category by its price. So for example, let's say we've got ten Cabernet sauvignons from, Napa Valley. We say it's thirty, thirty five dollars, forty five dollars, thirty two dollars, forty seven dollars, a blind case test. We ask the judges when you buy it for that price. The idea is basically basically people buy based on price. Why not judge based on price? Because most people walk into a liquor store or the restaurant, whatever is okay. I wanna spend thirty bucks for red wine. What do you recommend? I wanna spend fifteen dollars for this situation. What do you recommend? People buy based on price. Why not judge based on price? And that's how we really separate ourselves. The beginning. We do this for all our competitions, beer, wine, and spirits, and also now cheese around the world. And again, we we have top trade buyers judging. And for New York example, around fifteen to eighteen percent of people who submit to our competition are not even sold to the United States. These are producers from around the world, especially from Italy. We're looking to get in front of real trade buyers. And our buyers are importers. They're distributors. They're retailers. The people make buying decisions. They're master Psalms. These people buy, and they buy a lot. And that's why producers overseas wanna get in front of these trade buyers. Yeah. I I think that's a a point that's often overlooked. People can't get their products rate interviewed by one spectator, for example, or some other resources. And yet the questions still get asks and needs an answer. So you gotta get ahead of it. So, New York International is one of those solutions. One of the questions I had, I've not been behind the scenes when you do this, How did all the complications of receiving storing, organizing, accessing, you know, and then doing the tastings? How does that all happen and is it all happen in one place? Especially now with COVID, people can't gather tell me how you've adapted to that and how it was and where you're going in the future. I'm gonna tell you everything I do, but I will share some things. I can fully open the kimono, but you will see some link. Let's put it that way. For international producers who are not sold in the United States, there's something that's needed to call the cola waiver, c o l a, which is needed to bring product into the United States that'll clear customs that they can be sampled in a non for sale situation, IE, my competition. So we work with a company called Park Street imports. There's also a company called MHW that also does this for you. They'll help you with the Cola waiver to get a product in. That's received at a warehouse called Western Carriers, which is the largest liquid bonded warehouse in the East Coast, one million square feet, I believe. Six to seven different warehouse locations. And then from there, we take the product to our warehouse where we then basically panel it, put it in sequence, and then if it's pre COVID, We then take these bottles and samples to our tasting event in a blind taste test and to be blind tasted by the judges. COVID obviously changed things around for the last two years in New York. We basically had to go virtual. And by doing that, we basically bought a whole lot of argon gas and a lot of, four ounce samples from Berlin packaging, and we basically pour samples from the wine into these four ounce samples with argon gas, And then we personally delivered all these samples sometimes, you know, hundred plus samples into a box to all our judges who are trade buyers in a near metropolitan area. We were driving to their business, to their retail store, to their import office, and to their home. And then they had a couple days to blind taste and test them. So I recently just came back from my Berlin competition, pre hold in Vienna. We did it in person, which is fortunate. And that situation, we basically did it all in one place. We received it One place, we set it up the same place, and we ran the competition at the same place, which is, for me, logistically a wonderful experience, a lot less things moving around. So we have pivoted a bit because of COVID. We've done virtual. I've been All the years being nice to people is paid off and our people in Melbourne, local staff, and our people in Hong Kong, our local staff have been running for me. We do the submission platform. We do the sequencing up and the paneling. But they're the ones actually, setting it up and either doing it on-site in Hong Kong or, you know, delivering it also virtually to the the buyers in Milper. But it's the same model in in all those different markets. In terms of the trade and and how do you identify the trade people that you're going to be judges? I've been fortunate because I've been doing so many years, especially in New York for thirteen years or or Lynn or Melbourne for eight years or a fivers in Hong Kong that I got to the point where a lot of my buyers are judging again and some have judged many years in a row. Or when they're there, they said, hey, my friend Joe, my friend Jennifer, my friend, this, who is also a buyer would be a good fit for next year's panel. So I probably, at this point, in the year of doing this competition, we're probably three quarters of the people judging new faces come from other judges, other trade buyers who say, Hey, you should be on this panel. You would enjoy this experience. They wanna be part of it. And also reputation's solid. So having a good reputation in the industry of trade buyers, they also are reaching out to us also to say we're interested in judging. Okay. So a very personal question for you then is how come you haven't invited me to be a judge? Well, Steve, There's obviously the moral issue, but it really comes down to is that your role in the industry right now is not a buyer. You don't buy for a living. You're you do not you're not buying for your hotel. You're not buying for your import business. You're not buying for your distributor business. You're not buying at your retail store. You attend these events, and we love seeing you as as everyone love seeing you, Steve, but you are not a buyer. You may wear a swag and our t shirt and stuff, but you sorry. You did not qualify to be a a judge. Okay. I'll I'll I'll live with that. And I should point out when you talk about swag, one of my favorite, things is I have a hat. Adam developed the alcohol professor hat. And on the back, it says, the class you always wanted to take. And when I do my lectures at various universities and wherever, I wear my hat and people think, I'm the alcohol professor, not you. Well, when they meet me, they obviously grip much more pleasantly surprised meeting me. And, one nice thing about the alcohol professor I can, if I may say so, is that It's it's our site where we could it's a I consider a prosumer site, which is a mix of pros and consumers, more of the people are more knowledgeable as a consumer. And we cover beer wine and spirits on our website. We have an audience international, probably around fifty percent domestic, US domestic and fifty percent from around the world. We cover beer wine spirits. We publish around three, four times a week. I have a wonderful, editor, Amy Sherman, who's our editor, and she's the editor for the Chief Professor site and the Alco Professor site. So I wanted one editor, to basically cover both things and more we're gonna do. We're all starting more pairings. We wanna start pairings of the Chiefs competition winners along with the wines, the one in our competition, the same thing with beer and spirit. So I wanted one voice and one message that way. And Amy's been on board with us over a year. She replaced a man named Shusa. He did a wonderful job for me for many years. The Apple Professor site and Amy's coming on board more for that universal message for cheese and other things we plan to do down the road. Can you give me some examples of how some award winners have used or leveraged the results of the competition to further their efforts in the US for those who are not imported to get imported for those who are already here to increase sales or increase, number of states. And what what things kinda jump out at you those as having been very creative other than saying, we want a gold medal or we we got ninety points? Well, the easiest low hanging fruit situation, what we have is when our trade buyers judge an amazing product and say, wow. And they asked me after the competition's over, they they go back with little bottles, said, well, who's who's the importer? Who's who's selling it? I say it's not being sold. So, okay, I wanna buy it. And then in turn, you know, we are happily past the the contact information of the producer who submitted the competition. That the trade bar is interested in buying it. It was a judgment of blind taste test that this is a great product. We're gonna bring it in. Or the distributor says, I have an important hope to bring that in for me. So that's the first long hang of fruit. And then we the producers who then will win a medal and hopefully a medal that did well for them, and they will, you know, canvas out to these import companies in the US and say, Hey, we did want a gold medal or double gold medal or silver medal. We only have this score of ninety three or ninety five or or a score they have and say, Hey, we know you cover other Italian wines. We think we're a good fit for you. Here are the windows we've won in our in our competitions, and that gets interest. You know, if someone gets a an email saying, Hey, I wanna got a ninety five the New York International Wine competition. That's got a bad chance of opening up and saying, Hey, how are you? I have a wine for you. So if you can lead with, I got a ninety five or a gold medal that'll open the email. Let's talk about trends for a moment. Once I was, visiting Western carriers, my Cody is the president, and he's he's a friend, you know, him, as well as I do. And he said, if you just stand on the loading dock at Western carriers for a day, you will have your finger on the pulse of what's happening in the US market because you'll see everything being loaded onto trucks. And he he's very right with that. Tell us about what you see as some of the trends happening in the US market are. Do you want beer wine and spirits or just what was on wine? Particularly Italian wines, and then, also, Amaro's grappa's and other Italian spirits. We definitely see an increased quality of a of good Italian wines arriving. From small producers who are finally getting a voice or being able to be seen because of social media, in the US. They get they have a better chance of being discovered now with a good social media campaign and say, oh, that's interesting. I get that in the US? How can I get that? So we're starting to see more of that occurring. We definitely see an increased quality in GRAppa, the mystique or the naivete of what GRAppa is, is definitely as as as Grub isn't quality, being available in US has approved. It's definitely taken away the, like, I don't drink Rop. A Grub is only something that gets something free after end of a meal. It's definitely now more appreciated. We're definitely seeing that happening in the in the US. In regards to wine, Italian wine, I mean, obviously, we've seen an increased quality. We're seeing the small producers get a have a bigger voice now, but we're definitely seeing from a region point of view, the wines coming from Sicily. Why not just quality or it's the the price point, but we're definitely seeing a nice increase of sicilian wine entering the US market. It is more interest in that. I think also some of the the US Italianians are not hiding an Italian. It's a Celine background. They're bracing it more now, and we're seeing more Celine restaurants doing very well with this. It's a Celine wine list. Interesting. Okay. You, I think you said you were planning on coming to wine to wine. This, broadcast will air prior to wine to wine. Tell me what you hope to accomplish there. And have have you ever been? Do you know much about, the event itself? To be honest, I never really knew about wine to wine before. Just it worked out time wise because I'll be in Berlin and Europe for Berlin Bart convent. So it's an easy hop over from Berlin, obviously, to Verona. I'm already in Europe. I need to get more involved with the Italian wine markets and meet certain people. It's people who, when my bit of my competitions who wanna meet see my face, and especially because we've had we've not had Pro wine the last two years practically. People some people actually wanna see me. So, I'm looking forward to seeing people at this event and really get a better understanding of Italian wine market. Because, yeah, because sometimes you go to we go to show like Pro Wine where it's everything there. It's hard to get a grasp or a chance to really focus on one country or region. Yes. You may have, let's say, Germany may have a hole and Austria as a whole. But, you know, when you deal with, like, the old world sections, pro wine, you'll get the full effects. But coming to the street, Italian wine show like this, I'm really looking forward to to attend. Okay. So this is a think tank, which is one of Stevie Kim's brainchild, but the other associated event that's happening at the same time in the exhibition hall is a condensed version of what is traditionally in Italy, which is in fact the largest wine show in the world. Larger even than provine but dedicated only to Italy. When you get there, I think you'll see there's these massive grounds with these huge buildings that get filled up and, just acres, sneakers, sneakers of people. You've never been to be in Italy. Right? I've not been vividly. It's usually, it's a hard date. It's my competition schedule to attend. So I've not been able to those last shows, I've not been able to attend, so it's based upon my competition calendar. We tried to do a lot of competitions in the first part of the year. Because people don't wanna win a twenty twenty one medal in November, and they have a chance to really promote it that year. So we try to do more at the beginning of the year. One of the issues with competitions such as yours for the wine industry in particular is the vintage variation. And not so much an issue with spirits, but for wines, it is. Do you have any recommendations on, you know, many wineries will have, you know, five, ten, fifteen more SKUs that they could enter? Do you have any recommendations for them on what they should enter? So let me answer it like that you're a cousin that I like. Not a cousin you see at funerals and weddings who wants money from you, but a cousin that you like who owns a winery. My first response to you would be is if you have a certain budget, send your best ones. Send your best ones in and let that be your, you know, that BMW seven series top class situation. If you have the budget, I would also fill in some lower level ones. That may do well. That are good value that do well in our competitions, not just the best quality, but also a good value for the money type wines. So you may wanna go for both sides of the spectrum, but it really comes down to what you feel in your gut. It will do well. And we'll do well in front of trade buyers and a blind taste test. In the American market. And for the US market. Yes. And, again, also, sometimes, what people submit to our competition is also, as we all do, we've, we've vision this polish itself for x price. But reality is that's not gonna sell through in that price. Or may not be picked up for that price. You may need a, an adjustment or a blank test reality to say, hey, maybe that bottle is priced too high. And that's what we give you in in our competition because you basically are blind taste it by by category, by price. Okay. So in the results from the competition, explain how the how that that work. Well, if the we tell the judge, again, oh, this example ten Pina Wars from Wilmette Valley, thirty two, thirty five, thirty eight, forty six. At forty six dollars, it went to bronze. Maybe at thirty five, they went to silver, and at forty, at thirty dollars, they went to gold because they're judging the quality and buying the price. Where someone wants them to liquor store and say, Hey, I wanna spend thirty dollars. What's your best pinot war for thirty dollars? What do you recommend? I wanna spend fifty dollars just gonna go to Steve's house and his wife's gonna make me dinner. I wanna spend fifty dollars. What do you recommend? People want the best value for that price point. Okay. That's an interesting point of difference that I think does make a difference. So here's a question I get asked all the time, and I have some, joke answers, but, I'd like to hear yours. And I know this is coming at you cold. What's the best bottle of wine? The one that you like that someone gave you free. Okay. Fair enough. My answer, FYI is the one I just sold. That was something a friend of mine once told me. What's the best bottle of wine? The woman gave a gold medal to. Okay. Thank you. We've been talking with Adam Levy of the New York International competitions, wine, spirits, beer, and now cheese. It's grown larger than just New York. It's in multiple places around the world. If you're interested in entering your wines, Adam, you wanna give us your contact information and the, URL for finding out more information? Sure. You can go to n y I wine competition dot com or international beverage competitions with an s on the end dot com. And also please check out the alcohol professor dot com and also the cheese professor with a lot of people in wine. They love cheese. So please check out also the chief professor dot com. Okay. So a big big thank you to Adam. I appreciate you taking the time and, enjoy the conversation. I look forward to, seeing you up in person again in Verona. And I really look forward to meeting people at the at the show, and the people here in this show and they wanna reach out to me, please do in advance. You can also reach me at info at n y I, winecompetition dot com, or info at alcohol professor dot com. If you wanna set up a meeting with me in verona, Adam, thank you again. Appreciate it, and, we'll see you in a couple. Thank you. 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