Ep. 396 Roddy Ropner

Italian wine podcast. Chinchin with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast. My guest today is Roddy Rotner. Roddy has been on the podcast before, in episode, one hundred and two back in two thousand and eighteen, but Roddy we get a quick, recap on what brought you to Hong Kong and then Tokyo? Yes. Oh, okay. Monte first of all, hello. Hope you're well. Yes. My first career was with Christis auction house. I worked from there for them since, nineteen eighty seven for twenty years in the Chinese department, and they sent me to various countries including Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong. And the last place that they sent me, was Hong Kong in two thousand and five, which happened to be the same year that I got married, I was living in Japan that time. So when I left Christians in two thousand and seven, my wife and I thought, well, since we're in Hong Kong, we let's stay for a bit longer. And we ended up staying there until, you know, two thousand and, I think, two thousand sixteen. And then we thought, okay, then. Now, it's time to either go to back to England or go back to Japan, and, I won the argument and re ended up in Japan. So that was that was what we're doing, back where why I'm living in Japan. Okay. So you were mean, what you would do, you would you were, a wine educator in, in Hong Kong. Right? Yeah. I would I actually, after I left after I left Christis, I spent a couple of year just sort of enjoying life. And, I did a few wine courses, and then, ended up importing wine into Hong Kong. You're a WCT certified educator? Yes. So I, you know, I did that to the, you know, the diploma. And then, the end was teaching the diploma students in in Hong Kong. And now, apparently, you're studying to become a master wine. Is that is that the case? And, yes, that's true. Yes. That's important. I mean, what are the what are the steps, required to become a master of wine. I think that when when I applied for the course, you had to have completed the equivalent of the WSTT diploma, and you had to have, five years in the wine trade. So and then you can apply. And if if they accept you, then you sort of you set off on this, this incredible world journey. But but those are the basic requirements that you have a qualification that equivalent to the diploma, and you have a certain amount of time, typically five years. Okay. In terms of the master wine syllabus, obviously, it's a very detailed, document. Is there anything there that you feel is missing regarding Italian wines? Well, I suppose the first thing is that a lot of it is, when we talk about syllabus, you know, there's a sort of theory side, and you have to know about, Viticulture, winemaking, some practical issues like just bottling, marketing, and then sort of general contemporary issues. But a lot of it is still studied. So on the theoretical side, whether you choose to look at, what happens in Italy or France or Spain or America, Chile, Australia, A lot of that is up to you, but obviously you're trying to get the Buddhist understanding of the the world of wine, as possible. And when it comes to tasting, actually Italian wines are pretty pretty high up on the list of things one needs to know. I mean, there's there's this sort of understanding that you you expected to know Bordeaux burgundy Champagne in a lot of detail, but, you're also expected to know, you know, Sibolo, Babaresco, you know, sangiovese, he got the classical brunello, you know, all of those wines come up quite often. Do do you see Japanese wines making it onto the Master wine syllabus in the future? Well, I I could see, I mean, you know, the the the one grade that sort of probably quite well known is relatively well known is caution. And that's a fairly sort of let's say, it can be quite a neutral one. So, if it was in a bland tasting, I'm not sure that they would expect you to, to recognize it, but you might be, you might be expected to have a good stab at, and recognizing the style of the wine, which would be sort of light bodied, high acid fairly, a subtle taste, but I think it'd be quite difficult to recognize, a cosu in a in a completely blind tasting. Do you think it's a little bit like chardonnay? It's sort of I kind of think of it as as Japanese chardonnay. I don't know if that's the right way of saying it. Yeah. Well, I actually I think of it as more sometimes sort of, we're talking about it. I actually had a very good example the other day. And, but it's only nine, nine and a half percent alcohol. And it's a recently there because it is quite so low key variety, the peep the winemakers have been doing a lot of experimenting. And, they do a lot of sort of leaves aging and try and sort of build it up a bit. But this was this wine was, no, was not capitalized. And no li's aging. And it was a beautiful, fresh, easy drinking summer wine that was very pure, elegant. I think that's a style that people people could easily appreciate. Now, and more like a musk a day to me. And someone said, oh, perhaps a bit like a Avino Verde as well. For the light body. Is that maritime influence then? Well, actually, where this where they grow them here is, right in in the in the mountains. So you have an ashi. So it's actually this would be very continental. But, but, the light body in the frame, yes, slightly salty taste as well. Now, listen, when you were last on the show, you were transfer, phoning from Hong Kong and filling out the, Japan wine market, Do you have any insights for us since you've become established or any changes you've experienced over the past couple of years? Yeah. Well, I I mean, to me, it's been fascinating to go from Hong Kong, which is a, you know, a a a city of seven million to Japan, which is a country of a hundred and twenty million. And Tokyo has or greater Tokyo has twenty million people in it. There is actually quite a lower appreciation of of wine, in Japan. So, taking the the example of the caution that, I tasted the other day. Actually, the wine that produced it was founded in nineteen thirty seven. So, you know, they have quite a long history of of understanding. I think I've wrote an article about the Japanese wine culture. You know, they were they were importing, their feet at the end of, you know, the in the in the eighteen hundreds. So, there's there's quite a good understanding, but it's not a widespread understanding. It's quite still quite a niche a niche market here. But what I notice is the big difference with home with with Hong Kong is that there's incredible depth of knowledge here. People, the professionals that you meet here are incredibly, knowledgeable about the wine they're experienced. And, you know, people have been, let's say, the sommeliers you meet here. They may be working in the same restaurant. For twenty or thirty years. So does that sort of longevity? But it it I say, a a level of experience that you don't really find in other parts of, perhaps perhaps you could say in other parts of Asia yet. Mhmm. Well, you recently wrote an article full mining is on how, Japanese consumers embrace online sales. What what are the cultural or structural factors making this the case? Yeah. I I thought it was quite to be, to get the same sort of, sometimes you, you know, two pounds a bit, sort of, how can I say? Because it's a dichotomy. So the one around, you have that a lot of people here still use cash. So they don't shop online. So people wander around with with not hundreds, but with thousands of the equivalent of thousands of dollars in their in their pocket to to pay for things because restaurants don't accept credit cards. On the other hand, Japan is the fourth largest e commerce market in the world after the USA China, the UK, surprisingly, and, then then Japan. So, people are well, before the pandemic, people went out and shopping online, and I think that's now just sort of starting to to take off. But one of the observations I read was that it's everything is in place here. You already have this this a sophisticated technology. So that that's a sort of a it's a starter. But you have very simple things like, home deliveries. So, then the example I would use is that when I was in England or even in March, I ordered some wine from a very famous English wine wine merchant. And when I asked when the wine could be delivered, they said, oh, it'll be delivered on Thursday. So what time actually? Thursday, Thursday. Okay. So You have to sit at home all day waiting for your delivery. In Japan, you can specify what time you want the wire to be delivered, and it will be delivered at that time. And it can be delivered up until nine o'clock at night. Seven days a week and chilled. So, it's actually quite a a pleasure to order online and know that your wine will arrive and the correct wines will arrive and they'll all arrive on time chilled in good condition. So you haven't got that problem. And then you hope the other thing is that you you also have a lot of, lots of lot. You have a very sophisticated, they call them, online shopping markets, so you're Amazon. There's a Japanese version called rakuten, Yahoo, Japan. So a number of these that people like to shop. So they're like huge shopping malls. So things are already in place. To expand on on what perhaps has not been a, a, a channel that's fully exported yet. So well, so what does this mean for, or what could this mean for Italian wines entering the Japanese market? Well, I think that so the the the big even before this year, in in Japan, there's about eight thousand Italian restaurants. So that's that's where the bulk of Italian wines were being sold. The problem is that those restaurants are already saturated. So they, you know, they they already have their wine lists full. So people for the last few years have been trying to encourage people to drink more at home. And Japan doesn't really have the culture yet of drinking wine out, and you'll be drinking beer or sake at home. But the big push amongst wine professionals is to try and encourage people to drink more wine at home. So I think that this online market could could actually facilitate that. And what we're seeing is that, especially at the high end, a lot of the sort of wealthier people are older people, were actually, drinking Italian wines in restaurants. But now they can't go to restaurants or don't want to go to restaurants. They're changing to ordering online and drinking at home. So I think that's the potential is there to develop that that home market. So you're saying that more people are drinking at home. Eight because it's become acceptable. And, b, at this moment in time, with COVID going on, has that had an effect on the increased consumption, of of prem Well, I I think that what happened is that, two things. Again, this is that younger people have probably stopped stopped drinking because they're they're worried about their jobs and finances. But, all the people, perhaps, who are working at people who don't don't have to worry about their jobs so much. Are are not going out, but they still want to drink wine. So they're they're drinking at home. And so so a lot of people that I talk to said that their sales for high end wines had done had done pretty well. I mean, the the the difficulties I want is because some of the wines, let's say the sparkling wines here. At the high end sparkling wines, I've heard about champagne or French quarter and sell incredibly well in in night clubs. So that is probably not going to be repeated with home sales. But I can see high end, you know, brunello or Barolo those wines do pretty well, selling it out with a lot of potential, I would say. So I got a, another question about. I mean, How how do Italian wines fit with, the local cuisine? Right. Is it is it a food and wine culture, or is it, or is it, you know, food and then wine separately? How does it work? Yeah. I see. I mean, to to to to to it's a great question, honestly, because, obviously, that's something you sort of thought about, but first of all, there's so many different types of cuisine here. So it's it's I mean, that's one of the great joys of being being in Japan. So whether you you have your sort of image of Japanese food would be, I don't know, that sushi and sashimi or kamebe beef or, you know, so that you've got that you've got two extremes that are already but when I did go to a sushi restaurant that had a sommelier, a wine sommelier, and, ask them about food wine pairing. They said, you know, the the trouble is that you get so many small dishes How can you pair, you know, you can't pair twenty glasses of wine. So what they have to do is they they sort of maybe give a wine that will match with two dishes. And this is quite unusual because the chef here was that was prepared to make that that tolerance. A lot of chefs would say, no, my food comes first and then we'll think about the wine later. But in this case, he was starting to adapt, his dishes to to the wines. But, yes, I think you you could say my recommendation is something to do with something like, orange wines. To be honest, if you if you're not gonna go, you know, order a lot of a lot of different bottles or wines by the glass and orange I think orange wines do very well because they they they are more flexible. But there there are a lot there are increasingly restaurants that will offer this, wine pairing courses. So, I mean, obviously, you know, Italian wine is known. It's sort of made made for the food, isn't it rather than the other way around. So, it's interesting to see whether Japan sort of fixing or could possibly fit in with that, that sort of model Yeah. And I think that's so I think that that is one of the things that people are thinking about is is how how to do that with what people eat at home. I mean, obviously, it's less likely that you're gonna be doing a series of winds by the glass at home. So you gotta think about what could be a more flexible wine. And and personally, I find that these, you know, the skin and contact wines actually fit very well. So your your company Wells Wellspring is still based in Hong Kong, I think, Are you still plugged into the Hong Kong market or or not really? Well, no. I mean, basically, that I I still have the business there. But, obviously, when I left, I told all the winders that I was working with, I was leaving and it's not possible for me to promote their lines in the same way. So, some hope to find other importers and some found there. Was the fact that you moved was that up due to the situation in Hong Kong, the slightly deteriorating circumstances. No. That was, I would it was before the problems, actually. So, whether those are sort of political or otherwise. It was really we moved from all for personal reasons, just to be to be near our families. Sorry. That was it. So it was a family decision then. Yeah. So much more more family family related. And so, basically, I I still have the business there, as a sort of, you know, for old time sake, should we say? But, I do more I don't see to try and straddle two to completely different markets, and, I'd rather try and get more established here, but I'm not thinking of importing lines into Japan. I'm more interested in this, trying to understand the Japanese market and to help people who want to import their wines here or sell their wines here, understand the markets. Okay. Got two more questions on, on tasting, which we skipped earlier on. So you know, is it you're obviously a a business person, but also a a wine educator? What what is your take on the differences between the old and the new format, for the Vin Italy International Academy courses? Okay. Okay. Well, I've been lucky enough to, you have to see it. It's the various iterations. So, and I did I did all of them. The first was very much, the the first, I think it was on the second course. Was a very much, you know, we have no slides. There was actually there was quite a lot of tasting, but I think what the great thing now is that we we get the more slide. We've got two two specialists, presenting to us. So we get, often we get two perspectives which I think is great. And I think it's probably more comprehensive, you know, we're we're getting a, the full full Italian experience from, you know, from north to south. So those are the things that I, appreciated the change. The much more comprehensive now. So is it kinda as a as a teacher and a student, obviously, a teacher for Via student with the Institute of, of Masters of wine. Final question, what are the merits of examination by tasting. I think that's that's that sounds like an exam question as well. But but I think well, the the the the thing with the, there's really no way to hide is that when you're doing the exam by, by tasting because you, yeah, you have to write about exactly what you, you case, and the idea is to be as precise and at sixteenth as you can and convey what your impressions are that way now. So you can't you can't really hide anywhere. So I I think that's it that the great the great thing about it. Yeah. It exposes everything. Cool. Anyway, thanks a lot, Roddy. Roddy, Robner, great to talk to you, today, and nobody to have you back on the on the show to catch up with all the developments, in your part of the world. And, we wish you continued success with your business, and we wish your, students continued continued success under your tutelage. Great to talk to you and, stay safe. Yeah. Thank you very much, Monty. Nice to talk to you again. Talk to you, buddy. Thanks a lot. Ciao. Thank you. Bye bye. 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