Ep. 551 Amber LeBeau | Voices

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Rebecca Lawrence, and this is voices. In this set of interviews, I will be focusing on issues of inclusion, diversity, and allyship through intimate conversations with wine industry professionals from all over the globe. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating to Italian wine podcast dot com. Any amount helps us cover equipment, production and publication costs, and remember to subscribe and rate our show wherever you tune in. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast with me Rebecca Lawrence. I'm super excited to be joined today by Amber Labo, self proclaimed wine geek and wine educator. However, probably our listeners are most aware of you from your blog's bitbucket. So welcome to the podcast Amber. Before we dive into a bit of a discussion about virtual wine events, because now seems like the time. I wanted to allow our listeners to get to know you a bit. So maybe you could give us a little bit of background, how you got into wine, into the industry. Sure. Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure here. Yeah. I I'm just a geek to run through. I grew up in Missouri in the United States where my grandfather had several restaurants, and it's always a rite of passage to work in the family business. And so that was my first exposure. And it was really kind of through history that drew me in. I started looking at labels and like, oh, this has ties to Charlemagne. And Missouri, you know, has a lot of wine history, you know, Augusta AVA first AVA before Napa, you had Charles Riley and George Hoffman that helped discover the cause of phylloxera, So it was that history that kinda sucked me in. But, you know, like those things in restaurants, you get kinda sick of it and you leave. And so I did that for, you know, went off to school and did other things until of all places EPcott in Disney World in Orlando brought me back to wine. Going to the little pavilions there, and, you know, and it's totally gimmicky and silly, but it was just kinda cool with the how the Italian pavilion had Italian wines, and Italian food, the German pavilion, German wines, German food, and that cultural link just kinda reignited that passion. And so I did what, you know, a lot of Geeks do to start getting wine books, Jances Robinson's wine course, the wine Bible. And discovered Wikipedia. This was mid, you know, mid two thousands, and that was really big. And I got involved in the Wikipedia wine project. And so most of those early wine articles that were written, like, over eight hundred some odd articles on Cameronet, Chardonnay, Barolo. You know, I was a big part of writing those. Yeah. It's definitely one of the things that I became, like, slowly aware of. Just, like, through osmosis, like, whenever you, like, Google something, you go to the Wiki page, and your name would just be there. Like, every single time I found an entry, and that's kind of how I came to spit bucket. So maybe is did that did Wiki come first and then it sort of evolved into the blog? It did. Yeah. I I love being part of the Wikipedia wine project. You know, my username, Agney twenty seven is what you were probably seeing. But Wikipedia's got a lot of issues. And there's a lot of sexism and a lot of toxic community. And, you know, around, like, twenty fourteen, I just got really burnt out. And so I just left that. But I did miss the writing and, you know, that that avenue of taking the wine knowledge and breaking it down and then regurgitating it. And so that's when I started off the blog. It really didn't take off until a couple years later, you know, with that under the spit bucket name, but it really did kinda come out of getting sick of Wikipedia. Yeah. Being able to, like, craft your own space where you could set the tone and the parameters for what was going on. Yep. Very much, Joe. And, actually, that's something I've particularly enjoyed about your writing is your honesty. Like, you don't put your punches. You're very clear and distinct. You're a complete geek, which I love, but you're also honest and you're not afraid of of sharing your opinion. Have you I think in the industry, it quite often there's a lot of backlash for that, particularly with women as, you know, probably a lot of people have seen particularly recently. Is that something that kind of came across when you were writing? Is that something you've had to deal with and and how have you kind of managed that Yeah. I mean, definitely, you know, if it hit some of those issues with the backlash, and I am very privileged, though, and that I don't think I've gotten it nowhere near as bad as a lot of other women. And it is it's so twisted that that's a privilege. Is it But I am a big believer in that sometimes we need to say out loud the things that are uncomfortable to say. And it takes a voice to start doing that for other voices to go. And a lot of times when I do that, I try to do it when it's very, like, an introspection of where am I falling short? And being upfront and honest of I'm nowhere near as good of an ally as I could be to people of color. You know, I as a woman, you know, I my apology to the pretty Instagram influencers is I realize how I've contributed to this toxic environment that affects us all. And so I try as much as I can even though it gets uncomfortable at times to be honest and upfront to hopefully allow other people to feel safe in that space to do that too. Yeah. I yeah. Your your honesty as well is particularly impactful, I think, because you're not just being honest about the industry, but you're happy to be honest about yourself. And that post about the apology to the Instagram, the pretty influencer really resonated with me because I saw so much of it in myself and was like, oh my god, like, I I need to be calling out myself and you were like brave enough to do that. And I loved reading the comments particularly on that piece. Because there are a lot of women who I know in the industry saying, yes, this really need to be said, and this is a really strong piece of conflict in a lot of women in the industry and how we feel about our position, those of us who have privilege, but also maybe those of us who don't, and Yeah. I just found that post particularly profound and, yeah, helpful. Anything I could do to kinda move the conversation forward. And as a blogger, it you always have the trouble of when there's a story that comes out and angle that you don't wanna say the same thing. That's kind of pointless. It becomes an echo chamber. And so I try not to write or put my two cents in unless there is another angle that I could approach it from. Yeah. Definitely. I that seems to come across from when I'm reading you that you don't just go, yeah, me too. You know, there is always a new a new approach. And, actually, you've been been hailed by, some really key people in the industry. I I noticed both Tom Walker and Ben Sawsbury have written about you as a rule breaker is is that how you associate yourself? Like It's hard to know quite what that means because because the the fun thing about the wine industry is is it is very dynamic and always changing, but yet at the same time, it is so rooted in history. Like, I think of the metaphor of, like, an oak tree is, like, the perfect metaphor. You have that, you know, it's planted in the ground. It's got the trunk. It's very solid there. And so you think, oh, it's never gonna move. But if you look above and look below, you've got the branches that are continuing to expand into different areas. You've got the roots that continue to grow, and that really reflects the industry. You know, we do need to constantly grow and explore new spaces, but yet what ties us in, that trunk is always gonna be valuable. So you kinda need all those spaces or all the all those voices. Air, you know, the traditional, and then, you know, the people that poke the bear a little bit. So speaking of, like, this this conflict maybe between the the traditional and and the potential for flexibility and movement. I know that you've you've been pursuing WSTT qualifications. You've spoken about how important and how influential Janice Robinson has been. I really enjoyed your post and you're writing about following in her footsteps. So I I wondered if, you know, how you found wine education and, what you think maybe should be changing, like, your views of what's happening in wine education at the moment. Yeah. This this is a really incredibly interesting time for one education. You know, the the silver linings of COVID is kinda how it's encouraged us to move more towards the online space, which I think going forward, we're gonna see more of that long term impact in one education. Probably, because I also coincide with a lot of, you know, wine industry's reckoning with some of its diversity issues. And with the certifications, you know, I'm hoping to finish up my diploma. I've got the big d three exam here in May, and if I pass and my paper's good, I'm good. But, you know, it's really expensive to do this. You know, it's expensive for the certifications. It's expensive for the wines to taste. It's the same thing if you're taking the, you know, Courta Master Smallier's trap. You know, wine scholar guilds got great programs, side of wine educators, great programs, but it all costs money. And unless you are privileged, or also privilege in having an employer that will pay for it, it's really off the limits for a lot of people. And I think the industry is starting to realize that, and, you know, there's scholarship programs that are popping up to to help with that. But one of the best tools now that has just fallen into our lab is all this fantastic online content and the ability of an educator in verona to have students in the US, Australia, India, and connect all at once is immense. I think we're gonna continue to explore that potential and open up a lot more doors that were previously closed. I had a really interesting conversation with Jim Gore recently who used to be the principal of the London School is a good friend of mine, and he was talking about how one of the things he hopes that changes from this is that access levels change and not just in terms of monetary access, but also in terms of like being able to bring together different people in the wine industry who are all over the globe just because you can now have someone with the wines in front of them anywhere in the world. And I think bringing, yeah, opening up that access is something that hopefully I I want to stick around after after COVID, quote unquote, think of, like, you know, kind of the top of the wine, pecking order, the the masters of wines, masters of Maliers, you know, in the industry, sometimes we kinda deify them as, you know, up on olympus, those gods. But really, they're just down to earth normal people, and there's been so many wonderful webinars and events where you get to interact, you know, almost one on one with these, you know, master songs and masters of wine, and it's an incredible, you know, that that that Tada almost added more humanity to the Wind industry. Yeah. That's a really good way of putting it. And actually, for for gigs such as ourselves, because I am exactly the same, just having that access and being able to see a winemaker, get give a presentation about their wines where maybe I wouldn't have access to that. Has has been a real positive, I think, for our our industry. Mhmm. And actually that brings us really nicely to to online events, which you've been, something of a maestro at this time. Because you founded virtual wine events dot com, I assume that came out of needing to bring people together to show them that wine events was happening. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'll come back to the eagerness, you know, when COVID hit and all the lockdowns. I was in Paris at the time. You know, you can't do anything. All the trips canceled, everything like that. I mean, I used to be hopping on the Eurostar to go to London, you know, every every other month for wide events, and that was all gone. So I was looking for something to do. And, you know, a lot of these great events started popping up, you know, the Instagram lives and the webinars. But it quickly two issues emerged. One, unless you were actively following these wineries or these influencers, you weren't gonna know these events were happening. You know, the promotion of these events and getting the word out was really, really tough, especially early on, you know, when this was happening. And then what you did find out about him, how do you keep keep track of all of them? And there's so many different events there. And my wife who has a great tech background, you know, she was working from home now and had a much more flexible work schedule with, you know, the company she was at at the time. She started just creating calendar initially just for me just to keep track of things. And then once we kinda realized what it was, that this was something that we could, you know, make a bigger item that could be a tool for the industry to connect the wineries and and the restaurants and wine shops and educators with consumers that were looking for it. We launched it fully, May first of last year. And since then. It's just taken off, like, crazy. We've had over ten thousand events featured audiences from over seventy countries, over four hundred and fifty, people have signed up to submit their own events because that was a big thing is we wanted to make it easy for, if, you know, if you're an Instagram influencer, post your IG lives on here. If you're a winery, post your events here. Easy, completely free. We're not trying to monetize us at all, and it's, yeah, it just continues to grow. And, you know, to to come back to the geekiness about it, I'm imagining you have a lot of data now. Like, you've created this hub for where you can collect data about what's happening in terms of virtual events. So I know you've already written a little bit about this, but maybe you could tell our listeners what what you've discovered in the last kind of eight sort of nine months or so of of data. Well, I will say we do attention to have you very limited in the data that we collect. Especially being in Europe won't be very respectful. Let me see. Yes. I accept cookies for that. And even then, I don't care about their demographic. Their aids, their sex, anything like that. It's just pretty much what they're doing, what they're clicking on. And so that behavior element has been really surprising. Couple of the big insights that have have emerged days of the week when people are clicking on events to look for. Because, like, if you came to the site right now, virtual wine events dot com, it just counts as a front page view. You're just looking at the events that are happening today. But if you started clicking on, oh, what's happening next Monday? Or what's happening Saturday? That counts as a special event because you're you're making a deliberate action. And when I started breaking it down with the days of the week that people were clicking on, you know, the most popular day in terms of events is always Wednesday. Wine Wednesday. It's a social media thing that it's like everybody does. That is one of the least popular days that people click on. People are thinking about events. The most popular day was Sunday. And that tends to be one of the, you know, fewest events are on Sundays. P very rarely do people host events on Sundays. But yet, that's a day that people are actively clicking on, looking on Sundays of when there's something to do. And so there is an economy that shows up quite a bit in different different things. That's really fascinating because like you say, I you wouldn't expect that, but, like, now people know that. It's like, well, you could you've got a ready audience. Like, stand make your events stand apart by putting it on a day when, I guess, maybe people are at home. They don't have so much to do. They're in lockdown. They've already spent a day with their spouse, with their partner, with their kids, with their pets, and they just wanna chill out and learn something about wine. I think even when things are normal, Sunday Sunday is still gonna be a good day. Even when things are normal. So people are coming home, you know, even if they went out for the weekend, they're at home, they're ready to relax, that is a good time for a virtual event. I I shall note that down. For our future events with the Italian wine podcast that we should be doing them on Sundays. I think that's really, really fascinating to, like you say, to think about, yeah, I would expect it to be like a Wednesday or maybe a Friday night. But people have actually got stuff already going on at that point. The other big insight that jumped out is what people are searching for. We partner with Algolia, which is a Paris based search engine company that does a really good job with with tabulating search results. And like the last ninety days, you know, we had over eight hundred searches. Not once today by search for things like CAB or Cabernet sauvignon. Not once if people search for things like winemaker. When you look at things like cheese, like a lot of people do wine and cheese ones, that was only, like, the eightieth most popular search. Chocolate was, like, a hundred and something. You know, events that everybody seems to do are not necessarily the events that people are searching for. People are searching for things like countries. South Africa was a huge one. Alcess, Tuscany, people are searching for things like decanting. You know, that's a question yep you'll have about decanting. It's it's, the old vines, fine age. You know, stuff like that that people were were searching for are not necessarily the events that people are doing. Everybody's doing a wimaker of it. Everybody's doing a wine and chocolate event. And I think that thinking outside the box and doing something different is gonna be really key going forward. Yeah. And I guess we've had now, like, certainly, here in Italy, we've had a year of basically restrictions and a year of virtual events. So there's only so many, like, wine and cheese pairings that you wanna see. What you're getting to now is this real point of, like, you say, wanting the thing that's different, wanting the next step. Like, I've seen the winemaker present their wines, but actually, maybe I want to learn about a completely different region or a completely different wine grape. Like, I'm not gonna look for cabernet sauvignon. I've done that. For example, we've just done a tasting of caution, Japanese grape, and I want and we had a huge uptake of people watching that. And it just shows that people they're not looking, like you say, for the quote unquote obvious things. They want something different. Yeah. Most definitely. I think we've moved from a mindset of looking for a distraction. Like, god give me something to do. Now looking for an experience, I want to do this. And so that's what people that are providing these online events need to think about. How is my experience different from anything else that this person can be doing? So given it's been, you know, nine, ten months since special one events has been up and running, obviously, spitbucket's been running successfully for years. What what is the rest of twenty twenty one for you? Where what out of the box things should we expect from Amber next? Well, my big focus is that d three exam in May. So I haven't been writing as much just because with COVID, you know, in person classes. I was wondering if possible. So I'm I'm pretty much having to do all stuff self study for this. And so it's like, I'm devoting myself diving into it. But I've been using the website virtual wine events to help with this and help other students. In that the big thing with these online events is a lot of them are recorded, webinars, virtual tastings, and that content is valuable. And so we have it where you can upload replay links to all these webinars, all these contents. I have almost five thousand webinar links for or in virtual tasting links, Instagram lives, and things, that if you type in a subject, like, let's say you wanna learn about the wines of Piedmont, and you can click video search, it will bring you all these videos, these fantastic webinars from, you know, Westett School London, sixty seven Paul Mall, and producer webinars, that is just such a wealth of education. That's incredible. Like, what a resource for people? That's the future I think going in is those replay links. You know, a lot of people are so up into, oh, how many people do I have attending this event right now? How many tasting packs did I sell for this event? But, really, the dividend, it's paid out weeks, months, years down the road with that content that you created. Yeah. We found that with the WSTT school here that our Instagram lives, not that many people log on when it's live, but coming back to it, hundreds of people are coming because they can watch it in their own time. Maybe when they've got the wine in front of them, they've figured out what it's gonna be about. So, yeah, that's to have that resource is just Amazing. I I hope everyone in your diploma class knows that it's there. Nothing though about Instagram lives is to search on Instagram is so difficult. Your Instagram live gets buried. Again, let's people know to look for it. And so with uploading those Instagram live links to virtual wine events, to my site. It now shows up when somebody is searching for, you know, Chiante or, you know, Ameroni. Your event is more likely to get seen versus just getting lost with everything that is on Instagram or everything that's on YouTube. That's a really good point because, yeah, searching for something on Instagram, you're just you're never gonna find the thing you actually want to find. And particularly for for wine because it's such a nebulous space, whereas if you're actually looking for, like you say, an event or something educational, having a place you can go where you know you can search for all of it, and then you can save that research, you know, you can have that in your bookmarks so you can work through all of the different pieces of content. Like, that's I'm I'm gonna be, like, on on there tonight with my glass of wine desperately searching for what's available. And what about the blog? Obviously, you're not writing just yet, but I'm I'm hopeful for your d three. Let's be positive. I know that maybe master of wine is something potentially down the road. Could this be could this be the outlet for all of that writing potentially that's gonna come from the new studies? Definitely. I mean, I think once I get done with the d three here in May, I'll get back to regular writing. And the blog has kind of shifted a bit from just being my outlet for geekery to now a little bit more of an industry blog, you know, trying to, you know, kinda highlight for the wine industry things from, you know, I see from my background, working retail, and now as a consumer and a student background. So I think that will continue. You know, I have a couple authors that wanna work with me on writing project with books that I need to explore. So it's it's hard to say what the rest of twenty twenty one will be after after last year. It's like, I don't wanna play in anything too far ahead. But, I mean, it's just, like, just keep going with the moment. But my end game and and life kind of thing is, you know, I I would like to work towards a master of wine, but I love teaching. And so I'd like to start working with different programs, especially, again, with open up diversity and trying to make wine education, wine certifications more attainable for, you know, people that are that aren't privileged. Yeah. I think that's, that's a great goal. And I and I think because you have already had this approach in your writing already, it's basically ready and waiting for you once you've you've ticked the d three off and seen what the rest of twenty twenty one holds. So before we wrap up, obviously, I have to touch on Italian wine because this is the Italian wine podcast. And as someone who is deep in your study of wine and a self proclaimed geek, I wondered if you had particular Italian wines that draw your attention. I I know you've written about some unusual, exciting Italian varieties. So I wondered if you had like a top three outside of the quote unquote classics. Well, I'm it's it's fairly well known, but I would say Barbara. Like, I know everybody when they go to Piedmont, they think Barolo, which love love, Naviola, love Barolo. But when I got a chance to visit the Piedmont area, I was just stunned with how good the Barbara is. Like, you go to, you know, any type of restaurant, and it was actually the section of Barbaras tend to be have more listings in the actual, like, barolo sections and Marbarasco sections, because you you can tell, they they they took their barbera very serious, and it's just such a delicious grape. And that's one of my desert island grapes. Then I would also say a little bit geekier. I mean, Fiano. I mean, I love wines from Compania, but the the texture of Fiano, just that that's, like, catnip for me, just that way, that kind of, like, oily, waxy texture, and weight. And then You know, that actually, I might go I might go to Swave. Swave is something that I was sick. I overlooked so much in my life until I started getting back to studying and it actually, Sarah Abbott, master wine. I worked with her on a project, and she introduced me to a lot of small producers. And Swave that are, you know, doing things more with the Lee's contact and, you know, using more Fridicchio in the blend. And Swave's gotten kinda exciting for me. That's nice because, yeah, Barbara and the wines of Swave are a two wines that are often overlooked as just either too simple or in the shadow of something else, but when they're done in an interesting way, like you say, particularly for the wines of Swave, when you have that kind of longer hang time, when you have Lee's contact, these wines become incredibly interesting, textural, suitable for aging, and the same with Barbara, it has so many different jackets that can wear, two really underrated examples. So Amadabo, thank you so much for joining me on the Italian wine podcast today. Where can our listeners find you online or on social media? Yeah. Yeah. I'm probably the most active on Twitter and then Instagram and same handle, step bug and blog. And then you can always email me amberspitbucket dot net. Especially if you have more questions about virtual wine events, you know, if if you're somebody that's holding virtual wine events, I've got tons of data. I've got tons of things from other experiences that people have done. I can really let you know what's been working, what hasn't been working, and this information is freely available to anybody. Just drop me a line. That's so generous. Everyone, seriously, go to, his blog, read her writing. It's amazing. And go to virtual vine events dot com because this is a huge resource that people are not using enough. It's all there at your fingertips. So that's it for this episode of Italian wine podcast. Don't forget to follow us on social media. Subscribe, and of course donate on the website so we can make sure to keep these great conversations flowing. Amber, thank you so much. Thank you. Listen to the Italian One part wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Hemali FM, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italian wine podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. Until next time.