Ep. 1012 Krister Bengtsson | Uncorked

Hello, everybody. My name is Holly Hammond, and you are listening to Unquarked, the Italian wine podcast series about all things marketing and communication. Join me each week for candid conversations with experts from within and beyond the wine world as we explore what it takes to build a profitable business in today's constantly shifting environment. In this episode, we're joined by Krister Bingsom, founder and publisher of Star wine list. With the strategy focused on long term sustainable growth, Chris Aaron and his team issued the move fast and break things, start up approach, in favor of consistent value, measured launches, and relationship building. We're here to talk about how this direction carried them through a pandemic despite being all about wine lists, how his background and journalism paved the way for good content and how Star wine list has carved a unique niche in the world of wine writing. Let's get into it. Good morning. Good morning on this blazingly hot European day. You're in France. I'm in Spain. The world is going up in flames around us, and I'm so glad that you could join me from your holiday. Welcome to year. Thank you so much. Thanks for inviting me, in in Bordeaux. And, thankfully, the weather shifted a bit overnight, but yesterday, forty two degrees and, fires around. So, yeah, crazy times. Is, are you out in the world and feeling like a palpable concern about this from your neighbors and just bordeaux populous in general? Can they talk about anything else? It's it's, it's very palpable. It's been a huge fire out by the Junipula, the coast, and evacuations, and then one south in the south of Grav region around La de Rasse with forest fires. And, I was at, Chateau by yesterday visiting there, and, yeah, of course, it's, scary. Yeah. It it's it's petrifying. We interviewed the Porto protocol team recently. Of course, they're doing a ton of work on it. You've got the IwCA. And then also, you and I recently saw one another in person at a conference where, of course, climate change, but also just in general sustainability was key to the the discussion topics. So, you know, it's funny I was just communicating with someone who's not in the wine world and trying to get people who do sort of similar marketing and communication more not in wine Tithan understand that this is actually just survival for our industry. You know, this isn't like a happy feel good. We're gonna talk about sustainability. It's like we're we're really at risk. Is such a concern, but we're not gonna talk about that today. We're gonna talk about star wine list. Thank you. So I so first, just for the benefit of everyone listening who hasn't had a chance to sit around and talk with you at conferences to understand exactly what Star wine list is. Can you kick it down a little bit of the history what your purpose is, and they were going to dive into some questions about building a wine tech platform. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Starwind is, is, quite simply a guide to great wine bars and wine restaurants. It's websites and an app. And, the ID came out five, six years ago. My background is in wine and communications. I'm a journalist originally. And, I thought that, you know, there are so many restaurant guides in the world. Michelin, fifty best, and Guimio and Zagat and everything. But when you're wine lover, you often end up asking your friends and, hey, I'm going to burley in the Brussels and where it cannot go and drink wine. And I thought there's something missing there. So we're trying to build that resource for wine lovers to find, great places to drink wine. So focusing on going out and drinking wine and to have wine professionals share their favorite spots. So quite often, some years, sometimes wine writers and, probably more winemakers going on to the wine regions saying, well, these are my favorite spots if you're coming to Berlin, you know, all the way from small, natural wine bars to bistros and fine dining speed. Open and inclusive there and, build that network. So, we started five years ago in Stockholm. Now we're in, thirty five countries, with, seventy five ambassadors around the world. And, you know, I think we're more than two thousand recommendations now across, all continents. So it's, it's fun. You know what's so funny? I think about that because this is absolutely the conversation that we have in the wine world when we're going some place. And we normally say something like, okay. Where do all the winemakers drink? You know, if you go to Auckland and you're like, where's the best place to go drink wine? In our case, and I'm very biased, it's always going to be a federal because it's the place that all the winemakers go drink. And when Jansis Robinson or Fiona Beckett come to Auckland, you know, that's the place that they go. And that's that level of credibility that I think, you know, we're not looking for I I don't wanna say like your everyday fabulous wine list, but we're actually looking for the in-depth fabulous wine list. I've done the same thing here in Barcelona. Where do all the winemakers go dry? So You mentioned, five years ago you got started with this prior to Star Wine List, though. You were a journalist in Stockholm. How did that experience as a journalism with a love of wine? Actually change your decision making when you were laying out a business plan or a content strategy for Star Wineness? Yeah. That's a good question. You know, I'm I'm a journalist that come from regular news, radio newspapers, and then online. And, and then went into more building communication. I started a company that does media monitoring, business intelligence that's still going in the Nordic countries. And, And wine was a passion that really got started and was writing about a wine as a freelancer and, do battle a lot and doing some business around wine as well. But I think when I started this one, it was really to see it as a very long term thing. I don't wanna call it Project because then you envisage it in. Right? It's a it's a long term business. I think media has to grow quite organically. It takes time. If you look at the the media brands that you use, every day. Most of them are quite old. I mean, you know, let's say Decantor Michelin, the news brands that you use summer new and been able to break through. But, the ones who have the position, usually keep them for a long time and they become relevant and they stay relevant, but it takes a really long time to build. So when we started, you know, it said, this is gonna take time. We'd want to do it organically. There are no super quick fixes. We want to move fast in terms of building a global network, but it's gonna take, like, ten years to build something, good, we thought. And, now we're five years into it. And, yeah, we're we're happy, but we're still, you know, just getting started and I think the very long term perspective is needed in, in media, which, maybe doesn't rhyme all all the time with, like, the tech startup b world, out there with a quick, you know, round. So financing and blowing huge amounts of money, which was popular until a few months ago. But I think media doesn't really, mix very well with that. So we're we're trying to build things step by step. That that's fascinating to me because one of the issues that we run into a lot is this, you know, bifurcation between valuable content and SEO driven content. You know, like, writing, great long form content, writing topical things, and then also going in and doing all of the various keyword research and strategies. And I'm I'm not gonna say that they don't both have their place, but I know that as one of the people writing it, I don't enjoy that content mill kind of space. And it's not what I wanna spend my time doing, and I I always feel like in wine, it's a hard enough industry to begin with that those of us working in it kinda need to love what we're doing. Did you ever have that moment where you and your stakeholders sat down and you were like, okay. How much does SEO and domain authority factor into what we're building. And we need to even carve off a portion of our work for that that sort of SEO search engine driven content. That's a great question. You know, we have had discussions, you know, structuring the website from the start we started as a website and then built the app. Of course, we thought about how to do that in, sensible way. And I think SEO is our main driver of traffic and word-of-mouth and, and links and, social, etcetera. But if you're searching for wine bars in Paris or in Singapore, we're gonna rank pretty well. For most people. So that's a huge, you know, top of the funnel for us. But we don't we don't produce, I think, any content, with SEO on mind, on a regular basis because we're building this, you know, website in the app and the resource and the guides and the content, counseling it being qualitative. And we see that we have a huge, you know, strength in the domain with, so many incoming links from, you know, restaurants in New York, in London, and Singapore, etcetera. That's, you know, we we get a lot of incoming traffic from people who wanna, you know, get links or guest posts or whatever. Which, you know, it's not interesting, for us. But, I think we've we it was interesting. We saw that maybe half, you know, like, two and a half years ago or something, two, three years ago when Google, of course, starting out is putting you in, in a geographical folder, right, saying, okay, this is useful for someone in the Nordics. So they always show Nordic, you know, people results, and we saw them. Suddenly, we were breaking out of that mold and getting wrecked in you know, in Paris and in Singapore, etcetera. So somewhere along the way there, there was ranked as a global resource. And, yeah. But some sometimes, I think we should consider the SLO angles more, about, we're we're not doing very much, to be honest. No. No. No. No. No. Please. This is not judgment. It's more just curiosity for me, and I get asked about it Yep. All the time. And it and it's good to see. I mean, obviously, that you have a long term plan is is a factor in those decisions, which I actually love because I have looked at the not just the the startup space, but even just the internet in general as being unfortunately deceptive or misrepresentative to how hard or easy it is to build a brand. You know, you people are like, oh, I can go and I can buy domain name and I can throw up a Squarespace site. The next thing you know, I'm gonna be making millions of dollars. And and that's just so not equal to what it takes to build an online business So the fact that you do have this long term plan is one of the things that I wanna talk about. So you started five years ago and smack dab in the middle of that, we get hit by a pandemic. So you're a a wine list provider. How did you transition? How are you seeing that go back? Just I don't wanna get too much in the weeds on COVID because I know it was terrible for all of us, but I'd love to know the journey that led you to where you are today. When we started, that was twenty seventeen went live, the economy had been growing for, you know, eight years from the the bust. Right? So we knew that there was gonna come a recession, and you have to be reasonable you need to be able to build through that. You don't know when it's gonna be. You certainly didn't think it's gonna be a pandemic. But, you know, we've been building a very, you know, bridge draft way and, organic and keeping costs and control. And, you know, you have to because Otherwise, you just burn a ton of money, right, building things. And, the pandemic hit, and since we are focused on wine and restaurants, in wine bars, the on trade, and our audience is very, you know, close to this. The Saudi community is very close to us. Of course, it was a huge hit in the country of the country. And, you know, when some countries were coming back from it, it's from, from wave, others were hit. So it was, it was terrible for a lot of people. I mean, it was, you know, people were sick, dying, businesses were closing, countries were closing. And, yeah. I know we were it was just about hanging in there. We were, you know, we weren't at risk health wise, and we were planning to do it long term, so we didn't go bust because we had too many costs or too few revenues around it. And in fact, we just kept kept building the network in the countries that were open. We kept growing. Opening new cities and ranges in countries and traffic kept growing. So we were very lucky in coming out of it. It's, you know, fine. So So you didn't have a drastic change of direction. There was no pivot, you know? Okay. It it was just slow and steady. We're gonna stay safe. We're gonna work work our way through this. Right? Then we come out of it right now. And I'm I'm especially curious about some of the bigger markets. What are you seeing in terms of adoption of your platform as a marketing arm for hospitality. Because, I mean, hospitality has been so hard hit. Are people just, like, completely grasping for ways to get their name out there or are they pulling back still? I can I can perhaps take a moment to explain the the business? So, you know, we're a guide. We don't charge restaurants to be listed. We chose the ones we like, the, the, our, our ambassadors like. So, we don't charge for anything from, from that audience. And, Our business model is a media company. So you need a few likes to start on. One is advertising in the form of sponsored content and articles. We don't actually don't have any pure ad spots yet. We will introduce them because we have demand, but, we've chosen to build stories around. Customers, brands, etcetera. The second part is our, awards events, start Wednesday of the year, where we're doing more and more countries, and we have sponsors and partners for that, such as the Austrian Wine Marketing Board. It's been a great partner from the start. And highlighting, you know, great one is some of the things behind them in several countries. And the third part is we've started subscription, membership. And, the thing that you get there, which is not in the free versions, it's that you can actually search for one and see where it's listed. So because we now have more than sixteen under one, it's, updated from top restaurants around the world. It's become a bit of a trade tool as well. If you're somebody in Copenhagen, you're thinking about listing new wine, you're gonna check on stormwinds to see who else in Copenhagen is listing this and benchmark your price a little bit and get inspiration from other cities. So it's it's, it's one part, you know, a guide in the tool. And a lot of the the the marketing, customers and partners that we use have, is very much about reaching a premium audience in the top seven years and, getting connections there. And other wine lovers and, and, the networking really. And, that's been, yeah, coming out of the pandemic, which is totally cool, with a big, champagne brands just before this one discussing about, you know, reaching out to certain audiences. And, yeah, we see it's it's it's pretty much word-of-mouth there as well. People talk about it. Fee and a lot of incoming from our newsletter, that people are reading and say, hey, we wanna be a part of this. So it's, it's gratifying. A lot of it has been you out pounding the beat getting to know people, building relationships within within the wine world. You started out in Stockholm, which I think is kind of fascinating from a wine perspective because obviously, places that build wine, you know, products they start in France or they start in Napa, you know, they they they start with these big markets. Did that give you an opportunity to work and refine and test what you're rolling out with, you know, sort of in smaller markets before you go out to the great big wide world. What was that that growth process like? Yeah. We started in Stockholm because it's our it's our hometown. We had all the connections and, and, It was close to home, and then step by step, building the network to people we knew that, you know, well, this person, for instance, Avidros and Granner's, you know, assembly of the World twenty sixteen, and a friend, and he also a partner in the company. So he was based in New York. So he built the New York guide and spread the word around that. And, following the network and not only me, but the other people involved ambassadors, etcetera. But, yeah, I think it's it's no matter what you build, you need to be in some kind of iteration that, you know, okay, what's working was not. Even though we have, you know, a very long term ID of what's valuable, even if, you know, that's kind of the core, but then you try things along the way and see how else it's gonna be phrased and, selections and, and, how everything is used. What does that decision making process look like for Star wine list given the long term, you know, perspective of it? Is you and the stakeholders sitting around a boardroom together? Is it trying things and testing them? Like, you know, how does that work? And I actually asked this for the benefit of a lot of people within both the line and the non wine world who simply maybe don't have a system for how to grow and iterate. That's a good question. I I think for our part, for instance, when it comes to selecting, people wondering, okay, how do you select the country, city's markets you go to? We've, for a long time, had sort of a top list of, cities, countries, and regions that are priorities, such as Barcelona where you are because it's a huge destination and great places to go and rewind. So we wanted to get that done really well. We have Allison Tellas, who's the top somewhere formerly of Elbuis, still have the selection for us there. It's amazing And, and so one part has been strategy following the, you know, like, that road map on a long schedule and one part, opportunistic. So for instance, we had a great summer here in, Mexico City who got in touch and say, hey, this is amazing. Can I help build the the guy to Mexico City? And we didn't really plan to do Mexico City anytime soon, but, we had, you know, it was a great, it was Philacadunio, who was, in Mexico City then. Now he's Ashley in Iceland, working for Bill and Eastern Ambassador there. We've done a selection in both Mexico City and Reykjavík. So one part strategy, one part of the opportunism to see, okay, this is opening up, and there's demand for this. So let's follow it. One part is, which is super hard, of course, saying no to a lot of good ideas, and because you have limited resources, especially if you're a small team, and there are so many people who wanna collaborate, and the team has great ideas, and you have ideas, and you think, wow, that's being amazing. But you just have to learn that, okay, we're gonna say no to a lot of great things to try and keep focused to not be spreading too much. Is there anything you said no to that you kicked yourself for afterwards? But, like, three months down the line, you're like, we should have said yes to that. Not yet. Probably because I don't have a good memory for it. I'm trying to forget about those. That that one's really hard. No matter what you do, I think. What's interesting to me, though, is that what you're building actually helps brands, say yes and no. That was a nice segue, wasn't it? And and so you came from media with insights. And now you're building a platform that actually has the opportunity to provide those kind of business insights if you chose to. Is that sort of data reporting on the roadmap for Star Wine list? It's not a priority. You know, we get we get that question. We've had that question a lot in the year. So, well, you can build this and that, and you can amazing system. You create wireless, apps for restaurants, and you can get tied into the point of sale system, and you can have amazing data platform, etcetera. But, we've all raised or I've always, I've declined those ideas because I don't wanna be a SaaS complete for data. That's not my dream. Right? We wanna build a great, guide for why levers, both amateur and professionals and be, platforming the wine world, but not go deep into, you know, the platform, data, sales tech part of the world. So we're we're touching upon it. We're using some of it, and we can probably gonna use it more for insights as you mentioned. But right now it's more of a qualitative path. Interesting. Cause I'm thinking for myself, right, how I would use that set. Like, there's so many questions that as, you know, a marketing agency, I'd be saying, oh, what can we learn from this? And how do we actually have to track it if that's not something that you guys are doing? We've done, you know, we've done reports for, for instance, for champagne brands, you know, which which are their market shares in wireless in Sweden, etcetera, more on one off, projects. And I think your question is irrelevant one. I'm sure we're gonna do more of that, following following demand a bit more of it. And so we're not, you know, going deep on, on the tech data and, for, in itself. I want to go back into your career as a journalist. Have you continued to sort of watch the progression of wine writing in the past, you know, say five to seven, ten years? Yeah. I think it's impossible to switch off. I mean, I I couldn't see new son, unhealthy volumes, Riley, and all kinds, some from all sources and subscribe to crazy amount of news, media. And it's just impossible to turn off and thinking about how how that's been worked in user ins. When it comes to wine writing, yeah, I think, of course, it's it's become so much focused on the social and influencer content and I think it's interesting to see all the development that's been there with, you know, different, waves of, interest in it and critique against states and, and, Yeah. I it's just interesting to follow-up. So when you're when you're looking for the ambassadors or the wine writers, I guess this does tie in exactly what you're building, what is the criteria that you're applying to find the right people? Or is it just that you like them and you like working with them? That's a good question. I mean, what we wanna find, in in a new city or country is someone who's very well acquainted with all the great place going to be quiet. So it's someone who go out, goes out to wine bars and restaurants. It's not not just someone who studies for, you know, BMW never goes out of the room, you know, from the perfect at wine and books, but not restaurant world. And it's someone who is respected and, you know, has credibility. It's great if they all can write well, but it's not a super mandatory if you're, you know, if you're some leader, we can work edits on the work on the edits. And, yeah, and if they also have, you know, a following and, social, that's a bonus. It's not it's not super important quality, integrity and be able to be, you know, be part of the team and, and add add to that's the core. What about the the criteria around, say, voice of education versus entertainment? Because heaven knows, we talk about this all the time in line. What is our purpose? How do we onboard people? How do we make them love us? Is it through filling their heads with more knowledge or is it through giving them an entertaining moment? Is that a decision that you make? Is it part of a style guide? Or is it on a contributor case by case basis. How does that work? Yeah. I think we're, perhaps, without even, deciding if we're more on the entertainment part. You know, it's if you wanna find a great place to go and drink wine in Barcelona, we're gonna tell you these are nice places and, for every place, you know, what kind of places it? Why do we love it? And what's the wine program like? Those are the three core questions we answer. And, we interviewed ambassadors when we launched a new city about their career, their story, and, what's development in their country and city. And I think that's especially interesting, you know, in countries and cities that are a bit off the international beaten track. So we love doing that for, you know, Bangkok and, you know, Warsaw and, and Dublin that we just launched to hear what's happening there. And it's, you know, to be not as Euro centric or, let's, you know, Anglo centric in the world of wine, to hear other people's stories. You know, if you're a female assembly or in Bangkok, you know, what's the what's that like? So that's I see that leads to a great question. How are you handling things like multilingual content? Is that on road map? Is there interest in it? English is the main language, and you'll have to excuse us because, you know, I'm Swedish. So it's my second language and their editors, also that. So if you see an error, please send us an email and we fix it. We also have content in Swedish because it's our first market and some in French as well. Just to test it out. So we actually have, you know, Paris one guy in in French. So, I think that's enough for now. We've been thinking about it for other countries, but I think English makes sense to, you know, give accessibility for it. One thing that's been interesting has been to learn more about the German speaking wine world, when we launched in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, because, it's quite a coherent and very cohesive community. I mean, it's very there's a huge line media and communities around winemakers and so many years and everybody in these countries. But it's all in German. So if you don't know German, you don't really know that much. And that's one thing that's been interesting to get to know the people and tell the stories and show what's happening in English so that the rest of us can see what's going on. You and I are of an age, you know, when I don't know about you, but I was forced to learn to diagram sentences. You know, like, I I had to actually write properly. I talked to a lot of my friends who are writers and editors. And they're in the same space. And sometimes we just look at the world around us, even as communicators. And we're like, please write coherently. Have a good structure. You take us on a path, you know. Just privately, is this the kind of thing that you sit back and you look at a lifestyle writing and you're like, oh my god, what's happened? I I not that much, to be honest. I Or are we archaic? Yeah. I I think well, to be honest, I think there's more problems with stories that are, you know, too generic and, too too formulaic in the old, what's called, you know, classical styles. And the story is simply not interesting enough, you know, if, you know, what's what's the surprise there? And yeah. Probably finding more interesting if you're, you know, the lacking in style, but it's a new fresh angle and, something that is surprising you. And and surely you see this where you are having to do research for the purpose of some copying. You're like, oh my god, this particular brand's story is just so boringly traditional. You know, do you reach out to them? What are you doing then? Do you say, Hey, we're featuring you, we're telling your story. Can you help us out? How can we just liven this up a little bit? Because we hear this all the time, right, from wine reviewers and and wine writers that were like, oh my god. It's another hands with grapes picture. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when we work, tell the stories of brands and partners, yeah, we definitely, start from scratch. And, we we tell them that while you're Please send us your marketing material, but we're not gonna use any of it. Because it's probably been going through too many, you know, committees, and, it's just not that's the stuff that people filter out immediately when you see it. And, then we start from scratch and look at it. Okay. What's the story here that would be interesting to our audience and trying to find a hook and an angle and something that, you know, resonates. And we start from scratch, and we tell the story. Of course, sometimes it follows a low answer, so you have to tell them the the new cycle that this is happening. But there's usually other stories to be, told that give a bit of spice and edge and, Do you ever get any pushback? Yeah. It happens, especially with interviews, you know, you've done an interview and maybe the the wine maker or some person who said something really interesting. Probably said too much. And that's the stuff you wanna keep, and that's usually what someone wants to take away because, you know, it was, you know, perhaps a bit too edgy or giving away something or critski criticizing someone else. Giving me get a contrast. So, it happens. But generally, not much, usually, you know, smart marketers are happy to, you know, get different angles and stories told and, move out of the box as well. Because, I mean, yeah, because the marketers are, well, to be honest, they're probably a bit tired of seeing the the old material as well. Right? It's, it's just too bland, usually. Any interest in moving beyond the written word as content, you know, would you be looking at video production, YouTube, something even along the lines of a sixty seven Palmo is doing the sixty seven Palmo TV. Is that on the road map? Not right now. And that's also a bit to the focus, discussion. So we have, you know, three focus areas. One is building the guide, to cover the world. And the second part is the, yeah, and the second part is building the, events and the awards, star ones of the year to more and more countries. So we're going to South African, October. It's computer exciting with the cooperation with the so many year association there. How many of those do you do per year? So we do them nationally. So for the last, last international two, we did in seven countries. Australia, Australia, UK, and the Nordics. And then we had an international final in, in London in June where teams from all over came in, and we, we put the the one against each other. We have an international Some new panels, so the juries are respected. And, it's it's become a a format and event itself that's been really appreciated. And we have partners for, you know, presenting the best source in wireless or best sparkling wireless, for instance, we have night temperature for the international final. And it's just a great networking opportunity and getting some years and people together in the room and, and having your wireless seen and evaluated by, you know, Pascal Little peltier and, Alvidrosyngerin and Rajpar, etcetera. That's just a huge thing for for the teams. And it's, yeah, we've been very lucky in in in that. So that's second part we're building, and third part is the premium membership subscription. That's putting more things into that and, and building that out. So for right now, no, podcasts, or video, just to keep focused, on, like, the the web and the app. Are all of your team members ambassadors? Are they all certified Psalms? Because this is an interesting dynamic that we see that's probably more generational than anything else is that we've got people who are fabulous sommeliers, but weren't a part of a, you know, like a formal education, master sum, certification. I think we haven't really looked at it. A lot of them are, but we don't really look into that process. No. It's not. And, you know, I'm Actually, I think most are, you know, have certificates of training of some kind, and I'm I'm the black sheep because I'm, you know, I'm journalists. I'm not the solo here. So I'm the only one that's not qualified to to work. Sometimes, you know, the the staffing issues are so hard that sometimes, you know, even I get a question, hey, can you do a shift? I'm like, no. I mean, like, notice only your, my only You're like, come on. I'll do it. Let's go. Good. We'll see how My only background in restaurants is that's a dishwasher. So I tell them if you need help there, I could give you a hand, but not the front of the house. I wanna ask for all of that knowledge or as much as you're willing to share about what makes a great wine list What have you learned in five years about the markers for an absolutely rock and wine list? Oh, that's the the million dollar question. I know. And, I can always speak for myself, you know, get different thoughts from the different you remember. Etcetera. But I I but I like to see when I see, a list. Personally, it's, there are wines that I recognize, you know, there are, like, markers of great wine. So I think this is qualitative. And, if you're in, wine producing countries, you know, should be local wines, right, and and great wines from the country, which is not always obvious. And, but also a lot of wines that I don't know that there are, you know, So you can learn. It's not just the payments brands from all over and, back vintages and verticals with this and that. So it becomes an opportunity to really, you know, feel comfortable with a few choices if you want that. But also exploring and discuss with the team and say, hey, you know, what what's this? Or if you're in a wine country that, you know, what what are these things? And what's the thing to try? I love older wines. In a mature wines in general. So if there are a few older vintages, I'm very happy. And, of course, if you have some good value as well, that's, that's a bonus. Are there just are there just no nos? Are there things that you're like, can all of you please stop doing blank? You know, whether it's like, you get these wine lists that are like tomes, and you just get there. And as a consumer, even someone who works in the wine industry, for me, that's probably the one that I'm like, please just stop. You know, are there the things that you would say? Please just stop. Well, it's I think you you can have that. But what we do when we list the restaurants or wine bar, we, you know, we ask them to share some photos and, you know, show the team, etcetera, but also ask for the wine list. You know, if it's not on the website, we ask you to quickly share the wine list then. It's a bit of a culture thing. If you're in, like, Northern Europe, US UK, it's standard, right, to share the wine list. Where it's, let's say, the more south you go in Europe, the less standard it is, you know, it's prongs. It's rare. Yeah. I don't like why. I understand if it's a trouble keeping it updated, but you People know that not everything can be updated all the time. Right? So and when we show the one that's on store line is you actually have a date stamp saying, well, this was updated, you know, May eleventh. So you know that things may have changed. So I think if you have a large one, it's, you know, share it. With us or on your website so people can browse ahead. If you're a wine lover, you love checking widely before, so you don't spend thirty minutes, reading it while your guest is getting bored and, you know, you're killing the admins. Is it the kind of thing that when you are assessing, you know, and when your ambassadors, when your writers are assessing it, it's not just the wine list. It's that, you know, the service is great, the hospit icality is there. It's warm. It's inviting. Absolutely. I mean, for the widest awards, it's the widest accounts. But for the being listed on StarWIN, that's a recommendation, then the widest is just one part of it. So you can have, you know, a small wine bar with just a few wines written on the wall. You still love it. Like, we have KABSA team in Paris listed, and they don't have the wireless, and then you have Pistros and fine dining. And, yeah, service is a huge part. Alright. It's difficult now, especially after the pandemic with, the staffing shortage. So some people use some places you love. If you come in on, night when none of the, you know, regular staff are there and you have some knew, this is not a great. And you're like thinking, well, this this was not great, but we're trying you know, we're a bit, you know, given the benefits of the doubt there, especially after pandemic that maybe, you know, it it's hard to get. Yeah. And I think that's a good lesson. I'm I'm glad that you said that. I think that's a good lesson. Is that all of us as patrons do need to be a little bit more lenient and a little bit more forgiving in our judgments around what it's taking to keep our hospital, our favorite hospital spaces open. Yeah. Because it's been hard for all of them. And I'm so glad that you said that. I I just I'm glad that we're able to bring that up. You have you have to be a good guest. I mean, if if you're, especially now to the pandemic, everybody's so happy to to travel, wanting to go out and restaurants, etcetera. It's we used to take all of that for granted. And now you realize how important it was, but don't spoil it by being a dick when you go as a guest and, you know, demand things and they're understaffed and stuff like that, you know, be nice. So to bookend our conversation, How much do your wine list now or possibly in the future take into account issues of sustainable production, shipping, packaging, Is this the kind of thing that you are in some form or fashion benchmarking as you make these judgments and awards? Thank you for the time of questioning. We just announced a few days ago that we're launching our new tour starting in Denmark in August, with their new national events, and we're gonna do, like, South Africa and even more countries. We've just added a sustainable wine list, category to it. So, that's where the jury has to evaluate the wine programs and ambitions of of the of the songs of the teams, and taking all those factors into account in a production, winery packaging and transport, and, We've had discussions around it for the last year. And, you and I were at the symposium in Pordeaux, and discussions around it, and we said, okay. Now with a new tour starting, it's, it's the time to get it going. So it's gonna be very interesting to see what people are doing there and, highlighting the best practices and learn really from, you know, great places around the world. And how can we follow that? How can we learn about that too? Check it out on, on Starwinds dot com and, subscribe to the newsletter. I think that's the best thing. It's a free newsletter. You've reached, you can search follow on social media, etcetera. But, email newsletter is, it's the best. So on Starwinds dot com. So website newsletter Starwind list dot com. Thank you so much. So, if I am let's just kinda break it down for everyone. If I'm a consumer who wants to find the best places to go, I've got the app, and I've got the website. If I am a producer, And I want to know more about engaging with the brand or maybe leveraging some of your talents for my benefit. How would I do that? You can, yeah, follow the links in the footer of the website to, to, how to work with us as a business or just reach out through the email addresses info at storewins dot com or Krister, which is KRI, s t e r, at storewins dot com. Or we can put up maybe in the notes from the podcast. Oh, yeah. We'll put it in the notes. And that's the same if I'm a wine bar or I wanna be an ambassador or a writer, or can I pitch to you? For if you're a wine bar and restaurant who wanna be listed, we actually have a link in the in the bottom of the websites, how to be listed, because that's quite a big flow. So we are you're getting into form of that, and we're putting you on the the list to be evaluated eventually. Okay. Great. Awesome. Thank you so much. I will let you go. And now enjoy your family holiday. I appreciate the time, and I hope that your air conditioning continues to work for the rest of the week. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you. And that's a wrap. Thank you for listening and a very big thank you to Tricia for joining me today. The Italian wine podcast is among the leading wine podcast in the world, and the only one with daily episodes. Tune in each day and discover all our different shows. Be sure to join us next Sunday for another look at the world of wine marketing. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Livingston, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began. This is a labor of love and we are committed to bringing you free content every day. Of course, this takes time and effort not to mention the cost of equipment production and editing. We would be grateful for your donations, suggestions, requests, and ideas. For more information on how to get in touch, go to Italian wine podcast dot com.