Ep. 1904 Na Serena Zhao | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

Welcome to the Italian Great Geek podcast. Join us as we explore personal stories of travel and tasting with Italy's must know grape for idols. Chart your own course with my Italian Great Geek journal, your personal tasting companion to accompany the series. Available now on Amazon. With thanks to calendula and partners for their generous support with this project. 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. This is Cynthia Chaplin, and today Italian wine podcast is at Vignitally international. With our Italian wine Ambassador course, our flagship course taking place in verona this month from the fourth to the eighth of April right before we need to leave. And today, I have with me, Serena Chow. She is one of our Via students. She is from Shanghai and is currently living and working in Poland. So welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Cynthia. Thank you. Hello. Hi, everyone. My name is Serena Chow. And very nice. I'm excited to be here interviewed by things. Yeah. And, we need to learn the course. Well, we're so excited. We've got sixty four students from twenty seven countries. So your story is really interesting to me. Oh, yeah, really. So, How did you get from working in Shanghai, wine importing, teaching WSTT to Poland and what you're doing now? Okay. This is a very long story. If I start at very beginnings because that When I was first graduate in the university in in Shanghai, then I went I want to further my study abroad so I went to Italy. Yeah. I spent five years in the University of Bologna. And I start with the culture and an emoji. Yeah. Something about the wines. But, yeah, before the course, I think I gonna, okay, I gotta drink wine. This is so fascinating. So I go, but in fact, the university is totally not as average is working in the food for the culture. And it's, like, labor free labor work in the NLDeca to clean all the machines to learning, you know, the techniques. Yeah. And then after graduation, I have a short time working a small one right near Chazania, one of small city, in Chazania. And then hopefully, like, several months, half a year. You know, Chinese, Simon Chinese, and the kids have to back to the parents. They call me back. So, I went back, then I'd have a work in Shanghai. So I work in one of the big importers in Shanghai. And but the basically we import French wines and Italian ones also chili wine. This is the problem with China. They're importing so much French wine. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You need to get more Italian wine into China. Yeah. That that's true because, you know, for the importer, first things, just like a professor talking, it's marketing and money. So French, why is more, you know, welcomed because our market is a majority in the inside, more in line of China. So people are Oh, bordeaux, bordeaux, if it's somewhere else, and even in your friends, you have Araceli or something. Why they don't I don't never heard about it. So all in bordeaux. So that's why we start bordeaux, but I don't like it. So we do some Italian wise, but it's also candy. Exactly. It's the big names. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People in Asia want the big names. Yeah. They they only want a Kandi. And then that's why it's because I also not only do the, like, import rather than also do the, like, education. So I have tea all the time. It's running around England. I'm trying to different, a small parade in the city and to lecture people. And they, yeah, you know, to lecture people know what it there's not only in Kiev, but there's something else. But it's It's quite, you know, in line of China, it's not very easy to promote the, like, let's say italian way because today we're here in verona. It's not very easy to promote the Italian. My first is a pronunciation of the name is very hard. Second is like, you know, the taste is so diversity. People drink and people don't even for us, it's hard to remember and get to know it. So it's quite hard. But good things more and more, you know, Chinese and Asian people come to IC. There's a lot of Asian face this time. Come to the course to study. I think it's a good size slowly for it to, you know, promote the Italian wine with different diversity. So you moved away from Shanghai. Now you're in Poland. What happens? Oh, yeah. I met my husband in Shanghai. It's all with the husband. Yeah. Yeah. It's a public pro broadcast. So I wanna say, oh, I love you, you know, you know, yeah. I love him. And then I, you know, we got pregnant, and we have the key for two kids because, you know, it's in Shanghai for young people to have and not have a life, but for work and this is good. But if you wanna have a life, it's really hard because I'm not the local Shanghai. So we decided, let's go move back to warsaw and, restart our life. And then something bad happen. It's a pandemic. So everything's It's part of everybody's story now. Yeah. So everything. I have to stop like, for me, it's like, almost three years. Nothing. It's like a stay home, taking care of kids. And with wine, it's only drinking, no business at all. And, but the good things. 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. And now the reason I come to the course is because Findliquis go to kindergarten. I said I want to restart my business about mine. So half I come here, fifty percent is for having fun. I like Italian white because. Yeah. And second is I wanna have, like, you know, have, like, a push for myself to restart everything. Otherwise, it's always difficult to restart after three years gap. It's always pushing. Maybe next month, maybe next month, next month. That's why. Yeah. So you you decided to come and take via Italian wine Ambassador course. This is not an easy undertaking. Oh, yes. It's very intense. We all know. So how are you finding it? It's day three today. Oh, yes. And I've just pulled you out of a huge tasting of many many. My mouth very much now. Yeah. How are you finding the course in general? Before I came, because I have several Chinese friend. They already I have two, actually, not more than two. They are in the course, but I, two of them is already passed exams. So they encourage me. It's hard. It's not easy, intensive, but it's totally worth it. Just, you know, give you something after you learn this, like, systematic and you're gonna have a whole new picture of Italian white. So, yeah, and I said, okay, I'm gonna challenge myself, but so far it's super intensely, you know, in the book it's the hard But the tastings like, oh, hard, you know, you know. Yeah. That's our new book. The Italian wine Unplugged two point o. That was my baby. So eighteen months of my life went into that book. It is award winning. It won the OIV award for for wine books last year when it came out in twenty twenty three. Mhmm. But yeah, it's a big it's a big book. It's a big door stopper, a lot of material from our chief scientist at didio Chienza. Yeah. Yeah. And all the native grape varietals? Yes. Yes. There's like, you know, there's like, an place of thirty percent of them never heard about it. Of course. That's also good. Never heard about it. It's like, wow. Misteray of Italian wine where people haven't heard of the over five hundred native grapes. So it comes as a shock. Yeah. It's really, not only sangiovese and Amarrona. It's for Chinese Vivi is always Baroro Amarone and the chianti. They don't even know what's behind that. They just like my customer. I want to butter a marone. And that's it. I want a two butter, and I want a quiondi. And they always want quiondi super yellow, you know, always super yellow. So that's all. Nothing else. Form? Well, this sounds amazing because now, I have high hopes for you because I know you've been studying hard. So when you pass the exam on the eighth, what are you gonna do next when you're a newly minted Italian wine Ambassador, what do you wanna do with your knowledge that you've worked so hard to get about Italian wine? Oh, yeah. Because I my business because my whole life was based in Poland. I was living worse. And the in those past three years, even I don't, you know, work in the wine area, but I just, you know, visit the shop during the, while we're search of this, warsaw, you know, the Poland and White Marketing. And to be honest, in the in nowadays, in the white shop, the Anodaka in Warsaw, and, you know, the Italian wise mainly focus on the south of Italian. It's like, pudia, pudia, always pudia. So they don't the or also this, the classical region, like a chiaolula, armadon, but the rest, they also have something similar like Johnny because they have the strong taste. So that's why I want, you know, have my not only the, Nodeca, but I also want to see, you know, tea making something like a school or something similar like that to, like, do the promotion and not only focus on Poland, but more like a Instagram. Like, hangar, we are close. She are, you know, so fantastic. Well, we're gonna have to hook you up with our VIA is also a huge community, not just a course, and we have a couple of people in Poland. One of them is a very dear friend of mine. Okay. That's awesome. So I'll hook you up. Oh, definitely. And since you're a wine educator, I think we're gonna have to get you certified as a maestro educator. Which is our intro course. Uh-huh. That our Italian wine ambassadors are allowed to teach after they pass our time. Okay. So we have a lot to talk about, but I wanna thank you so much for coming on today. Okay. Thank you, thank you guys for calling. I wish you all the best. And good luck on your exam. Continue to enjoy Definitely. The next couple of days of tasting. Definitely. Definitely. I'll see you at the pinning ceremony. Okay. I hope so. I'll fingers cross for my examination. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Thank you for listening. And remember to tune in next Wednesday when I'll be chatting with another fascinating guest. 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