Ep. 2209 Dr. Liz Thach MW | Voices with Cynthia Chaplin

In restaurants, they had a lot of suggestions. They said, you walk into a casual restaurant and we get our when you get the drink menu, and you've got these beautiful pictures of strawberry margaritas and cocktails and exciting martinis you can try, big beautiful pictures with descriptions of what it tastes like. And then you get to the wine menu and all it says is chardonnay. I mean, that that's just really quite boring compared to what the cocktails are doing. And so they're they're saying that wine needs to have better descriptors. So we, you know, what what is this? What does this wine taste like? And they they say, well, the wine menu now is often pushed to the very back of menus. They're not even seeing it. And a lot of them, when they learn there is such a thing as a wine cocktail, they're like, well, why don't we why don't you do wine cocktails the way that you do spirits tells. Show pictures, tell us what it looks like. We'd be happy to buy a one cocktail if you if you advertise it in the same way. 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, work 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 your host Cynthia Chaplin, and today I am so excited to welcome doctor Liz Fach, master of wine to voices. Liz is an award winning wine writer and a consultant based in Napa and Sonoma. She's the author of nine books and over three hundred articles. So Chapo, I take my hat off to you, as a writer myself. Liz has twenty two years of experience as a professor at Sonoma State University. And in October twenty twenty, she was nominated as one of the top leaders in the US wine industry by wine business monthly. She's currently the president of the wine market consul, nonprofit dedicated to providing forward looking market research on US wine consumer buying habits, attitudes, and trends. And this is a really important data and statistical and information based that is going to be, you know, hugely illuminating for everyone in the wine sector over the next probably at least five, if not ten years. So Liz, thank you so much for taking the time today. I really appreciate you coming on the show. It's a great pleasure being here today. Well, I know you didn't start out with a career in wine. In fact, you were working as an HR executive for Fortune five hundred companies for over a decade. So I really wanna ask you what got you into wine? And what was it like transitioning from a life in high level corporate business to becoming a master of wine and moving into the wine industry? Well, excellent question. I actually though got into wine when I was in college. I had a friend who took me for my birthday up to Napa Valley, and we started wine tasting. It was my first time to actually visit wineries and do that. And I just fell madly in love with wine that day, looking at the vineyards, hearing the passion from the tour guides, and just being with friends and laughing and being in the sun. And I was like, this is something I wanna learn more about. So for the next ten years or so, I basically just went to wine tastings and read a lot of books. Didn't pursue any professional certifications back then and traveled a lot with my husband. We every vacation we went one new country to taste wine. And then, over the years, I was, eventually offered an opportunity after I had my PhD to, be a professor at Sonoma State and they had a wine program. And so they asked me if I would teach in it. And, from there, I ended up, writing my first book. And after that, started the master wine program, and that took about five years to complete while I was working full time. And, became an MW in twenty eleven. Well, it's it's so interesting. Our paths are quite similar. I grew up in Ohio when no one drank wine. And so when I went to college in Connecticut, I sort of found found wine and and got very excited about it, but no one ever told me it was a career possibility. So it wasn't till much later that I did the same sort of thing change from what I was doing into what I really wanted to do. So, I know education's been a huge part of your life. You know, as you said, you you kind of a VA, an MA, a PhD. You have the very, unique title of distinguished Professor of wine, granted for life, from California State University. And over this long career in higher education, I've gotta ask how have you seen wine studies change. I'm a professor of Italian wine culture I teach here. But what would you like to see included in the future? Wine education is kind of a hot button topic at the moment, how we speak about it, how we teach about it. So given the fact that you've been doing this for a long time, what would you like to see coming in wine education future? I probably have more holistic viewpoint of the industry because the way it is, at least in the US, right now, it's you get a degree in Viticulture, you get a degree in inology or winemaking, you get a degree in wine business, which is what I teach. We have an MBA in wine, or you become like a, expert in terms of doing wine tasting, wine evaluation, wine analysis, teaching, you know, classes where you're teaching others about wine tasting. So there's the whole tasting part is sometimes separate. So I think some way where where all of those things can come together is important. That holistic viewpoint, which we currently don't get because we do we chop everything up into different parts of the value chain, you know, which they are. But I think it's important to look at the whole picture of of wine. And also, as my friend, doctor Steve Charter would say, and he he teaches a burgundy, the social aspects of wine, the cultural aspects of wine, and and all the joy that wine brings to our lives. Absolutely. And of course, we are in the middle of October, and there has been a a big movement in the States with, Karen Neil and and Gina Colangelo with the come over October and trying to bring people back to that fundamental essence of what wine meant to us as human beings, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years ago that it brings people together over food in celebration, in sorrow and and with family and friends. So I completely agree with you on that. I think we do tend to, or we have in us tended to sort of separate cultural aspects from historic aspects, from science aspects, and taking the theory to one side and practical tasting to another side. So I am really interested to hear you say that. Yeah. It's a I've always thought of wine as a as a trilogy. It's, you know, it's created by the combination of mother nature, you know, the human hand and also science, you know, and that all comes together in a culture in one place in the in in the world and then it's spread as the wines are, you know, exported. So it's it's really a truly magical beverage. I one hundred percent agree. So I'm I'm really happy to be having this conversation. Sometimes, when I speak to people who are particularly well versed as you are in in not only wine, but also wine education. It can become very dry, and no pun intended, but wine should never be dry that way. I think, looking at it as that trilogy, that's a that's a lovely image that I keep. So I know, you know, as you said, in two thousand eleven, you became the first female master of wine in California and only the seventh woman in the USA to achieve the title. So we're only looking back sort of twelve, thirteen years ago, not twenty five or thirty five. It's still sort of shocking that there were so few. Currently, there's about thirty percent women, masters of wine in the world. So How can we do you think as an industry mentor and support more women to achieve the title of Master of Wine. We know it's expensive. We know it's a long process. You took five years, which know, in this scheme of things is pretty short for people to become master blind. It takes much longer, normally. People have jobs and families and it's very, consuming. So what can we do to help women be unafraid to take up his mantle to afford it to build time into their very busy lives to actually complete the course and and draw more women into the world of becoming a master wine. Yes. It's so important that we all support one another. And I I think that I've received a lot of support from, my female fellow MWs, you know, when I was studying, you know, you you are given an MW as a mentor. And so I have many to be thankful and grateful for. But I think it's it's it's sitting down and and honestly, you know, when somebody does express an interest, in pursuing the MW, all of us, make sure we're available to talk with them and encourage them. But also to be honest about what it takes because it I always say that, you know, as long as you are willing not to give up you can eventually pass the BMW. But a lot of people just think it's way too much work. And, you know, it wouldn't it wouldn't be the the prestigious, you know, certification, it's not really a certification, but the the the prestigious type of title it is if it wasn't a lot of work. It's based on the British system, not the American system of teaching. And therefore, it's quite different for many. I know American students, and I would assume students from other parts of the world who didn't grow up on a British system to understand that way of writing and being tested. So I think just somebody just more of us being available as mentors, which I think we do try to do, but there's not that many of us. And so, it's it's something that generally we do have several recruiting, session several times a year, the Institute of Masters of Wine does. And then we also just try to be available to people when they need us. Right. It's it's so important that mentorship, piece of the puzzle I, myself, have, have been to the Institute of Master Wine in London, on a few occasions, and just got completely intimidated by the wallpaper in the bathroom, which is old exam papers. So, having having somebody to talk to about these sorts of things would certainly help. I'm sure. It is a it is, as you said, this is why it is, a title that is so rarefied. There are if I'm not wrong, less than four hundred, MWs in the world. So it's something that can't be diminished, but, I think we can do some work to make it slightly more accessible and and a little bit less absolutely terrifying. For young women, who who want to get involved from all over the world. We have so many younger women now who are from other cultures, as you said, not British, not Anglo Saxon. Who are discovering wine and who we need to have in our wine industry. So mentorship as a as a key piece of the puzzle, I think you're absolutely spot on there. So I really want to delve into your own work as president of the wine market council. So I'm very excited about this. The goal of the council is to provide forward looking market research on American consumer buying habits and trends. And we know that the American market is critically important for the future of wine. So every year since the council began in nineteen ninety seven, the wine market con council conducts three or four studies on US wine consumers And this year, you partnered with EthNifax, which is a demographic focus research group, to conduct a two part study on younger multicultural consumers, you know, the area of research most requested by producers by wine, you know, wine council members. So just last month, an article was published by wine business monthly, and they used the data from the results of the study. And they came to the conclusion that wine is too complicated and younger multicultural consumers feel like wine is a club and they're not invited. So I face this myself. I teach, people, students, private clients, corporate clients, embassy diplomats, all sorts of people of all different ages and backgrounds. And I definitely find this, among my younger, students and event goers. So tell us about the study and how the data was generated because it's really important to the findings here. Yes. We're we're very excited about this study. It was this the number one study, requested by our members. We actually do a member survey every year on what they want us to focus on for the following year. And it's actually a two part study. So the article that you're you're citing, very well written article, and we're grateful for for people who write about what we do, is based on our qualitative portion. So the studies divided into qualitative interviews, and in this case, they were shop along, shopping along with the young consumer in grocery stores and restaurants and wine shops and so forth, and online. And then the second piece of it is going is currently going on, and it's a big national survey where we're gonna be able to do quantitative, generalizable data. But what we found in the interviews is is just sort of surprising because you hear it right directly in this video. They're telling you, wine is too complicated, wine's not fun. I don't hear about wine because wine doesn't talk to me in my world. And in my language, I don't see wine with my food. You know, where's my culture? Where's my Mexican, my Asian, my Japanese, my Guatemala, and where's my food match with wine? They don't see it. So it's not part of their lives. So this is something that we heard clearly in those interviews. And so now what we're gonna be doing is going out and and literally doing a much, much broader, you know, survey, and we'll have those results back in December. So it's it's interesting. We're not exactly what's gonna come out of that piece of it, but we think we're gonna get really stronger indication of where we need to focus. But but as it is right now, we just we know we need to make it less complicated. Just make it simple and fun. You know, when, like, your very first time when you went wine tasting and mine, it was all about just being with friends and laughing and being in the sun and not worrying about how the wine was me. No. Or or how it smelled or or or any of those things, and did it have high acidity and lots of tannin? None of those things played into my my early wine experiences. Yes. Exactly. It's all about enjoyment and pleasure. Well, the article went on to say that one of the biggest obstacles stopping young consumers from buying wine is that winemakers and retailers continue advertising wine using terms and descriptors that don't resonate with modern consumers, you know, as you were saying, you know, people all over the world don't eat the same sort of food, Guatemala, and Mexican, and Thailand, you know, Malaysia and all of these things. So I completely and utterly agree with this. How do you think we can get this message through to producers and retailers? That they have got to change the way that they are advertising and and marketing and the terms that they're using to describe the wines they're producing. Yes. I think the message is starting to get across. I mean, that's, that's what, you know, wine market council does is we share that. We share so, like, we share general messages with the industry to support the industry generally, but with our members, we give them all the specific data. But, yes, they I think people are starting to recognize it, but people are are a little slow to change in the in the wine industry. I live in Italy. They're very slow to change here. And so part of it is labels too. You know, if you're gonna change your label, then it's gonna be another, you know, year. It has to get approved by the TTV. So some of this some of this is also just because, you know, regulatory, we things are slower. But there was an interesting study that was just done recently where they asked a bunch of young people, you know, we in fact, in our study, we also show them labels and and ask them more about that. But just one line, not not these big long paragraphs about, you know, I can taste graphite and tar and, you know, bubble gum or whatever. You know, they're not looking for that. They're looking for just one line on, is this line smooth? Is it sweet. Is it dry? Is it crisp? They just wanna know just the basics. And then a lot of times, you know, if if you have somebody who's really new to wine and and as wine, you know, judges were saying, oh, we taste strawberries and cherry. They think they think worth putting strawberries and cherries on the wine. They literally think we're adding fruit to the wine. So it's very confusing to people, and and so we need to just simplify things. And I don't know if you're the same as me, but even just as a consumer myself, you know, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of bottles of wine out there and you go to the wine shop and you you pick it up and you turn them the bottle over, and you're trying to get some idea what this wine tastes like. And it says, we are sustainably grown small family business, and we believe in the joy of wine. Period. That's all it says. And so it's like, okay. What does this wine taste like? So you you you have no idea. What what you're buying? And, you know, especially if the wines, you know, costing, you know, twenty five, thirty five dollars, you know, a bottle. I do really wanna risk buying a bottle of wine that you're not gonna like. You you wanna know what it tastes like. So, yes, the industry needs to do a much better job. And we're trying, and I know there's other agencies that are trying as well to get the message out about let's be a little clearer on how we communicate about wine, and what it tastes like. Tell us what it tastes like. Well, you're you're so spot on with this because, of course, our our younger consumers and people just coming into the wine world for the first time, they are interested in, you know, is it organic? Is it vegan? Is it sustainable? All of these things? And they don't have as much disposable income or at least my children of that age certainly don't. So price, these sorts of things all play a part in their wine choices. So what were some of the other specific issues that were brought to light by the participants in the study, you know, which now need to be addressed by retailers. Yeah. Well, it it's interesting because we we looked at, their their recommendations shopping in stores, like, if you go to the grocery store or wine shop to buy wine, And what they found there, they they also found it a little confusing too because the wine section is so much bigger than the beer or the spirit section, and and just sort of overwhelming. They suggested we have some simpler signage, you know, that would be more to more likely. Here are the sweet wines. You know, here are the non alcoholic wines. Here are the rose wines here are the, you know, red wines and so forth. And and so they had a an idea of, you know, where to go for what they're looking for. Another thing that they thought would be useful is if wine was cross merchandise better in different parts of the store, especially in a grocery store. So if you go to buy some cheese, you know, maybe there's some bottles of wine next to the cheese thing or if you go to buy some, pasta, maybe there's some wine that goes with pasta. You know, seafood, whatever, that that that wine was appearing in more than just one place in the store. Now that may not be possible in every store, but but that was one of the things. And the number one thing they they ask for, and it's not always possible, but they would like to taste it. So any stores where it's legal, it's not legal in every state in the US, any stores that can set up a tasting. For example, total wine and more is doing that a lot in the US now, and People love it because you get to sample you tiny little sample. Wow. Okay. I do like this, and they're selling so much more of the wines that they actually get to taste. So again, it takes away some of the intimidation and the fear factor if you if you get to taste it in advance. So those were some of the suggestions they had in grocery stores. In restaurants, they had a lot of suggestions. They said you walk into a casual restaurant and we get our when you get the drink menu, and you've got these beautiful pictures of strawberry margaritas and cocktails and exciting martinis you can try. And big beautiful pictures with descriptions or what it tastes like, And then you get to the wine menu and all it says is chardonnay. I mean, that that's just really quite boring compared to what the cocktails are doing. And so they're they're saying that wine needs to have better descriptors. So we, you know, What what is this? What does this wine taste like? And they they say, well, the wine menu now is often pushed to the very back of menus. They're not even seeing it. And a lot of them When they learn there is such a thing as a wine cocktail, they're like, well, why don't we why don't you do wine cocktails the way that you do spirits cocktails? Show pictures tell us what it looks like. We'd be happy to buy a wine cocktail if you if you advertise it in the same way. So that was interesting to see in in restaurants and wine bars too. And then online, now interestingly enough, a lot of the young people we talked to had actually never purchased wine online before, and mainly because it's more expensive to get shipped. But once they did, they all loved it. They said, oh, this is shopping for wine online is is much easier. It's like shopping for clothes online or shopping for makeup online because They love the filter things. You could go in and say, okay, I want Rosay. And then I want it to be fruity, and I want it to be smooth. And so then you could filter it, and then and then it would come up. And then you'd say I want my price to be between ten and twenty dollars a bottle. And it would filter those wines. So they actually were pleasantly surprised at how much they enjoyed shopping online for wine. And a lot of the big ones, they shopped at wine dot com. It's shopped at total wine and more and other online sites. And they also liked the little chat feature that that that some of those sites had. So if we could get some more affordable online wine options, that might be another another thing that would would really interest them. Because frankly, they do almost a lot of their shopping online. Of course, I've got six children between the ages of twenty four and thirty two. So my little in home test market, and they they also say they feel less judged they panic in in, you know, when they're confronted and my children have grown up at my knee with wine. And they said, you know, if somebody's looking at me and saying can I help you? Can I help you? I just wanna run away. I happier shopping online where no one can judge me and I can sort of take my time. So I think that's a really interesting point. You know, D to C is something we we think about in our industry, but we don't really talk about the the lovely, you know, post COVID, you can wear your jammies be completely anonymous and shop online at a big wine retailing site where it's not DTC, but it is still a an online experience And as you said, a chat feature makes it feel more connected to to another person who's out there in the ether somewhere. So these were all very, very interesting points. We talk a lot about you know, changing fonts on labels, making sure there's enough information. But these are much more, real and raw points of how young people actually buy what they buy or don't buy what they don't buy. So very, very interesting. I I I know that before the study began, you know, Christian Miller, who's the wine market council research director. So he said many of wine's attributes a relatively natural seasonal and sustainable product, reflecting its farming origins are in tune with the interests of young consumers. So is this not clicking with them? And why not? So this is getting back to that whole idea of we know that younger consumers are interested in what they're putting in their bodies. They are vegan. They are vegetarian. They are, you know, all sorts of different things that they want pursue. They want to have organic and and biodynamic and sustainable products. So what did the data show regarding that topic? Yes. We definitely find that the younger generation is very much interested in, they especially organic wine, natural wine, orange wine, sustainability. I think that the issue is that it's not being communicated clearly. I mean, they all under organic is the one everybody understands the most. Or maybe not. It's a word that people know. Exactly. Well, in the US, in order to be an organic why you have to be certified by the, you know, the the USDA you have to be. That that so there's that, you know, organically certified grapes because they're mainly are made from the organically certified grapes, not necessarily wine because that's in the US, you can't have so2 in a organic wine. So it's it's different than it is in in Europe standard with standards. So, but one of the things we've heard back from them is they don't understand what's sustainability needs. And a lot of people are thinking that it's greenwashing. And so they're wanting more specifics than just saying, saying you're sustainably certified is great, but give us some numbers. They literally are asking for more specific information, like sixty percent of our energy is derived from solar. That's that's the kind of thing they're interested in. Or we have reduced our water consumption by fifty percent. You know, that that type of thing. They're looking for numbers and and what the impact is on the planet on the planet as well as social too. They're very interested in social equity. They're very interested in brands that are like, maybe black owned wineries, brands or, you know, Hispanic owned or or whatever woman, women owned, that type of that type of thing resonates really well with them too. But so they do want specifics and they're willing to use QR codes. They know what they are when we do our research, you know, people in their sixty plus, they're like, we don't we don't want we don't care about QR codes on wine labels, but twenty somethings do. And they use them. Absolutely. Absolutely. And of course, we're looking at, you know, a group of people who live a a large percentage of their life on their screen. So for better or for worse, you know, no matter how one feels about that on a personal level, from a marketing and sales standpoint, it's a fact that can't be ignored and having something interactive enough and quick enough, for for a a younger or a newer Sumer to quickly scan a QR code and have a whole lot of information that would never fit on a back label at their fingertips. That's and it's not that expensive to do. So, that's a very, very, very interesting, thing to bring up. And I think going forward, how we incorporate this sort of technology, you know, NFTs, QR codes, all of this is going to be, important to what we do. So one last thing I wanna talk to you about is you know, sort of earlier this year in May of twenty twenty four, the study was announced, and there was an article describing the purpose. And they explained it by saying the study will support the industry's efforts to be more inclusive relevant and engaging with today's consumers. So you personally com commented that the industry needs to make a cultural and strategic shift that reflects the reality of the world we live in. And I think we've talked a lot about that. In the past thirty minutes. So an overall objective of the study was defined as an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of how young diverse consumers perceive wine. So do you think the study accomplished this goal? You know, what's been the reaction to, you know, of the members from, you know, wine marketing council? What do you think is gonna happen going forward in the next couple of years based on the results of the study? Because there was a lot of data. It was a, you know, it was a study that was done using very, very reliable methods. Do you think it achieved its goal? What do you think is going to happen based on the results? Well, yeah. So the study is not over yet. So like I said, we did the interview portion with young adults. Now we're gonna be in multicultural consumers, and now we're gonna be doing the survey. So so far, we're really we're happy with the results because what the interview portion does is it tells us what the issues are that we didn't know about. So there's a lot of things that came out that that we were just like, wow. We had no idea that's what your experience was. So now that we know that, now we're gonna do the survey, and we're gonna get the hard core data with which is generalizable, and then which we can use, for strategy. So right now, I'd say the study has been very successful, and we're hoping that it's gonna give us even more data that we can use to move forward. We already know a lot of the things we need to do, but it's it's it's useful to have the the the pure scientific numbers behind us. And so that's that's gonna be coming up. And, you know, we do make we've already made recommendations on what we think should be done. But they said we'd like more colorful labels. We'd, you know, we'd like simpler wine descriptions. We'd like QR codes. We'd like, more, more information. We'd like simpler shopping, you know, in in they've already given us a bunch of ideas. But we wanna expand that and take it deeper. And, fortunately, right now in the US, there's lots of great efforts going on. There's come come over October, which you just mentioned, and and wine market council is a big supporter of that. We worked closely with them as they were putting it together. Wine Institute is also getting ready to come out with a big campaign. I saw the preliminary part of it yesterday and what they're doing is wonderful and we're a member and they're a member of us. And so we're we're all working together in a concerted effort as an industry to help keep wine relevant. And we do need to get better with our communication and I believe we're starting to make some progress, but we still have a long way to go. Because let's face it. Wine has focused more on baby boomers, and baby boomers, doctors right now are telling them to drink less wine. So we're seeing declines in consumption amongst baby boomers. Fortunately, millennials who are in their thirties are now drinking a lot more wine. They're settled. You know, they have children. They have mortgages. They're more they're using wine more is is a beautiful way to connect with others as and relax at the end of the day. Twenty something where we we're not making much progress, and that's where we really need to focus too because the gen Z, which are in the twenties now, are larger even than the millennials. And so we have our work cut out. And the world has changed so drastically from people who are in the baby boomer world to people who grew up in the the gen z world. We just look at things completely different. And some of the the Wine Institute data I saw yesterday says that gen z doesn't have any issues with wine. They just think that we haven't talked to them. Like, Where are you wine? You haven't you haven't entered my world. You're not on my social media feeds. You're not on TikTok though. I watch all the time. Where are you wine? And so as soon as we can fix that and start getting on their wavelength, then I think wine is gonna become a lot more relevant. And, it's not going away. Wine's been around for eight thousand years. But we need to keep it relevant because it does have ups and flows. If you look at the cycles of wine consumption across time, it goes up and down. Now we're in a sort of declining area again, and we need to turn that curve around. I completely agree with everything. I think this is the perfect place to to end our conversation because I think you've summed up, you know, past present and future and where we need to head in a really beautiful and positive way. I have to say I'm I'm I'm a little run down by articles saying genzy's never gonna drink wine. We we have to, you know, move forward in some other direction. I I don't want to believe that and you've given me hope the data that you were talking about has also given me hope I think we need to get this out there too so that people realize we are looking into how to get wine into the feed of the twenty somethings, how to make it part of their world, make it relevant. I think you're right on the money with that. And it was just a huge, huge buzzer talking to you and not having to, sort of approach this from a gloom and doom standpoint, but more from, what proactive things can we do? So Liz, I can't thank you enough. I'm so grateful that, we had this time to talk. Oh, it's been such a pleasure. And I I I appreciate all you do, and everything you're doing in whiny, education is in writing, and so forth is so critical. So please keep up the great work. Thank you. Thank you for listening. And remember to tune in next Wednesday when I'll be chatting with another fascinating guest. 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