Ep. 1197 Ariana Tsuchiya | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

The Italian wine podcast is introducing a new donation drive this month. It's called YMI fan. We are encouraging anyone who tunes on a regular basis to send us your ten second video on why you are a fan of our podcast network or a specific show. We will then share your thoughts with the world, with the goal of garnering support for our donation drive. Italian wine podcast is a publicly funded sponsored driven enterprise that needs you in order to continue to receive awesome pre wine edutainment. Seven days a week, we are asking our listeners to donate to the Italian wine podcast. By clicking either the go fund me link or the Patreon link found on Italian wine podcast dot com. Remember, if you sign up as a monthly donor on our Patreon, we will send you a free IWP t shirt. And a copy of the wine democracy book, the newest mama jumbo shrimp publication. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, and this is voices. Every Wednesday, I will be sharing conversations with international wine industry professionals discussing issues in diversity, equity, and inclusion through their personal experiences, what working in the field of wine. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your pods. Hello and welcome to voices. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, and today I am delighted to welcome Ariana Sucia all the way from Hawaii. She became a certified sommelier with the Court of Master sommeliers in two thousand and sixteen, and she has continued racking up her qualifications since then. Finally, being named one of the wine enthusiasts future forty in twenty twenty two, so just this year. She's currently the director of beverage at g lyon Hawaii Hotel, and she's on the board of directors at the Aloha Wine Foundation, which I'm very curious to talk about. So thank you so much for coming on today. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I definitely, I was able to browse the podcast, and now I would say I'm an avid listener and fan. So thank you. Oh, I'm so pleased about that. Great. Well, there we go. I need more, connections all around the world. I like having people everywhere. So Thank you for that. Whenever you wanna come to my side of the pond, Hawaii is waiting for you. I would be thrilled. I would be thrilled. I used to get to California quite a lot before COVID, but I've never been as far west as Hawaii. So I'm gonna put that on my bucket list, and I'm gonna come out and see you. Wonderful. Wonderful. So I've I've read that you found your passion for wine in Tuscany. What were you doing in Italy? And how did you find your way into the wine world and and into Italian wines, and now you're still back in Hawaii. What happened? So speaking of warm weathered places, I grew up born and raised in Hawaii, but I went to my undergraduate studies at the University of Miami. So I went from Hawaii to Miami. And in Miami, I was able I was fortunate enough to do a study abroad program, in the American University in Rome. So I was in Rome for about six months, and it was my first time living abroad, and it was my first time in Europe. That's so funny because I taught wine there for three years. Oh, wow. Funny how it all connects the world is large, but it's not that big in some cases. Exactly. For me, it was just, you know, being a little island girl, but getting to truly experience the world for the first time. So I was definitely I definitely had my eyes open. I was working in the restaurant already. I worked, all my way through college in the restaurant industry. However, I never truly experienced what it was to partake in food and beverage in its full extent. Where does our food come from? Where does our wine come from? And so for me, it wasn't just about being in Rome and having access to vineyards in Tuscany as much as it was the eye opening experience of being able to go down the street to your local farmer's market, perhaps, and really get a true tomato, get true cheese, and create something at home that you feel connected to the food. So that was my first real expression of being in Italy and having connection to what I'm eating and what I'm drinking. So while I was in Rome, I also discovered that we could do fun field trips. So I started going, and we went to Tuscany, and we were able to just be through the hills, the Rolling Tuscan Hills, and it was one of the most, eye opening experiences for me seeing how passionate the vineyard caretakers were, how passionate the winemakers were, And that little bug, that wine bug stayed with me all the way from when I went back to University of Miami after my abroad, semester was finished. And I always loved wine, and I kept studying it studying it, studying it. After I graduated, I was going to actually just pursue a typical office nine to five career, but having worked in the restaurant industry my whole life and really enjoying what I was studying with wine, there's a part of me that really dreamt of being a sommelier. So there's one day I packed up, moved from the mainland, moved back home, came back to Honolulu and applied to be a bar back at Alan Wong, which is one of Honolulu's fine dining restaurants at the time, and I started my way up until I became a Sommelier there at, Alan Wong. That's it's so funny because I think so many of us who are in wine started off, you know, in the hospitality industry in one way or another often in a restaurant. And as you said, you started at Alan Wong as as a bar porter, which is sort of the most humble start. And how did your journey progress on from there? Because clearly you had the drive. You had the wine bug, as you said. So, once you were at Allemons, how did you get going with with more sort of active engagement with wine? Yeah. So it was definitely an experience telling my For example, grandparents, your college educated granddaughter is going to, you know, not pursue her degree and come home to be a bar back for all intents and purposes. I told them, oh, I wanna be a sommelier, and they were very questioning. They're like, what is that? Like, someone who drinks wine or studies wine and they're like, oh, no. But they were supportive, nonetheless. So I had some family support in at least encouraging me to go for my dreams. So coming back to Honolulu, it was definitely from the ground up. And I took with me there some of the biggest life lessons that I think that extend far beyond just working in wine and working in restaurants, but really how I apply my life. I had a really great wine mentor. Two actually really great wine mentors there. Mark Shashiro, He was the beverage director for Alan Wongs at the time in Honolulu, and he was actually one of the original people who passed their advanced exam for the Court of Master Sommeliers, not just for Hawaii, but nationwide. And his friend and mentor was Chuck Ferria, who was Oh, right. Yeah. The first, Asian American, master sommelier to pass. So between Mark and Chuck, who was friends with him in tandem, I got exposed to this real big I went from zero to a hundred real quick in opportunities, which I'm forever grateful for. I also got to meet, Nicole Ortega, who was a sommelier at the time. So she worked in a bunch of San Francisco restaurants. So coming into Hawaii, she was also bringing with her a caliber that I was so lucky to witness because she was so well versed. She was so worldly. She was well traveled. So I was over there polishing glasses just literally picking their brains every day. And this was literally, as much as I've worked in the restaurant industry since I was, a teenager, I was still learning wine from scratch. So I can actually say that my husband, he was a server at the time at Alan Wong's So he likes to always add in that he's, was at one point in time much more wine savvy and knowledgeable than I was because when I first started as a fireback, I couldn't tell you, how to pronounce you know, French regions, French grapes. I don't even think I knew the difference between Pino Grigio and Pino noir, to be honest. I was just coming in blank slate. I knew that I liked Malbec because I was from Miami, and we there was a lot of Melvick getting poured in Miami, and that's pretty much it. I couldn't tell you the wine of Chablis. I just knew that I liked wine. I knew that I had a lot of sangiovese in Tuscany, and I liked it. But I was really exploring the world with fresh eyes and asking a lot of different questions. And that was my favorite part because always being curious and always continuing to ask questions are is the part of what I like most about being a sommelier because every time I meet a fellow wine director or I meet a wine maker, I get to see through their lens what their philosophies are how they approach wine, and I feel like it keeps building and building, and that for me is one of the most fun parts about being in our industry. It's so great. I I love hearing from people like you because let's face it you're still young person. But being able to sort of recount your story as being a blank slate, you know, with fresh eyes and asking questions, that's one of my favorite things about, you know, what I do in my career, you know, a lot of which is education and and writing and things and informing people and sharing knowledge. So it's great that you understood that opportunity of having Mark Shashado and and Chuck Ferreya there to, you know, to paint their brain. As you said, that's, you know, a lot of people wouldn't wouldn't get what a golden opportunity that was, but you obviously did. And since then, you've been involved in some really interesting things, like the Shander Ortizier Young Psalm competition in twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen, and the young leader summit at Psalmcom in twenty eighteen. So How did you move from Alan Wong and being your blank slate self and getting involved with these events? And what happened next? How did those experiences shape you and motivate you? Absolutely. So I think as as much as being humble and curious are really my driving forces there. There's always going to be in the restaurant industry, just a little sprinkle of friendly competition. And there's always gonna be when you're Just a little sprinkle. I don't know what restaurants you are working in. Just a little sprinkle. So for me, I've always been a little bit more of a competitive person. And being in this industry, it's so active. It's so engaging, really. You have to truly keep going. There's a lot of momentum built with working in the restaurant industry. So once I started going, I just truly felt I couldn't stop. And it was a lot of fun, for the Shane, I got to meet some of my current best friends in the wine world through that competition. So for both seventeen and eighteen, I competed in the regionals against Taro kurobe, and Michael Winterbottom. And after that initial meeting and competition, we actually became best friends, and we started meeting every Monday at nine AM at a little coffee shop breakfast spot. And at the time, none of us were wine directors. We were just sommelier's servers. We were just trying to make it work in our way and solidify some camaraderie. There's not a lot of young sommeliers. There's kind of a bridge in there's a big gap in generations for Hawaii because you're seeing the Mark Shashitos of the world, the Chuck Ferriyas, Kevin Toyama from Holly Kulani. My father-in-law, Richard Field, they were all this amazing generation in the nineties and early two thousands. And there was a couple of similes along the way, but there wasn't as much of a network like they had until recently, and that's a really exciting time to be in. So one of the biggest things I got was this ability to, we need to foster a community So I was able to start this study group with the three of us, and then we just kept adding more people. And then in two thousand and eighteen, I competed against Seng Mun who at the time he was working at ABC stores and restaurants, and then he moved to Pacific Club, and he's one of my best friends to this day as well. So we just kept building and building this community, which was one of my personal favorite parts moving forward into restaurants because it's all about people. And then with the young leaders summit and Sam Khan in two thousand eighteen, I was able to expand that network and actually I applied for a scholarship and I received it to be a young leader I got to travel to Washington, DC, and that was a really amazing opportunity to be able to take those, people connection skills and apply it to the other coast. It was nice. I missed the East Coast in, some respect. So being there, but with a new version of me that was so passionate about wine was really, really fun. I had visited Washington DC a good amount of time when I was in Miami, but it was really fun to kind of take it on in this new chapter of myself And I just love wine because of the ability to travel, and I would encourage other young Sommeliers servers who are starting out in this industry to always be present in your network and, Taru kurobe, who was one of my best friends from the competition, he was actually someone that also recommended to me to, you know, hey, keep going on Sound Foundation, keep trying to find enrichment trips one of my friends through the industry, Chris Ramelb, he recommended me for a Washington wine trip. So I was able to go on that. So keep building your network, keep moving forward, and keep paying all those opportunities forward to others. As well. So after I went to Washington I think that's amazing. Yeah. I was able to recommend someone else to go to Washington, so you keep paying it forward. Yeah. And and it is it is really so sort of reaffirming it how welcoming the wine world can be once you, you know, put yourself out there and you take some risks and you make some friends. The community is, you know, it can feel quite exclusive and, and, closed, but once you've really made that effort to to get in, it's wonderful how you do meet these people who inspire you and take you forward. So, you know, you've, you've moved on from all of that from your scholarship, from your competitions, and you became a certified sommelier with court of master sommeliers, and you were a manager at Royal Hawaiian Hotel and now you're the beverage director at g lyon. So what's an average day in your life like now? Well, good part of being in the rest on industry is the fact that I wasn't going to do a typical nine to five office job for myself because I like to kind of keep moving. So the beautiful part is that every day is very different. I work with different employees, with specifically Jilayan, we have three restaurants currently. We have Hai's Steakhouse, which is a restaurant that's been there for forty six years and right in the heart of Waikiki. So that's a very beautiful, beautiful restaurant that has a lot of traditional elements such as tableside service on Curedons. We serve the Wellington's. It's just a very fun traditional environment. And then at the Ritz Carlton Waikiki, we have two amazing restaurants. We have Kiora, which is a Italian concept, and we have La Vee, which is our French inspired concept that features course menus. So it's very fun. So you're going back and forth between all three of these. Literally, back and forth, there are days where I will start with a meeting at Hives Waikiki, and then I'll go to the Ritz Carlton for a meeting, and then I'll be the closing manager some times that I'll go back at highs. So it's really back and forth, but it keeps me on my toes. It definitely keeps me active. I get my steps in for the day, but I love it. I really, really do. And honestly, it would be different, if I didn't feel so connected to my employees and my team. But I just feel like every time I step into any of the restaurants, I'm really walking into a different version of my family. So the team over at highs. They're old school. They have been around the block, and I love them for it. And they are immaculate professionals on the floor with how they approach service. But the energy is so different when I walk into somewhere like LaVie, where we have a little bit of a younger staff, but everyone is so curious. Everyone wants to learn. And for me, a beautiful part of being the beverage director and being able to work with all these different properties is I get to know the team, get to know their personalities, the image of what the restaurant truly is, and parlay that into the wine list. So, for example, at High Steak House, a big portion of my job is going to be allocating really prominent traditional bottles, making sure that people have their cabernet sauvignon with their steak, but also making sure they have bordeaux if they wanna try something a little bit earthy. And I can turn people on to Supertuskins. I can turn people on Exactly. Yeah. Things that are outside of the Napa Cabernet sauvignon route. Although I have it, I like to still create those little gateways for exploration. And then what's somewhere with like LaVie, we are all about wine pairings. We are all about being innovative and constantly pushing the boundaries of what French is using French wines sometimes, but also thinking out of the box. Maybe it's a greenerveline or that truly works better with its dish. So we'll play around that way. So it's very fun, very different, but I love it all. Oh, you're so in my wheelhouse. I love taking Italian wines different wines, pairing them with other foods of other cultures. But, I I wanna get down to your outreach work because I know you're doing a lot of supporting and mentoring. You know, you said you wanna pay it forward. And you're working with some really interesting organizations. So tell me about Aloha Wine Foundation. I know the mission is to unite, educate, and inspire the Hawaii Sommelier community. So are you doing there? How did this happen? Because this is this is a big deal. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp for fascinating videos covering Stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond, meeting winemakers, eating local food, and taking in the scenery. Now back to the show. It's been such an amazing journey. Like I said, and along the way, another one of my main support systems has been master, Samuel, Patrick Ocubo. And he works for R and D. C. At the moment, and he has just been this driving force almost single handedly up until this point for really getting this younger generation to connect, really getting this younger generation to foster that community. So it was his idea during the pandemic. He reached out to me. We had brunch one day, and he told me this amazing idea he had to actually make a foundation for it. And I was like, don't say a word, sign me up whatever you need. I'll be there. So I became a founding board member with a concentration in the marketing and public relations area. And together with, our other board members and team, we were able to create events, which was a little hard during the pandemic. We had to get kind of creative, but we were able to create events that were able to generate enough, fundraising initiatives where we could actually fund sommeliers for their sommelier journey. A lot of the times, as much as the restaurant industry, you have such stable careers there, When you're just starting out, perhaps you're a busser, perhaps you're a bar back like I was back in the day, you don't necessarily have a lot of disposable income for wine training for actually pursuing the exams for flying up to take the exams So we just wanted to create a support system where, hey, dream, do it, inspire yourself, inspire others. It's all for a good cause. So we created these, scholarships that would allow them to grow. And it was very, very exciting for me because at the time, I was also doing a mini study group for g lyon. So I had, some members from Hyze. I had some members from LaVie from Kiora, and we put them together and we just did weekly wine study sessions for education. And two of my girls who, at the time, when I was studying to be a sommelier, there weren't a lot of women in Honolulu So there it was really important for me that I had two girls who are young. They're in their early twenties. They wanted to pursue the certification. So they applied for our actual scholarships, and they were able to receive it But not only that, my company seeing those initiatives being done and wanting to help support, we ran a scholarship campaign for the months of June, July, and August, where a portion of all the proceeds from this campaign actually paid it forward into the scholarship as well. So I was able to contribute not just in my nonprofit, but also through my daily work and being able to generate funds for the foundation. So that was really special to me. And then Gillian recognizing how important this whole process was for me as well as the girls, after they passed their intro level exam, gillian took it upon themselves to send me and three of my young sommeliers newly butted sommeliers, to Napa. And I was able to show them for the first time Napa. And they saw their vineyards for the first time. I got to introduce them to Bruce Nires and today at Bouchard and Fred share and some of like my really, truly favorite icons and I think titans in the wine industry. So that for me was a really special experience. That's so cool. A How many women, you know, Samalia's women in wine are there in Hawaii? I mean, you sort of alluded to the fact that there aren't many, but it sounds like you're you're recruiting more. But in general, you know, out of a hundred percent of people working in wine, what's the percentage of women in Hawaii? So when I was first starting out, I would go to tastings for the industry, and I would be the only woman. In terms of It was definitely, a grow up kid moment because you don't have necessarily as much wiggle room or freedom being the young kid on the block, let alone the only girl at the table. So there's definitely buck up moments where you need to feel confident in yourself and try your best. And at the end of the day, it always goes back to the idea of just be curious. It doesn't hurt to ask questions. Take these opportunities to truly learn because that's what it's all about. So it's not about what you know. It's just being confident in who you are and asking questions to better yourself. And that's just what I did every time I went. And luckily, people like Chris Ramel, Patrick Ocubo, Mark Shashiro, Chuck, all these people have been so supportive of not me because I'm a woman, but they're just supportive of me. And they just saw me for who I am regardless of gender. So that really felt like an amazing opportunity. I'm not gonna lie every day working in the restaurants. It's hard. The others guess that question you, they ask, aren't you a hostess? Like, they question a lot about what what are you doing here? Little girl types of things, but it's just about moving forward. Oh, it's so depressing. Still going on. But, yep, I mean, your attitude is so positive. That's that's amazing. Well, it it definitely you need to keep it going. Yeah. I hired a assistant manager who's a young female for highs as well, and she faces the same thing. And I'm like, you know what? It's not gonna end with me and it's not gonna end with you this type of behavior, but it's what we do about it, and we just keep moving. So Absolutely. I mean, I work in an old world country and, you know, it's very patriarchal male dominated wine society in Italy for thousands of years. So I'm a foreigner and a woman. And, yeah, it's very interesting these things, but it is a little depressing to hear it's still going on, especially in the States and sort of more progressive and liberal places like Hawaii, but I'm glad to hear that you are sort of just gently getting on with it, pushing back, hiring women. These things are super important. Mhmm. And and I know that, you know, the the people you work with at Aloha, why Foundation are pretty cool about this as well, creating more diversity and inclusion in gender and race and bringing the Hawaiian industry forward. And I read a quote from the founder of, Aloha Wine Foundation that said, the industry in Hawaii overcomes the geographical challenges of being on an island. You know, it it helps people fight against those challenges. And I'm just wondering, you know, what are some of those challenges? I mean, I can imagine, but I'd love to hear from you. What are those challenges? How are people in Hawaii finding their way into the wine world? You know, if they don't have you to help them because, obviously, you're clearly very helpful. But what does it require, you know, to be successful in the wine industry if you're in Hawaii and, you know, you're a young person just thinking, hey, I'd like to get into that. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm, you know, to transition from our previous question as well, the idea of connecting with women. So through the foundation and through Patrick Ocuba, he was actually able to connect me with a female sommelier Lynn who, is currently working. She's from the mainland. She's from California. But she is living and working as a sommelier on Maui now. And I never would have been able to meet Lynn if it wasn't for this community, this network, this foundation, that created opportunities for us to get together and meet in person. So I would say the literal physical idea of there's an ocean in between us creates it a little bit of a divide. There's a little bit of a competitive edge between Oahu similes and Maui similes, but at the end of the day, it's a friendly competition, and we're definitely trying to help bolster our full network. And you know, keep those friendships moving forward so that, hey, if people decide to ever move to the mainland one day, we have this network, this community that is able to help with, hey, I think that you should go work at this winery, or, oh, you should go check out this restaurant and things like that. So it's definitely about who you know, in terms of the day to day challenges of being a buyer in Hawaii, I definitely try to make sure that I have the correct sourcing I really think it's important for things to be temperature controlled, coming into the state. Yep. I definitely think that it's important to keep Hawaii on the map. You know, back in the nineties, early two thousands, they used to have this joke about, oh, the best meal that you'll ever get in Hawaii is the one you're getting on the plane on the, way over, which is simply not true. That's terrible. Yeah. So, chef Alan Wong, chef Roy Yamaguchi, they really pioneered along with other Hawaii regional cuisine chefs, this idea of, hey, Hawaii has something to offer here. We have something in this food and beverage industry. And they really championed it in the nineties. And now I feel like with wine, it's my job to take over that mental. Pass me the baton because we need to keep moving and keep changing what people's perception of what Hawaii truly is. A lot of times people will come in and as much as I love, you know, cheesecake Factory or olive garden, I want people that come into Waikiki to know that there are different restaurants. They are family owned restaurants. They are restaurants doing good work restaurants, and we have interesting different types of food that you can't get anywhere else. And also pairing with those foods is pretty cool. It's it's interesting what you said about the islands too because I think people who don't live in Hawaii or haven't been there don't really realize the distance between the islands and and they're not all that near. You can't just jump over, you know, or you know, paddle your surfboard to the other island. It's it's more complicated than that. But you've got so much going on with food as well. It's it's very cool to hear, you know, how how you see this going forward as becoming much more of a you know, a gastroenterology sort of tourist destination than it is at the moment. I think changing that perception is is a really cool gold have. I I know you've also been working with Dream Big Darling. So I just wanna chat about that for a second because it's similar to, a Loha wine foundation, but a little bit more far reaching. So what's your role with Dream Big Darling? And what is it? Because some a lot of our listeners won't know what it is. So Dream Big Darling is a very special organization, created by Amanda Woods from Higgins. And I got the amazing opportunity to meet Amanda, in Paso Robles. In twenty nineteen, as well as twenty twenty, I traveled to Paso Robles. Firstly, on Chuck's suggestion, Chuck Frurya was doing a amazing wine speak event in Paso Robles where his idea of the event was bringing together people from within the region of Paso and also bringing in people from outside. So from Spain, from Italy, from France, from different places in California, from Napa, bringing them all together to have just a candid, amazing panel, and conversation about wine. For that actual event, they did do, dream big darling, which encourages women and females in the beverage industry to create and foster networks. They had a scholarship at the time. So I, of course, you know, being me always on the move, looking for different opportunities. I researched Dream Big Darling, Chuck recommended it to me, and I was so grateful enough to receive a scholarship after submitting a little video and bio about myself, and they're they totally, comped, who had a scholarship. I was able to attend the wine speak seminars which was this amazing learning opportunity for myself. So Amanda was not just the, founding mother of Dream Big Darling, but she also worked with Chuck to collaborate this wine speak event. So as a part of Dream Big Darling, I was able to actually see the behind the scenes of all the work that gets put into the event. And I really was inspired by Amanda herself and her work ethic, but also her kindness The reason why she named her organization Dream Big Darling is because her grandmother would always tell her that growing up. So it's a very special organization and the sisters that I got to meet in Dream Big Darling, are so motivated. They're so ambitious. One of the dream big darling, girls is also in the wine enthusiast forty under forty. So we're doing things. We're out there with supporting each other And then the following year during the pandemic, we had a virtual retreat, which was really amazing where we got to actually engage with all of each other, all of ourselves on Zoom, and we did fun activities, and we talked about what it's like being a woman in such a male dominated industry. We encouraged each other. We did dream boards. Amanda always encourages us to dream big. So whatever dream you're thinking of times that by ten and shoot for that because you need to keep going, dream bigger than yourself. And so often being a woman, well, the world is going to try to shrink your dreams. So it's always important to keep expanding and keep growing your own dreams. So that those were really amazing life lessons that I learned from Amanda and her organization. That's such a cool ethos too. It's a very forward thinking approach. I have four daughters, so I I am always trying to encourage young women. And I think having somebody who really gets that. And as you said, take your dream times it by ten, and, and we'll support you. I think that's an amazing, philosophy to to have a foundation built upon. So I'm really happy that you're working with them through that. And you've opened the door to me because you brought up the, wine enthusiasts future forty or, you know, what it used to be called forty under forty. So do you mind if I ask how old you actually are? So I am thirty years old. It feels like I've been Oh my god. I could cry. I could just cry Ariana. You've you've accomplished so much. This is so inspiring. You're you're already enjoying, like, great success in the industry that you chose for yourself, even though your grandparents might have been a little bit gobsmacked by that choice. They understand more now, and they're super happy that I made my decision. But, yes. And I hope you're I hope you're giving them great wine too so that they They know what you do. Absolutely. So so what are your dreams now? You've, you know, you've got your whole life in front of you. What are the goals for the near future and and the far future? You're you're involved in so many important things. You've got a very high flying job you're clearly working very hard. As you said, you know, always being you applying for scholarships and learning more and more as you go, which I love, I love a student. I'm still a student very late in life. What are you what are you dreaming of? What are the goals coming up? I think in the theme of paying it forward, I've been given so many opportunities that I feel so blessed for that I definitely wanna make sure that along the path, along the way, I'm able to keep giving back. So, luckily with Aloha Wine Foundation every year, we try to have a Psalm summit in which we actually, you know, take all the similes in the community, create seminars, create learning experiences, And luckily, Patrick Kubel was able to inspire myself to help foster a woman led day out of the Psalms Summit, where we'll have panels centered around women and how we can be more encouraging and more diverse and more inclusive. So I wanna keep doing initiatives like that for my community. Keep looking for young bright stars, young gems out in the industry that all they need is a chance. So that's gonna be my mission and my promise moving forward. And then for myself, I've really discovered through the pandemic how much I love working the restaurant. It will always be in my heart and soul, but at the end of the day, one of my favorite passions about wine is the ability to tell stories. So I definitely wanna keep pursuing, podcasts, which is this lovely one like yourself. I'm so honored and blessed to be speaking with you today. Chuck Frurya also has a YouTube series that I wanna keep helping him work on and just look for different innovative outlets to share these stories, maybe through visual media, maybe it's through making videos, or maybe it's through, I don't know yet what the world has in store, but I wanna keep pushing forward and get wine to a wider audience. You know, my generation, it's all about maybe beers and mixology, the new IPA at the moment, but one of my jobs in the the sommelier is to break down barriers to wine and make it more inclusive so that everyone can enjoy wine, and there's no intimidation involved. So I just wanna keep telling that same story in different modes and means. Well, you are totally singing my song. That's that is my my article as a teacher, as a podcaster, as a presenter, you know, as a writer in wine. All of those things, everything I do in wine is about breaking down barriers and and making a longer and longer table. So I wish you incredibly well. I'm going to have to talk to you about VINitally International Academy because I think you need to come to Italy and do some more studying, but, Oh, that would be so much fun. It has just been an incredible pleasure having you on, and I really thank you for taking your time out of your day. Thank you so much for coming on. Good luck with the future. Mahalo, thank you for having me. Thank you for listening. And remember to tune in next Wednesday when I'll be chatting with another fascinating guest. Italian wine podcast is among the leading wine podcast in the world, and the only one with a daily show. Tune in every day and discover all our different shows. You can find us at italian wine podcast dot com SoundCloud, Spotify, Himalaya, or wherever you get your pods.