Ep. 465 Gus Zhu MW

Italian wine podcast. Chinchin with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian Mind Podcast of Me Montewood. My guest today is who is the first Chinese national to become a master of wine. Welcome to the podcast. Do you feel part of a ready made community of the masters of wine based in China? Thank you, Monty. So if you just talk about the title master of wine. I don't think there's a community because we do different things. Each person is specializing different areas, but if you talk about wine education in China, we do have a much of wine for wine education community because most of us are doing wine education over here. WSTT education and all these kind of qualifications are very popular nowadays in China. Okay. So who are the other masters of wine in in China that are doing, helping with the educational side? Yeah. So those are my bosses for me, Walker, Edward Greg, m w, and also Julian Blar, who is French, but speaks better Chinese than I do. And there are, I think, a testy dart, from South Africa, he is also basing here, but because of COVID, he traveled back and forth. I think recently, he just got back. Did you grow up in a wine region? No. In China back then, they're they're well, Shendong province is supposedly to be a wine region, but they didn't really define any area for wine production. Back then. So only recently, I was in the recent eight to ten years. We had a ningxia as a wine region, Huelan mountain as a wine region, and that's about it. And more sort of the province wide, places became, like, this kind of regional concept, like, ringnan, where LV MH, establish their winery. And the Xinjiang, the whole province is known for is great per table grape production and wine production. Okay. So I was gonna ask you about that. I mean, in terms of table grapes is one thing, but what sort of wine grape varieties are popular? Of course, covering sovignon, because that's the only grape that most consumers know in China, So they have to grow it. So why I mean, is it sort of a catch twenty two? If if you only grow cabernet, people are only gonna think about cabernet and light cabernet, but what do you think in the future will be varieties that might work and or would any of those be Italian native varieties, what do you think? Yeah. To be honest, from a very cultural point of view, the sensible grapes to grow our native Chinese species, such as British amaranthus, and also certain crosses that are code resistant. And I'm not even talking about those kind of riesling or noodle took out those kind of code resistant. I'm talking about resisting code, dry, and windy conditions in most places in China. I'm in Beijing now. It is pretty cold outside, but the bigger problem is super dry and quite windy. And the grapes with, Vicky's vinifera genes, they simply cannot survive those kind of winters. So we have to bury vines on the earth in wintertime. So in terms of survival and the happiness of the varieties, I wouldn't suggest any vanilla. But nowadays, people are experimenting varieties such as Marcelyn, and Ayahujo, those kind of grapes, and they achieve certain, success in terms of flavor profile. But still, there are lots of costs and damage. Due to the environment environmental factors in China. Has there been a push for genetically modified vines in, in China from, say, outside actors, say from the US, it's, you know, in a technology that we we find GMO vines in China. Would that work? Do you think? That won't work because it's multi gene controlled. So it's pretty hard at the moment. If you look at multi gene controlled, properties, attributes, offline, such as code resistant. It's almost impossible to do, GMO, those kind of technology at the moment. Hybrid crossings make more sense. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about your your career, as a as a student. You've done quite a lot of, academic research for your master of science degree at UC Davis in California. And, obviously, your master of wine dissertation How do these, forms of research differ? Yeah. So UC Davis curriculum and research are definitely very rigorous. But to be honest, I am a very cl clumsy person. I broke all the flasks. I dropped all these kind of expensive equipment. So what I found I was good at was doing more reviews. So I did a review paper with doctor Andrew Waterhouse the wine pigments, the red wine pigments. And for my master's master of wine, research paper is more about those kind of sensory studies, which didn't require those kind of, fancy lab equipments, but it's more about using wine glasses, using humans, human sensory to get results and do certain analysis and interpretations. So mostly I think I am more good at those kind of interpretation of data and review things rather than doing actual hands on work in the lab. Okay. I mean, does that is that paying you an income, that particular work, or were you just doing that voluntarily? Or was that part of a, a science study? Not really. So my income mainly came from wine education. WCT, those kind of wine qualification education side. Okay. So when you're teaching, who is coming to your, teaching classes? Yes. So I joined Dragon Phoenix, the Chinese company I work for in two thousand and ten. And back then in China, no almost nobody knows about wine education. And the people who came to our class are mostly, those expats. Who are at a higher level of a wine importing company. But then when I left the company, the company temporarily in two thousand and fifteen for UC Davis, our student base became huge. And on our waiting list, there are hundreds of people trying to learn level two, level three, or even diploma diversity. I have no idea what happened, but maybe Chinese people, we love qualifications, we love to pass exams, and the people's, want to pursue lifestyle if they have decent income and the economical development back then was really good. And now we still have a a very, I'll just say vibrant market for the wine education side. So we see students not only coming from the wine trade, but we see more students are consumers, wine lovers, and, of course, more females than males. Really? Yeah. I mean, what what sort of age group are we talking? We're talking about people that are thirty years plus that have, you know, the careers and they can afford to pay for the classes. Or were they eighteen year olds that are really keen to, you know, have a completely different career to their parents. I think it's a mixture of both, but mostly, thirty years to forty, fifty. And then lots of them has been educated at schools like top schools, top universities in China, or they have studied or worked or traveled abroad and started to fall in love with the taste of wine. Rather than in the past Chinese people only mock most Chinese people still now buy wines based on the name and the label, but we see more and more people starting to appreciate the quality and the taste of the wines. So it's based both. It's kind of partly curiosity and also partly there's some sort of, status aspect to it as well. Yeah. It's curiosity. And, also, again, people love to, have qualifications in China because we have we have to go through the college entry exam, to, getting to better universities in China. So for most people, up to eighteen years old in China, we fight for getting higher grades in the exam. So we have an exam and qualification culture over here. So on education fit into fits into that kind of context. But, I mean, when people taste the wines, obviously, you're in the business and and members of the public and members of the public, are members of the public as fascinated by the geeky side of wine, you know, the, the analysis, the acidity, the tannins, or they just as you said, sort of aspirational, hobby. Yeah. So I think not many people are on the geeky side. And that's what I seen in the US as well, because I do see a discrepancy between the true DG academic world and the, commercial world. But UC Davis has done Well, because they have to help wineries. They talk to industry people, and all the professors I know at Lucy Davis, they have their own good palate And they love the commercial side, but, of course, they are very extremely professional at their academic research side. I mean, obviously, you you spent time in David in at Davis. How well advanced is China in terms of its own research on vine varieties and all the rest of it. Yeah. My personal feeling is that for the wine field, of course, we have lots of different fields, right, chemistry bio, microbiology or that. But most research we share around the world. So UC Davis, Adelaide, Bordeaux, Geisingheim, everywhere, we know the up to date information. So in China, we have, my university, China agricultural university, and some other university. They do wine research, and they have all these information. The thing is the focus is very different. For example, just as we talked about the, special growing conditions in China, people focus more on the, cold condition agriculture, especially winter, vine burial on the earth, those kind of situations. So we do more research on that. What about things like organics and natural wine? Is that is that those sort of trends? Are people aware of those kind of trend trends in China? From the outside, and and and what about being inside China? Yeah. So it's very interesting to think about that because for video culture, people had even had no chance to think about organic biodynamic farming and wheat culture. The reason is that it's so challenging to grow, with these big infrared grapes in China. We have to violently push down the vines and bury them over winter. And when we dig them out, we break all the bars. We, the survival rate is not that high although it's improving nowadays. So people don't think about that for agriculture for vanilla grapes, but it's interesting that, Chinese traditional farming and still the philosophy for farming in China nowadays. They are basically biodynamic because Rudolph steiner's philosophy is almost the same as the China's conventional agricultural farming in the past. We follow the lunar calendar We think about the five elements. We think about yin and yang. We think about all those kind of things. So for agriculture in China, not in commercial scale, not nowadays, but in terms of philosophy, people understand that part. So for natural wine, it's even more interesting because we rarely produce natural wine in China due to the conditions. There are only like two people I know who perform small scale of natural wine, production. But for what natural wine drinking culture, there's a huge boom in first tier cities in China, like in Beijing and in Shanghai because those people want to follow this kind of trend and lifestyle and the younger generations, they try to drink something fun and interesting. And lots of people in urban areas, they drink natural wine. Interesting. I mean, do you think I mean, in terms of, I always think with biodynamic, organic, and natural wines, they have that lovely salinity to them. And does that suit the Chinese palette and Chinese cuisine? Yeah. That's a very interesting question because What I see is that natural wine drinkers are not wine drinkers in China. They are more of a beer drinkers or those kind of products, drinkers in China. Because natural wine fits in the profile, not in a traditional wine term. So the people who pursue these kind of trendy natural wine fashion, they love to drink IPA. They love to drink natural wine. And sometimes we know that certain natural wines has some breathy nose and for beer drinkers, they are very used to that kind of taste. But say if a person drinks the so called correct taste of chardon me all the time. They may not be, natural wine drinkers. Really? Interesting. It seems like the, the motives let's talk about a little bit about more about China. What is what is it when we hear about, Chinese cities? What what is the first tier city? And does that matter if you're trying to sell wine to China? It does matter. First tier city is mainly, Beijing Shanghai, Guangzhou. Those are, population wise, economic wise. They are the most developed city. And in those cities, you can truly sell the wines by the taste by the context, by the culture because people treat these products as being more sophisticated in their lifestyle. But as you move on to other tiers, like second tier or third tier, fourth here, they have the habit of drinking wines by the brand because it's more about consuming alcohol, consuming the name of the wine rather than consuming the taste of the wine. And that is also because it's heavily influenced by the Chinese bio culture. Bio is our national drink and is usually about forty percent, fifty percent alcohol by volume, and people drink those for getting boost up, getting, very happy, and that people make business deals, and people make friends using purely alcohol. And strong taste. So those kind of culture is more how to say, it's still very strong in those kind of four tier cities, third tier cities in China. So people are not willing to try something that is more of a foreign product as compared to first year cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Which you think that will that will change with the younger generation coming through? I mean, you know, globally, our the generation following us have have changed, their their preferences in terms of, getting boozed up as you say. Do you think that could be the case in China, drinking less, but better? Definitely. But it's gonna be a very slow progress. As I said, the baijiu is a China's national drink. So there's no way that the government, the market will allow wanting to become the major cultural drinking China. Is not a Chinese national drink anyway. So we will see why as always a more interesting product in the market, but it will never become the scale of it. Just just look at, like, Vodka to certain countries like Poland and the whiskey to Scotland. And in China, Baiji is still gonna be the most important drink. Why will have a more sophisticated market but very slowly. And in terms of wine education, what impact, will that have? And what are the general trends, anyway, in wine education, in China at the moment? And has that been impacted by by the, COVID situation. So why education is still gonna be, the qualification based on education will be the most important part because people do these kind of things for qualifications for certificates in China. But we see more and more people wanting to learn something more than just WCT, these kind of qualifications. We started to open more fun courses, with themed courses such as, oh, let's, take some volcanic wines. Let's take some Greek wines and let's have a class on sake that I just did yesterday. So people want these kind of interesting things because, again, for the people who are really interested in the taste and the culture of the wines, they appreciate the context behind it. They appreciate they want to try a diversity of styles. They just they don't wanna drink the wine just for the sake of qualifications or for the sake of the alcohol. And COVID really change things a little bit in terms of there are there is an increasing number of, wine courses we do online. And we had this kind of packaging company who can package wines in smaller formats, like a hundred twenty five milliliters per bottle and send to students and do these kind of cloud testing, virtual testing. But since things are pretty controlled over here, COVID cases are almost non existent in certain cities in China. So people started to come out again and start to drink together again because in Chinese culture, we truly drink wines to share conversation with others. We do not drink wine just for, let's say, for education or purity for, study. I mean, in terms of, in terms of the economy and the impact on wine on the brigmanship, you know, the China America relations, which have been a bit complex recently. What sort of impact is that having, on, on the the wine industry in China, the wine consumption, the commercial side? Yeah. And well, also, Australia has traveled now. Australia wise, are being held at the customs, at the moment in China. And there are there are trade wars and anti dumping policies happening in between China and Australia. But what I see is that for large volume bulk wines, they definitely have, they have no hope. Because of the tariff because of the tax. But for premium wise, premium quality and premium price wise, people still wanna drink them. So people still drink lots of painful grains. People still drink lots of, spring legal and the opus one in China, people want to get those kind of products. So on the premium side, still, I don't think there's a huge impact. Of course, the the cheaper, the better, but the bulk wines, the large volume side, no hope. So, okay. So there's a a bit of a problem with, physical, bottles getting into China. What about the, on the education side, the flow of ideas and knowledge between, say, Davis and China. Is that still ongoing though? Is that okay? Those relationships? It's hard to tell because first of all, if you look at the, inexpensive bulk wines in China, Most are Changyu and Great Wall, which are national brands, and they are produced in Shandong province and from some other, provinces in terms of the grape source. And for the true bulk wines, like yellow tail brand, and weiss and Fondell, those brands, they do sell, but we rarely have a huge consumption for those kind of wines. It's not like in America, weiss and Fondell still sells like crazy. Yellowtail still sells in they sell in China for a large volume, but recently the consumption, the sales seem to go down a little bit or go stagnant a little bit because we do not again, we do not have the culture of Hey, we're gonna drink wine and we're gonna just drink wine like water. No way do not have that. If we drink inexpensive drinks, we drink coke or beer or certain Chinese bagel. What about, we'll get we'll finish on, your impressions of Italy. Do you come to Italy often, where your favorite places, your favorite dishes, and your favorite wines? Okay. So my favorite place in Italy would be Kianti classical because I the first time I went to Italy in two thousand thirteen, I was in Kianti classical. And my favorite dish of course is the vista car, the free on Dina. And then my favorite one will be any nice Kianti classical or brunello or sangiovese based wines that pairs well with the big steak. You're a traditionalist. Do you prefer a hundred percent San Giovanni, in your county class ago? Would you not mind having, other grapes in there as well, international grades? So before I went to, Tianti classical, my more favorable style would be fruitier, more international style, maybe have some international grapes blended in. But after I've been there, my pilot changed. So I prefer more structure, the more low coast, tango, basic, based interesting profile, more structure that go with the food well, those kind of profile. Any particular white wines from Italy that you love? So I love Vermentino, not in not only because it tastes good to me, but also I've been thinking about one thing is that I somehow lived in Texas for a while, as well. And in Texas, I went to those kind of wine countries. In growing seasons, it's kinda hot and humid. And the Vermentino shows really well over there in Texas hill countries, those kind of ABAs. Then when I see some of the conditions in China, not in not in winter, but in growing seasons, like in summer, towards autumn, it's also pretty hot and it's so rainy. It's not Mediterranean climate at all. So I've been thinking if Vermentino can perform well in China. But so far, I've talked to the basic cultureists over here. No, but they imported any Vermentino, plants. From any of the four, overseas nurseries into China yet. I mean, if you could bring in some varieties and just say they would magically grow in, in your back garden in China, and you could plant a little vineyard What what would be the great varieties you'd stick in there apart from the Vermontino that you just mentioned? All of these southern Italy, southern Portugal Greek varieties. Really? Yeah. John, why which is that this must be there's some cultural reason there as well as taste. Can you just explain that to us? I think it's more multicultural wise. I just think those grapes are more resistant to those kind of, how to say challenging environment. For example, Ariane coke grew pretty well in certain regions in China, and people made some beautiful examples, not the Taurasi more structured, more full body example, but the name made Ayani code into a almost visually crew like examples, which I found interesting, and the flavors are pretty charming. And they can grow it well as compared to certain varieties like carbonate or those kind of bordeaux burgundy varieties. Okay. Interesting. It's, you're very pragmatic. In your in your answer. It's a it's a good, it's a good answer. I just wanna say thanks to you. I've got that right. We've got very entertaining chat we've had. I think I really enjoyed it. And, obviously, you're very very sparky kind of person and, with a lot of knowledge and, well traveled and and your curiosity is really paid off, I think. And, you got a great future. You've already had a great career, but you got a great great career ahead of you. And I hope we can I hope we can speak again and hope we can meet sometime in, in either in China or in in tuscany? Alright? Take care. Sure. Thank you, Monte. No worries. It's been a real pleasure speaking to you. Thank you. Cheers. Listen to the Italian one podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, HimalIFM, and more. 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