Ep. 1436 Arnica Rowan | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

Hey, guys. Check out Italian wine unplugged two point o brought to you by Mama jumbo shrimp, a fully updated second edition, reviewed and revised by an expert panel of certified Italian wine ambassadors from across the globe. The book also includes an addition by professoria Atilushienza. Italy's leading vine geneticist. To pick up a copy today, just head to Amazon dot com or visit us at mama jumbo shrimp dot com. 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, 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. This is me Cynthia Chaplin, and today I am very happy to welcome Arneka Rowan. She's a wine consultant, writer, and educator from British Columbia in Canada, and she's the founding director of Vinneka Education Society, which is a nonprofit dedicated to diversifying the wine industry through education. And everyone who listens to this podcast will know how much both education and diversity mean to me in the wine industry. So I'm very happy to meet a a fellow kindred spirit. And thank you very much for coming on today, Arneka. My pleasure. I've done my digging. I'm a stalker and a nosy person at heart. So I know your background was originally in research and sustainable businesses. So I'm wondering how you went from there in more of a business aspect and moved into the field of wine. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people find their second home or their third home in wine, and I'm similar actually it happened when I was turning forty. Some people don't like the idea of that big event happening, but all my older girlfriends, told me how fantastic their forties were only to be taught by their fifties. So on the big eve of turning forty, I decided to do a little project. I wrote a narrative in the day of my life, but ten years out. So I was turning forty, but on the story that described a day in my life when I was fifty, And I thought about where I want to be, who I want to be with, you know, what who what I wanted to be doing, and I wrote wine into that story. So just to back up a little bit. I grew up in Northern Canada, and we start work very young up there. So I had a consulting career working with the indigenous people. So first nations, I worked for art galleries and environmental organizations, and that basically started as soon as I left high school. And by the time I was twenty five, because everything was sort of accelerated, I became a professor at an agricultural college, which is really young. It's very it's very young. I was younger than many of my students. I wore heels every day. I remember. I could never do that now. But I taught MBA students. I taught Bachelor of Science students, and my work always sort of bridged these business and environmental sectors. And so when it was turning forty, I had already had a career. You know, I had sort of got to where I wanted to go. I was like, at international conferences, etcetera. And I didn't have any ambition. I just wanted to find a new industry that was fulfilling and interesting yet. Yeah. That's a good point. Not having ambition, but wanting to do something fulfilling seem mutually exclusive, but they're really not. No. Absolutely not. And, I mean, we all go into different jobs and industries for different reasons. And I had found a really loved wine. I had been doing w set courses the wine and spirit education trust for professional development when it was an academic. And so I just thought, why not wine? And I wrote it into my story and met my business partner auditing a wine geography class, and the rest is history. I like that. It was kind of a love letter to your future self. That's a very nice idea. Exactly. Actually, it can really shape your life. I did it once too when I was doing my master's degree. And I read the same document five years later and found it outside of the shape of the hallway. Everything was true. That I'd written in the story five years before. That's amazing. I hope you still have year one from when you were forty. That'll be a magic one to open up eventually. Well, it's nice because it's intentionally framing your aspirations for your future life. And I think people don't take enough time to do that. As you said, you know, careers kind of happen to a lot of people. I know I started adding publishing, which wasn't what I intended, but was was a great, beginning for me. But, yeah, wine came to me later as, as you said, so many people like that. So sending yourself an intentional letter and and an aspirational letter is really nice idea. I might have to steal that from you. Absolutely. Go ahead. And then we'll check-in five years later and see if it all came true because it probably will. Well, currently, you're a partner at Terwar Consulting. So fill us in on the company and your role there because now you are wine based. You got that goal accomplished. So fill us in, what are you doing there? Yeah. We and the funny thing is we basically do the same things that I did in other industries, but in wine. So my business partner, Darson, Esau, and I we founded CareWork Consulting after auditing this wine geography class together. But there aren't just us. We have ten subcontractors that worked with us on projects last year. So Our portfolio is really diverse. We're basically a wine r and d firm. We do research and development, and the research is not. It's consumer research, market research, export research planning, and my specialty is strategy, Darsens' consumer research and sensory analysis. But we, honestly, we spend a lot of time managing projects because we have so many consultants that work on things. And they are specialists in winemaking, business coaching, optimizing winery operations, social media, So we've kind of become this one stop professional services firm for associations like regional national associations and also, win rates producers. Fantastic. How many clients have you got? I have no idea actually. Are they primarily, you know, North American or all over the world? What's your reach? We're working with a couple of international clients mainly in Canada. We work for National Regional etcetera, associations. And the thing is that we have very few ongoing contracts. We mainly solve problems for people. So if they want to know something or launch a new product or they want to understand a consumer base, or rebrand their entire area. That's when we come in and we solve the problem, and then we let them go. Usually, our point base is rotating quite frequently. Keeps life interesting. That's nice. And presumably, some of them come back when they have other questions. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I know that you founded Winica Education Society three years ago. We were talking before the interview started, and Wine Education is very important to both of us. So I wanna know what gave you the idea for Winica? Well, I think there were lots of people with the same idea at the same time. I was a relative newcomer to the wine industry, and I remember just going into my first wine industry conference. And I looked around and I thought, where is everybody? You know, the diversity in our region in our in our province wasn't in the room. And that that just stood out to me just having work in different industries and different arenas. So when our business was up and running, my business partner said, yeah, go ahead, you know, spend some time. And so I got a few friends together who had the same ideas and wanted to address the diversity issues in our local industry and beyond. So we collected up, you know, sort of knew each other and collected people who were representative of diverse cultural ethnic viewpoints, but Actually, even more importantly, different parts of the industry. So Cornell sings to do. He's the best bit of culturalist in Western Canada. So he is on the growing side. Paulo Brammer runs the wine school in Brazil, and he's doing some amazing social equity work, and he's done that for a long time before before Venica Education Society. So he joined us from sort of the educational standpoint, and Anna Gallegos, works on diversity for some holidays in Quebec, the French speaking probably. And I'll give a good shout out to Anna Gallegos, who's a new Italian wine ambassador from Vineetili International Academy. So shout out to Anna. Yes. She is a wonderful determined lady. I I've actually met her in RioHA many years ago, you know, with Paulo And, yeah, she's just she's a dynamo. She is. And we were all thrilled when she passed in Verona in April. So that's good to hear that she's still, you know, with you, and that's that's fantastic. That makes me so happy. Yeah. She's trucking along and she's doing She's doing a great job in all the aspects of her life. We also had Maoyu Takasaki. She teaches language and culture at the local university, Japanese language and culture, sometimes sake. And, yeah, in Sarah Martin, she ran our training programs. For the first couple of years. And before that, she ran other programs in the culinary industry. So the people that were involved originally in the project as board members, we used our collective perspectives to design our equity and white leadership program. That's and it came out of basically that original sort of focus group of board members. This is such a cool thing to hear because your board and your, you know, your team sounds incredibly diverse. And I think people don't really understand that Canada as a country is very diverse, you know, with first nation people, with bipoc people, all sorts of things that's not as well known in the world for those issues and putting a spotlight in it. And it sounds like Vinneka is really doing that. And and building a community that's mutually supportive. 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 foods, and taking in the scenery. Now back to the show. Well, and it's also if you have a hard look at just population demographics wherever you are, you can start to see the makeup of people that are there. And then if you look in the industry rooms and see if people, you know, if the if the demographics roughly match who were the people who are enjoying wine, for example, then you can see where the disparities are. It's pretty obvious. Pretty quick. And how are you targeting that? Because we all know when you walk into a wine tasting room in certain parts of the world, and everyone is, you know, a white man. How are you targeting that disparity and that lack of diversity? How are you fixing that? In British Columbia. We're making some headways. We're not getting anywhere to fixing, but we're we're making some headway. I think whatever you want to make change, and this comes back from the environmental side. So this is old school sustainability approach. You do a barriers assessment, and then you figure out how to address these barriers. That's just the approach to change this most effective. So we sat down as a board and we I actually took notes while they talked and we asked them, you know, what are the things they're getting in the way of people being in the room? And the messages were really clear and specific. The first barrier was this expensive education. So in Canada, we do have subsidized university college education, but that's only available for people who are taking Viticulture or winemaking, for example. The rest of wine education like WSTT is not available for student loans or government subsidy. Well, you've just opened the door for me to ask you about your equity and wine leadership program. Because I know you're using that to push even harder against these barriers and helping minority ethnic and racial groups get involved in advance in the wine industry. So how are you doing that? What are you doing? As you said, there's not a lot of money being put towards this in many, many places here as well. How are you supporting that sort of ethos of breaking these barriers and giving a much more diverse group of people and people who've been marginalized and excluded from the wine industry, giving them the opportunity to get involved in these educational programs that are super expensive. We all know how expensive they are. And just to give you an idea of our funding, and if there is a trick to going and finding funding that addresses specific issues, ours actually is not the funding that supports our program is not diversity funding. It's employment funding that just happens to be targeted towards people who are black indigenous people of color. So just to give you an idea of the scope of the program, and we don't tell our story very much, but it's pretty big numbers. We've received under about half a million dollars to fund three years of this program. And these are big numbers. So thank you government of Canada. Thank you, province of British Columbia. And we've had three cohorts, twenty students each. So that's sixty students. And by the time they come out of this program, which includes WSCT two and three credentials, which is really important for addressing that education barrier. And we also have an internship component so that they know people in the industry and so that they have experience on their resume and a mentorship component so that everybody who's in the program has somebody to look up to somebody who's ahead of them in the industry that they can talk with and get support from. So these three components of the program happen over a few months. And then at the end of it, we have our first two cohorts. We did a survey back in January. And they have a ninety seven percent employment rate, and eighty one percent of them actually have careers in wine. So it's working? That's fantastic. That's a huge success rate. Yeah. It really is. And I think it's because it's well designed around what people needed for this specific place. And so that whatever the diversity issues are in different places, this is the takeaway. The process of finding out what's going on is the same. What are the barriers how do we address them or work around them and then go get money. That's that's sort of the that's the approach. Yeah. Well, that's an amazing business plan, and it's so strategic and it's so simple. And anybody who's ever done something like this understands you can't do anything without money, and no one's gonna give you any money unless you have a plan. So I love the simplicity of that strategy. I think it's great. It's not rocket science, but it can be very effective. And, honestly, it's pretty It's a real pleasure to see the impact. We just had the Vancouver International White Festival. We were there, and they nicely gave tickets to all of our sixty alumni to attend the trade tasting. And people were gathering and talking to each other and sharing about the careers and just running around and having fun. That's what you want. It's building community as well, and you're gonna have people who are grateful and show their gratitude by, as you said, mentoring and supporting future people involved in the program. That's, I think, the best thing you can do. And there's also a lot of opportunity for the industry to support. We've never had a problem finding people to host internships or, you know, mentors that we've targeted, so and ask them to be part of our program. Everybody says yes. Think there's a lot of people who have good intentions. They just need a focus point for what they can contribute. We've just been really well supported with that program. That's not the only program that we do, but that's the big one. It's quite impactful. Well, I know your title at Vinneka right now is chief learning officer. So I like that you use that verb learning officer instead of a noun like education because I think all of us are students, you know, all through our lives. If it works out well for us, I love continuing my education. I get bored if I'm not studying something. So what would you like to see change in wine education as we go forward? For me, I have issues with language and things like that. What do you think are the things we need to look at changing as we move forward? Words. Well, I think there are sort of two major arenas. One, there's a lot of room for innovation and wine education, both andragogy, which is like pedagogy, but for adults, and also content So in wine education, in general, there's a lot of lecturing, test taking, essay writing, I'm very familiar with, but very few non traditional ways learning and knowledge assessments are extremely traditional. So I I was Like I said, I was a professor, you know, twenty, twenty five years ago and those methods were pretty old school back then. So there's a lot of room for innovation in the learning process. And then even with this, you know, this current, andragogical approach, we could re examine what that content is. So I think and it's not a critique rather than a what's next. So overall, wine education in the English language tends to be British and quite Euro Center, no matter where you go And we miss a few important pieces, I think, in talking about wine. So we sort of set up these different understandings of who owns wine, who belongs to wine. So for example, and I I may get protests over this, but Europe isn't the birthplace of wine. You know, it's many people in the trade, especially when they first get into the trade assume this because of the terms that we use, such as old world. Right? That's a very inaccurate term as far as wine goes. Lots of the I am completely with you on this. Vineitally international academy does not believe that wine began in Europe. So, yes, I am with you on this. Keep going. There you go. Exactly. And it's funny though these terms that we use very often though, they sort of creep into your psyche. And then we don't consider, you know, some of the oldest multi fruit wines, multi fruit flower wines were found in hunan province in China and some of the oldest wineries, you know, Georgia, Armenia, and So if we reframe the way that we use language, then we sort of give credit a little bit more than what it's due. And and I also think we should be talking about these shady sides of wine history because we can't just know the good things. Like, when we talk about grapes spreading to different places, they were spread because of conquest, you know, etruscan's phonetes. There is it wasn't fun times and colonization, like South Africa and the Americas. So these are These are really there are even, like, strong connections between the slate trade and a lot of the financing of intercontinental, you know, wind shipments in the beginning. So I think that these are pieces that we should be just touching on at least in when we learn about wine history and where wine comes from so that we don't forget about them. No. That's true. And especially when we look at emerging wine markets, you know, I'm completely in agreement with you, migration, conquest, you know, all of those things in the past brought about the wine industry we have today, but the wine industry of the future is merging in countries that no one talks about in terms of wine right now. So that's a really interesting point. I like that sort of breaking down these verbal geographical clues that are often incorrect. Well, and also it's about, again, getting back to diversity in the industry and people in the trade being reflected wine lovers in general being reflected. Their population relative makeup being reflected in the wine trade, you have to, you know, sort of think about, like, what what are the stories we're telling? What is the language that we are using to make it accessible and inclusive. I don't mean dumbing down. I just mean row of it. No. Absolutely. Absolutely. We can't all talk about Goesbury's Can we? That's exactly where I was going. You know, the international wine lebron's have been developed some Jeani Choli and There was even, you may have covered it on one of your podcasts, but there was a study in Mingsha where they just it was just published in February, and they were looking at traditional Eurocentric wine descriptors. And then they had a panel of a hundred and fifty people, I think, who did blind assessments and tried to relate it to flavors and aromas that were in their place, you know, their different regions in China, that they originated from, and it was fascinating, the different ways that they described blind. So, anyway, this is worth it isn't actually, I think, really important when we seek relevance for wine and the continuation of wine and the appreciation of wine globally. I I think that's really it's part of it's part of education and appreciation evolving. Well, that's hugely inspiring. And I, as an educator, I feel very passionately about this. I cannot stand to see anyone kept out because of language. And as you said, relevance, you know, people who are getting involved in wine are from a variety of cultures, nations, you know, geographical positions, economic backgrounds, and being able to take that out of the equation, open the doors is something that's really important. So I'm really happy to hear you talk about And I'm gonna ask you now, what are your dreams for Vinneka in the next couple of years? How where are you taking this forward? You've already been, you know, far more successful than I was aware of, you know, with a a lot of funding, a lot of background support and mentors joining in and help with internships, which I think is crucial. Where would you like to go in the next couple of years? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for acknowledging that. And thanks for letting me sort of tell the story and brag about you know, the students in the program participants a little bit because we are you need to be shouting this from the rooftops. This is important stuff. Yeah. We don't tell the story enough, but we've had some real, you know, high level successes too. We had to one of our grads was competing on top chef Canada this year and Another one, we had our first Michelin Star Awards in Vancouver ever. And one of the Michelin Stars was awarded to a restaurant that was run by one of our program participants. And so we amazing. Yeah. So we really, they're killing it since we started now because we're a couple of years in. We have alumni from our programs during our board. So there are a lot of new ideas. There's this continual flow of energy. And we success breeds success, doesn't it? Oh, yeah. And also just realizing that if these programs are for them, and they are capable contributing amazing people, them joining the board is that is just amazing. So, we just had a a board meeting a couple days ago, and we were talking about, you know, Monday, nonprofit stuff sustaining our program, taking it to the next level, maybe doing some advanced education. But, I guess, my personal dream, it sounds a little silly, but it's that we wouldn't have anything to do anymore. We would be totally redundant because, I mean, if we're our organization folds because we have no work to do, that would be awesome. That would be if who is in the wine industry and who's in leadership roles, that's really important. Who's in leadership roles, is reflective of the cross section of people who love wine, then we've done our job. We are a long way from that. So we have some work to do still. Well, hopefully your fifty five year old self will be sitting on a beach somewhere just drinking wine, reading that letter you wrote when you were forty, and this will all be behind us. This is that's great. I hope that you have nothing to do in the next ten years too. Well, and I have other confidence too in the sort of next Again, we're a couple of years in and these alumni are joining the board and taking leadership roles, and they're even working for the program when we're executing the program. So I have utter confidence in their abilities to continue this change that we're already making. So I'm really appreciative of the people, everyone from the internship host to the the government for supporting our program from Wine Spirit Education Trust has donated to our program every year. The, like, the local wine marketing authority at wine versus BC has donated their program every year. So there's just all the support and it's paid off. And I have a lot of hope for the future. That's incredible. I think some people listening to this are gonna be moving to British Columbia right now. I think it's amazing what you've managed to achieve in such a short time, you know, only a few years out of what was, you know, a pandemic, a pretty dark time, and to have brought all of this into the light and really you know, being an inspiration, a very positive inspiration, and putting people out there, you know, all of your successful alumni, who continue to wave that flag. I think this is just great. So I'm really happy that we're able to have this conversation, and I can't thank you enough for coming on today. No. It's my pleasure. Absolutely. Well, take care, and we wish you well for Vinneka and for everything else that you're doing to our work consulting. Thank you very much, Cynthia. 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 podcasts 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.