Stop Fearing Wine | Peter Yeung | Barrels and Roots

In this episode of Barrels and Roots, I sit down with Peter Yeung, CEO of Wente Vineyards, co-author of Luxury Wine Marketing, and host of the XChateau Wine Business Podcast, for a real conversation about what makes wine so fascinating, confusing, emotional, and powerful. 

We talk about why the wine industry moves slower than tech, how luxury wine is built through quality, scarcity, brand equity, and story, and why a 100-point score does not always mean a wine is right for your personal taste. Peter breaks down why wine can feel intimidating, from endless grape varieties to unclear labels, and why the future of wine needs more transparency, cultural diversity, and better food pairings beyond the traditional playbook. We also get into Gen Z, wine experiences, Asian food and wine pairings, and why the best way to learn wine is still simple: taste with friends and make it fun.

What was the first wine, meal, or tasting experience that made you understand why people love wine?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I mean, for me, it's like just get a bunch of friends and do a tasting. You could start it out non-blind and just taste side by side. You could do it blind tasting, you put them in paper bags or whatever, and like just try, try different wines, right? And then you're sharing with you're sharing a bunch of different wines with uh with your friends and having a good time, right? And you know, I I talked about my tasting group where we had like less than $10 wines for that one time, but we had other lots of other tastings, and some friends who weren't that into wine at the time would love to like guess a price or whatever, you know, things like that. And now some of them are really into wine, right? And just I think that is part of the learning experience, but without necessarily the formality of certifications, which are also a path if you're getting more serious about it. Nothing beats just tasting different wines with your friends and having a good time because you want to have a good time and you want to try different things, and you know that's that's the core of it. Because if you if you don't if you're missing that and it just becomes too academic, then like you know, you you're gonna not that that passion's not gonna spark.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Uh welcome everyone back to the Barrels and Roots podcast. I'm your host, Sean Trace, and I have an awesome guest with me today. Can you tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Sure, I'm uh Peter Young. Right now I'm the CEO of Wenty Vineyards in Livermore, California. I'm also the co-author of Luxury Wine Marketing, the um sort of textbook, if you will, or practitioner's guide to how selling high-end wine is different from what I'd call more commercial wine, and also the producer and host of the Ex Chateau Wine Business Podcast, which is all about the business of wine.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

That's awesome. How did you get into wine? You know, what was it that started you down this path?

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Well, some people say it's boring to talk too long about this topic, but the my first memory of wine was when I I don't know how old I was, probably about 10. And uh we were in Europe together. My family on my mom's side is actually wine and spirits distributors in Singapore. And so we went with my uncle, who's running the company around Europe, and apparently he went to a few wineries and wine tasting. So my first memory of wine was my family tasting wine, I think like in it was either in Alsace or in Germany. And my everyone was tasting and spinning, and my dad sort of was just tasting and drinking. So I just remember pinching his stomach and saying, You're doing it wrong. That's my first memory. And then I kind of always enjoyed it, uh, liked it more in college and everything. And then when I was a consultant at uh McKinsey Company, I took a sabbatical in the middle of my tenure and studied wine with Karen McNeil at uh the Culinary Institute of America. They used to have a wine program there and did a wine immersion course for like six weeks, which was one of the best times of my life. And um, you know, that interest became more of a passion and I worked my way back into it all the way into like working into the industry.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

That's awesome. Did you find that it was easy to get into the field? Like this was a a path that just opened up for you, or was it something that took time and a lot of energy and uh, you know, uh a lot of kind of elbow grease to start opening the doors?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

It was definitely harder than I expected. I came from a business background, had some success there, and I thought maybe like the bigger companies would be more open to having me in. And this was different because this was about um 13 years ago, I guess. The wine industry was very more like inside versus outside, and people were like, Oh, well, you've never worked in wine, you don't understand XYZ things. I'm like, well, in my mind, I'm like, I can learn, but there's also, you know, a just a match of expectations, and so uh it was much harder back then. I did a sort of what I consider a classic McKinsey thing. I talked to many different people, and you know, those people introduced me to other people and just kept, you know, getting that until I got connected to someone who was running a small, you know, a couple small wineries. And first it started out as sort of like a free project just to get experience in the industry. I did get uh a case of wine, which included like uh half of it was like old Sauvignon Blanc, but you know, that turned into like a consulting project, which then became like working uh full-time but getting paid sort of like a part-time salary. And then, you know, once we acquired or our investors acquired Costa Brown, it became a much bigger platform that which I could work off of and sort of be paid a full-time salary for.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

It's interesting too, because like um some many fields, it's like you can step in and it's what you know, and you're able to like make waves, but with wine, there's a lot of relationships. There's a lot of like people, I don't know, it it feels the wine industry in ways, in a positive and negative way, feels slower, slower in the way that it's still done, you know. I mean, grapes are grown slowly, the whole process is a slower process. And to me, I found that you know, even when I do this podcast, um there's there's intentionality in the wine industry, and that can be great, but it can also mean things move very slowly and change happens slowly as well, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

This is absolutely true. That agrarian farmer mindset when you know vine takes three years to after planting to bear its first fruit and six years to get your full harvest, and then why making can take anywhere from a year to ten years for like Vegas Cecilia, right? So it's it's a very long intentional process, and I think that slows people down. It reminds me of when I, you know, was studying in Napa for that period of time. I uh I felt very like anxious because everything moves so slowly there. And then after you know, several weeks, I kind of was able to slow down and get into it, and that was um a relaxing part of it. But part of why I stay in San Francisco is to keep one foot in technology and you know, in sort of uh, you know, a faster-paced thing and get out of the bubble that can sometimes be in the wine industry because the wine industry is relatively small. Not everyone, everyone eats food, not everyone drinks alcohol, and even a portion, a smaller portion of people who drink alcohol drink wine, right? So it's a relatively small, compact industry. And because of that, like things tend to move slowly and is very relationship-based, as you said.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yeah. Well, I want to ask you this because you've spent years studying both the business and culture of wine. Why do you think wine fascinates people so much compared to other drinks?

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Well, compared to yeah, compared to other drinks, I think there's just so much complexity to it, whether that's you know, the geology, biology, chemistry of the production of wine to the culture, the history, the dynamism of many different countries around the world that grow and make it, and that it's different. So this notion of terroir or where wine comes from and is made, and how like the same grape made somewhere else tastes very different. You know, you I've had a Pinot Noir from like Mount Etna in Sicily that tastes like very salty, like very saline, right? To ones that are very fruity and to very, you know, more leafy, herbal kind of things. And it's that complexity, I think, really engages people, and it's like constant nonstop learning. Even though it moves very slowly, in ways it moves very quickly because you look at things like the rise of the re-rise, I should say, or re-emergence of the Georgian wine industry, Georgia, the country, not the state, um, and you know, how it's pushing forward on an international basis to things coming out of you know, Uruguay to Chile and South Africa and all over the world, right? Where there's a deep history associated with it, as well as like um, you know, lots of changes that are happening. But the changes aren't overnight, there's not as fast as technology, but they do take you know decades to kind of play out.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yeah, it's so true. It's so interesting as well, because you know, I remember um growing up in the Napa Valley, and there was a time that uh I saw this vineyard pulled out, and um it was at the the f the time that phylloxra was a big deal in the valley, and they were pulling out just a whole vineyard, you know, whole sections of vineyards and then replanting. And I was just like blown away by oh my goodness, look at that whole vineyard that's been ripped out, but then they replanted and you know, saw it, and I was like, oh wow, it just takes so much time. But you know, a couple years pass and then it comes back, and then now those vines are established, going but it takes time, but it takes the time the same way. Um, you know, watching my daughter learn piano takes time, you know. Um I bought my daughter a piano. We didn't buy her piano, she started learning piano about four years ago, five years ago, on my wife's 20-something year old electric piano, old, you know, but really nice electric piano. And she started on that, she kept going. And then finally, she uh, you know, after five years, the one day suddenly I turn around and she's playing Bach. And I was just like, Well, hello, uh, that's special, you know. And wine to me is such a beautiful thing, too, because it's love, it's effort, it's time. But then one day you turn around and you have something beautiful there, you know. And I wanted to ask you this like as someone who's um in this process of making wine, uh, what is your favorite part of the journey, of the process?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Oh, it's interesting. Uh I you know, I think the journey is uh fantastic all the way around, you know. Uh our winemaker sat me down and we've tasted through a whole flight of Chardonnays from Royoseco, and you know, he was showing me how we have some like viticulture issues, you know, like in some of the the regions and things like that. And that's just uh a fascinating process. And then like as a problem-solving effort, like they've tried this and that and whatever, and like, okay, so what are what are the other reasons? How are we gonna fix this problem so that we don't have problems in the future where you know we have to declassify wines or or other things or the investment up front to make it happen? But it's there's a complexity to that issue that's um fun for people who love problem solving, and you know, doing that all the way down to I, you know, I could say that I'm relatively hedonistic. I do love the joy of tasting the complex beverage, and I love the joy of you know moderate alcohol consumption and you know the the feel of that. I was in the Master of Wine program for you know a long time and you know, before tasting, before the tasting exam, I would I I wouldn't drink for months. Like I would just taste and spit to try to keep my mind as sharp as possible. And then, you know, after taking the exam, we all go out and drink, and it you're like, oh wow, yeah, that's right, I do like alcohol. You know, it's uh uh all those parts are fun from the beginning to the end, I think. I'm not sure that I have a favorite.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

If someone who doesn't know anything about wine were to ask you what does a wine executive actually actually do, how would you explain it to them?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Well, you know, you just sit here and stare at a vineyard and drink wine, right? I mean, isn't that the goal and the dream? But uh I mean it's like running any other business, right? You have to you're dealing with um HR issues and finance issues. The difference is the production side and the product and the passion around it. And uh usually in many wineries, a team of people who really love wine. It's not like I worked in the energy industry and utilities before, and there are a lot of people who are doing that as a job and not really passionate about the what they're doing and the service that they're providing. In wine, it's quite often that many people are passionate about um about the product and about wine and about not just how special the product is, but how it brings people together and uh creates joy, right? And that's that's that's I think uh what makes it special.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

I love that. To me, I think about um there is this thing that is so special about wine and wineries that you know I can't imagine many other jobs that you get to show up and work in such an amazingly beautiful place with such amazingly interesting products, you know. Think about it. Like if you're selling a vacuum cleaner, I mean, no hate to vacuum cleaner salesmen, no hate on vacuum cleaners, but you know, you probably don't go to work every day. Yeah, they are important, but you don't go to work every day in such a cool type of a place, you know. So many wineries that I just have been, you walk in there and it's just like, well, this is amazing. And granted, the offices don't always look like the the guest areas, but still it's a pretty amazing place, you know. And then on the flip side as well, um you're selling something that truly I mean, vacuum cleaners can bring people joy, don't get me wrong. But you know, wine really brings people joy. A good vacuum cleaner also brings extreme joy, I understand. But you know, you've talked a lot about luxury wine. What makes a wine luxurious? Is it the taste, the story, the price, or or something else?

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Well, let me make a little comment on your your other piece before. There's also a downside to it in that, like, because it is intrinsically special to be part of wine, right? In the wine industry, it tends to pay less than if you're in tech or other types of industries. So there is that element of it that you have to accept. And that's why I think passion is really important if you're gonna be in wine, because you're willing to accept that lower compensation for the most part for it. To me, it's a lot like the entertainment industry where there is an intrinsic value to want to be a part of it. It's cool to be part of movies or TV shows or whatnot. And most of the people there get paid below average, right? Below like average if they were doing something else, but they want to do it. And then you have a few people who are celebrities and whatnot that make a ton of money, right? And wine is not dissimilar from that at times. But to your point about what makes a wine luxurious, you know, uh, well, obviously in in luxury wine marketing, there's a definition of six, six different things that are like where it comes from. It's scarcity, it's product quality, and all that. Uh, but luxury products in general are ones that um are differentiating, right? They like their purpose in as a whole category, not just wine, is to kind of differentiate a little. And that's what takes it from just a craft product to a luxury product. So I always like to use the example of, you know, I see a lot of um, I've often seen a lot of retailers send out emails about like, oh, I've got this hundred-point wine and whatnot. And I kind of always seen it top out around or be on average about 300 bucks a bottle, but there are many wines that sell for beyond $300 a bottle, right? So what's the difference between that? And a lot of that is the brand equity, right? So it's no longer about the craft, it's almost like if you think craft takes you to like $300 a bottle and you reach that level of perfection, right? Of perfection of a hundred-point wine. And then when you scale beyond that, that's luxury. And now you're, you know, where you're paying more for the brand and to be associated with it. I used an example of like the Birkin bag, which I I probably couldn't tell what it wouldn't look like if I saw one in the street, but many women could, right? And they know if they see someone else with one, they're like, oh wow, they have a Birkin bag that's something special, which imp imparts some level of specialness on that person. And luxury products is that's sort of their purpose in a way, and so luxury wines have the same kind of uh association with that.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

It's interesting too because I um I I talk about oftentimes we'll talk to people about um the importance of making wine accessible, but like it's interesting too because there is a beautiful place for premium products, you know, and it's interesting because um I have this fun analogy that I feel like the wine industry has gone kind of one direction, but there's an importance in that direction. Let me explain. Um let's talk about cars for a second, because it's something I can relate to. Um the automobile market has Honda's and Toyotas and Kias and Kyundes and Chevy's and Fords, but it also has Bugatti's and uh you know Lamborghinis and Ferraris and all of this. And it feels like for a while the wine industry has gone, well, let's focus on all the Ferraris and the you know, and the Lamborghinis and the Hondas are kind of, you know, where are the Hondas? And so it's like it's challenging for people to get into wine. But here's one of the things that I want people to understand is that just like the automobile industry, we want Hondas and Toyota's and Chevis and Fords, but we also want Lamborghinis. But what I hope people can learn and what I want to learn and have my guests learn is what's the difference between a Lamborghini and a Chevy when it comes to wine? You know, like that's my core question. Because, dude, yes, Lamborghinis, yes. Do I want to drink a Lamborghini of wine? Yes, but how do I know it's a Lamborghini? You know, I see a hundred-point score. What does that even mean? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Yeah, and I mean, wine has everything too, right? We've got our Rondas and Hyundai's and Kias, right? We have Charles Shaw to XXL to, you know, Carlo Rossi or whatever, right? Like every everything. We've got the whole spectrum as well. And I think, you know, there's an to the point of craft, there's an element of it's a better made product, right? And this is where professionals use the kind of acronym like Blick or Blickka, right? Where the wine tastes more balanced, it has longer length, more intensity, more complexity, more concentration. And when you taste it, and that's why a lot of people um who I don't know if you have this, but uh I have like an epiphany wine, right? A wine where you tried it once and all of a sudden it just like blows your mind, right? And all of a sudden you fall in love with wine, right? For me, it was a brolo that I had in college, right? And I remember opening this in my room and my the whole room filling with the the smell, the aromas, right? And so like to this day, I still, even though uh when people ask me what's my favorite wine, I'm like, I like a lot of different types of wines, right? But aromatic nebbiolos still have a special place in my heart because of that. And I still really enjoy those types of wines, and it's it's very complex. And so I think if you when you start tasting them side by side, it makes a difference. You know, in one of my tasting groups way back when, 15 years ago, we did a whole bunch of like cheap wines, you know, like less than $10 bottles from Trader Joe's. Um, and and then we put one like $20 mL back in there, right? And it was easy to point out. All the other ones, no matter what the variety was, kind of tasted the same. And you could kind of taste it. They were the Kias, right? They all look the same, and you know, the Kia and the Kendai were basically the same car, right? Um, but the one, you know, $20 one, which was it's not a Ferrari or Lamborghini, but like stood out and tasted different and tasted uh a lot better with more complexity and everything else. A lot and granted, just like with cars, I think um wine over time the technology has improved, and even the bottom end is getting better, right? A lot better because the science and the technology of viticulture and winemaking have all improved to the point where you know it's hard, it's harder to make bad wine. Um but like that doesn't there's still a big differentiation to like what's at the top, and you know, we only get to see it sometimes. And what's can be sad, I guess, is that you know it's is hard to um sometimes actually experience some of that. But I I mean I guess as a person who drives a car, I've driven some nice cars, but definitely not nothing like a Lamborghini or a Ferrari or something like that, and I'd probably crash it if I did or not know what to do with it. So uh, you know, wine could be similar in that way, and sometimes you know, you you want to share. Like the best wines of people who actually appreciate it. But one of the great things about people who love wine, not just people in the wine industry, but wine collectors and people who love wine is that if you express interest, almost always someone is willing to share something special with you.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah. Right. I remember my oh my god, wine. Uh I was in college and there was a um I was working at Meadowwood and this resort in the Napa Valley, Pool Terrace Cafe. It was a college student. And we were down there and some guy came down to the pool. I don't know why he was rocking it this hard, but he came to the pool and he had a bottle of Screaming Eagle and he rocked it out and he had a glass, and then he's like, You guys have the rest. And we're like, What? And I mean, that was a coming to God moment right there, where I was like, wow. And it was like someone taking me for a ride and a Lamborghini at 21 years old, and then suddenly I became a car guy, you know, and like it was that I'm not in a place that I can drink Screaming Eagle every day. Uh, but I can tell you this that I know how awesome it is, and I'm glad that I've had that experience. Just like I'm not driving, you know, my go-to commuter is not, you know, a Lamborghini, but I can tell you that I appreciate it. And, you know, if someone ever wants to say, hey, Sean, you want a daily commuter? I'd be like, Well, yes, I do. Yes, I do. Um, but I want to ask you this because I want to ask you, why do you think so many people feel intimidated or excluded by wine culture?

SPEAKER_00 23:48

I think the intimidation, I mean, it it that part is simple. You go to even just a grocery store shelf and you look at the wall and you're just like, What is this? Like, because it's so fragmented, even though you know, like the top 10 companies probably produce 80% out of the wine or whatever the number is, 70%, I don't know the exact number. But the number of brands and even types within a brand, you know, associated with that. I at Wenti, we must make like 50 or 65 different wines, right? Like it's incredibly complex and challenging. And because often many of the wines come from like a certain place or or spot or whatever, you have the different varieties, like what do all the variety names mean if you don't if you don't know wines, like what's a Merlot versus Cabernet Sauvignon? How do I know? And this is where it's hard because the the scale of dish in the complexity, especially in the US, where there's like a three-tier system where you have the supplier, producer, the distributor, and the retailer, there's a lot of compla and it's different state by state, so it's complexity, it's very complex to get even the same product in all places, even in the same store. Right. So if you're if you go to a target in San Francisco, you're gonna have a different selection than a target in Park City, Utah, right? Or or it won't be sold in Park City, Utah, but like still be a government store, but in like Michigan or wherever, and like you know, that that makes it hard to just know what to trust, what to go after, and so brands are still important in that way. If you say, Oh, I know I like the Mondavi style, maybe I'll buy that, or I know I like you know, Wendy or Josh or whatever, like let me buy that. But when you just look at that wall, whether it's at a grocery store, whether it's at a fine wine store, it's it's you can tell why there's complexity. I always thought I think Vivino missed or sh still has the opportunity to like you know, it have some uh scan, right? Where you're just instead of taking a picture, it's just looking at the wall and then popping up the scores, right? Like kind of an augmented reality to help you choose what you want ideally based on your own personal preferences. Um, at least surfacing like the their user scores or something like that, right? Like that would make it a little bit easier. But I think that complexity of variety, number of producers, number of different wines, it's I think at one point I looked at some research that said there was something like 300,000 wine brands in the world, right? It's just like that's crazy, right? And you got some even in in uh North America, it's a little bit lower now. But in North America, we peaked at about 12,000 wineries, right? 9,000 of which were 5,000 cases or less. So tiny. Tiny, right? So, like, you know, how do I most people don't even know what screaming is, right? Because it's tiny. I mean, you they make 1,500 cases a year. So you don't, you know, and they don't have uh we don't have the um F1 equivalent that Ferrari has, right? To make everyone know what Ferrari is because of you know the races and the media associated with F1 and those small businesses, even as Scream Eagle is a relatively small business, can't spend the money on like advertising or building the dream or other things like a Louis Vuitton or Hermes or something like that, right? So it's um I think that's what makes it intimidating, is just that they don't know. And and to be I think to be frank, not enough people in the industry are showing enough transparency around maybe what the wine style is, because you have things like Syrah, things like Chardonnay, or you could have things like Riesling, where you can have very different styles that when you read the package look like they should taste the same, right? It's like the same variety from the same region. Shouldn't this taste similar? But one might be oaked, one might be unoked, one might be sweet, one might be dry, right? Like you just don't know. And the from a consumer who doesn't know, they're like, ah, I didn't like that one. Uh and but I'd really like this other one, and it's hard for me to tell. And so adding more transparency to the packaging, whether that's ingredients, nutritional panel, flavor profile, I think is uh an important step that you know the wine industry could take to make it easier for consumers to be less intimidated. Right?

SPEAKER_01 28:12

It's interesting too because the um the I was talking to um um people that were from really cool established wineries, but they were smaller places, like you'd mentioned. And when I was talking about, you know, this podcast and sharing some video and some clips, and one of the owners was like, Oh, that's great, because I'm doing all of our social, I'm doing all of our marketing. I was like, what? Like, you have this brand that I sit there and think of as like, wow, wow, type of a winery. And this person's like, yeah, I'm the owner, and I'm also doing the social media. And I was just like, uh, and I was like, not just social, but the entire marketing like department was the owner, and I was just and you you don't realize that these are places that are um figuring it out as they go in a such a traditional field, and the world has changed, you know? And I wanted to ask you this you've worked in strategy, finance, marketing, and wine. How much of the wine industry is really about storytelling and emotion instead of just the liquid itself? And does the wine industry need to get into 2026, you know?

SPEAKER_00 29:30

I you know, I think that there's two um why the wine industry to me is to me is two markets. You have the commercial wine, which is more like classic CPG, right? And you have classic CPG channels, you're in the grocery stores, big box stores in general, and then you kind of have like fine wine. And in fine wine, there's more craft, it's about storytelling and whatnot. And commercial wine, it is more like packaging with some storytelling to that associated with it, where it's packaging price, like what does the label look like? That's gonna drive like pull more than anything else off the shelf. And you know, in that case, people are building wine for what a customer wants, just like any CPG product. And sometimes that might include some element of its story, whether that's sustainability, whether that's um, you know, the packaging or association with a celebrity or you know, music or or whatnot, versus like the other side, fine wine side is more craft oriented. So it really hinges on both the story of whether it's often in wine, we're pretty boring, I guess, or pretty monoculture. We're either talking about the person and the founder and their story and why they're special, or if you own land, you're talking about the land and how that's special on the terroir. Um, as well as you know, often what's in the bottle, and this is where like the rating system comes into play, right? And so what's in a bottle proxied by uh the quality proxied by some sort of critic score can be um you know important as well. So I think the storytelling is different for each side, but somewhat important for both. Um, but then the you know what's in the bottle tends to be more important for the fine wine side than um sort of the the commercial side, where many many of the products actually taste very similar. As I told you, the the the tasting group I had of wines under $10 back then, and like many of the wines taste very similar.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

That's so interesting too because one of the things that I'm fascinated by is the way that wines can um I'm fascinated by the ranking system, by the reviews and all that, because I'm curious and something like a taste and a score. Because for me, all right, I'm gonna go a different direction right now. Movies. Last weekend I went to see Mandalorian and Grogu with my daughter. I frigging loved it. Like we had so much fun. We went in 4DX, the chairs are shaking, we were having a blast. And granted, you know, it was something that was fun, it wasn't super like you can follow the story. It didn't have to have any like crazy Oscar-winning plot, but it was a great movie, and we loved it. And the audience score so high, but the critic score so low, you know. Critics are like, What is this? Star Wars is now dead, you know. And it's just like, hey guys, for real, you know, in the wine industry, you know, when I read a score, how do I know if the critic score is right or is there something else, or is it just about going out and finding what you love?

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Yeah, and I think there's a lot of similarities to that. That's a great analogy, right? So you might have some wines that some critics really love and give a high score, but that is maybe not to the preference of many consumers, right? And they may not like that style of wine because I think the critic score ideally is meant to be like an objective look at the quality of a wine. But so wines have so many different styles, and what people like is generally associated with the style of wine they like, right? Some people love big, heavy tannic wines, and so you know, objectively, you might give this wine from Napa a 98-point score or whatever, because in that it's a really well-made wine, but it's a wine that's big, heavy, tannic. And someone who doesn't like that style of wine is gonna drink it and be like, oh, this is terrible, right? Like they don't know how to what to do with it. Um, they might like sweet, and some of that is physiology, right? Like uh Tim Hanai MW has done a lot of work around like the what you know the physiology, and so like it's based on like the concentration of taste buds on your tongue, which usually settles out around adolescence, and so the higher the concentration, the more you're like a quote unquote super taster. But what that means is that you're really sensitive to bitter, and so wine is you know, acid water with like different small amounts of other chemicals in there, and red wine often with tannin in there, and tannin is very bitter, right? Just like it isn't tea or coffee. So if you drink your coffee with a lot of sugar and milk, it's because you probably really dislike the bitter, right? And so you might not like that style of wine. Someone who doesn't have that issue or that same you know sensitivity to that might really love it and be able to more appreciate all the different complexities of flavor profiles that are in it, right? And and really draw that out and so really like that wine. So the score is meant to be, I think, in the ideal world, like a proxy of um I uh objective quality, uh not it shouldn't be, although it often is associated with the styles that that individual person likes as a wine critic itself. But ideally it's it's just your your quality, your objective quality. And then for a consumer, you have to understand what what styles of wine do I like? And that's the point about the transparency. What is the flavor profile do? Do I like unoak Chardonnay versus very oaky Chardonnay, right? Like all that that the simple example to be like, yeah, both both wines might be a 94-point score, one might be 95, but I don't like that style. So I prefer this 89-point or 88-point wine, right? That's in a style that I like. And so, you know, I think the wine style is so important that matches to what you like as a person. I think that's that's sort of like the key to figuring out what wines you you like and appreciate.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

I love that. I I think it's interesting too because everyone has different flavors and tastes they like, and I think that journey of figuring that out is something that takes time, and you have to just get in there and taste wine. You gotta figure out what is your Mandalorian and Grogu that you like and everyone else doesn't, you know, or the critics don't, you know. But I find that the wine industry is chating a lot right now. Um and there, you know, I when I come back, one of the things that was wild for me was like how, you know, especially Gen Z, when my wife and I were staying at a hotel in San Jose for a show that she had, and like when we were had our window open while we were sleeping, because it was nice and cool outside, the smell of weed was intense, you know. It was just like the whole street smelled like weed. And I was like, we are like five, six stories up, and it smelled so like like we had just been like walked into some type of like, you know, I don't know, pot shop or something. And I was just like, this is nuts. But you know, the younger generation um has the different trends, but like, what do you think the younger generations want from wine that older generations sometimes miss?

SPEAKER_00 37:14

You know, I think the older generations were often uh interested in like the physical collection, and the younger generations tended to be tend to want more experiences. And part of this is, you know, especially when we say older generation now, we're often talking about the baby boomers, which are like one of the richest generations to exist uh so far in human history, and and so they had the money to have bigger spaces to have like you know a wine cellar place to store and put the wine, whereas, you know, a lot of younger generations, millennial Gen Z, have had a harder time building wealth, uh harder time getting jobs. So their wealth creation path has been slower, and so they don't have the space to do all that stuff, and they you know would rather spend their money on experiences because one, they don't have any place to put the wine or store it, right, or do anything like that, and they want to get out and do things because that's been uh a relatively less expensive way of enjoying life than having a big house and and other things in one that they can afford. Although I think you know a lot of those experiences are now getting priced up because there's been more demand for them. But I think that's a lot of it. I think millennials, I think the research would show wine market council has a lot of research around this, but that millennials are starting to pick up wine now. And my my hypothesis is that you know, getting into wine, and from personal experience, I mean I was always into wine, but like um is heavily correlated with family formation, which has been delayed, right? So there's certainly a wealth accumulation back in the global financial crisis. I did a study uh an analysis on like what is correlated with the premiumization of wine and the increase of wine of people buying up for wine, and it was like net wealth lagged by a year. So like you you have more money in the bank, you pay your taxes on it, and now it's like, okay, I feel richer now, I can buy a $40 bottle instead of a $20 model. But then like the family formation part, I think is is different. That's shrinking the wine market because once you have what before when you're still looking for a partner or without kids, right? What do you do? You you you want to go out and have the experiences, have fun, you go out to clubs and bars and things like that, or concerts and whatever it is, and you're often drinking beer or spirits because wine is kind of tough to consume and not quickly. Wine is a slower beverage. Um and so you're you're you're buying more beer and spirits. And then once you have children, you know, you kind of are at home more, right? And like it's harder to go to restaurants and things like that. And you tend to most people tend to move into the suburbs so they have a little more space and all that sort of thing. And then they um, you know, can embrace wine because it's it's less time consuming, but more complex and interesting than drinking beer or spirits, straight spirits, because you know, your your cocktail, um cocktail takes a lot of work. Maybe in the pandemic, people were making cocktails all the time, but like normally times when if you have little kids, you don't have the time to like make a complex cocktail. But wine is a complex drink that you can pair with food. So people come over, you know, they're usually bringing wine is still like a common thing, and hanging out with your family is more at home. And I think that's the opportunity for wine to really like get in there with people who are, you know, starting to have families and all that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

So interesting. Well, I want to ask you this because you helped launch the Asian Wine Association of America. Uh, why is it important for the wine world to become more culturally diverse and inclusive?

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Well, you know, I think wine, as we met talked about earlier, is a luxury product and people and it can be. And people as they gain more wealth around the world are starting to embrace wine and all that, but it's not associated historically with all these other cultures, right? And so it's a huge miss opportunity. If you think about, you know, wine drinkers being less represented, whether that's Asian people, Hispanic, African American, etc., like if we just brought them up to average, we'd have hundreds of thousands of more wine consumers, you know, in the place. And then you think about like the on-trade, like restaurants, right? And how many Asian restaurants have either no wine or no alcohol or a terrible selection, right? Because it's just not culturally uh historically relevant. And there's so many new experiences that we could have, and I think that would be elevate the experience, elevate the business, elevate, you know, the the opportunities for people to enjoy life and for people to experience new things. So, you know, one of the things we're we're doing at at Wenti is actually doing an ethnic food and wine pairing that's like different ethnicities so that we can engage more people in the culture. And part of it is like engaging more people. There's a big South Asian, you know, cult uh uh population around Livermore. And so some of it's to engage them and show them the magic of like food and wine together and how it could work with their very spiced and you know, cuisine. But also like everybody, everybody just I mean, I love to eat all sorts of different types of food, right? And I love wine, and so like those are such understudied areas that food and wine combo, especially with Asian food and wine together, that if we put some more effort and some more study and research and like just experience against that and populate it out, how much better would our lives be, right? If we could actually enjoy that more and not have to like skip on it because the restaurant doesn't have any good wines by the by the glass or anything that tastes good, or that we don't know how to, you know, deal with it or pair with it at home, even right. So I think there's a huge opportunity for the industry and just for people in general to learn and to how to appreciate things and to elevate their experience. And you know, what's most important about wine, like making friends, making friends with people who drink it together, it's a shared experience. A bottle of wine is not generally something you consume by yourself, but it's you know, that 750 ml is kind of sized to be perfect to share with two or three people, right? And to like have this shared experience. And you know, you don't have to talk about it, but you're kind of consuming the the same product. And if you want to talk about it, because there's some interesting notion that There's an interesting story to tell. The product itself has some complexity. The match with food has some complexity to it. Like all those things can help create friendships that, you know, I think make uh wine a a special product in that way.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Yeah, right. Well, I want to ask you this too, because um you know if someone listening is overwhelmed by wine and doesn't know where to begin, but they would love to to to learn about it. Where is the best and simplest way and most enjoyable way to start exploring it?

SPEAKER_00 44:39

I mean, for me, it's like just get a bunch of friends and do a tasting. You could start it out non-blind and just taste side by side. You could do it blind tasting, you know, put them in paper bags or whatever, and like just try try different wines, right? And then you're sharing with you're sharing a bunch of different wines with uh with your friends and having a good time, right? And you know, I I talked about my tasting group where we had like less than ten dollar wines for that one time, but we had other lots of other tastings, and some friends who weren't that into wine at the time would love to like guess a price or whatever, you know, things like that. Yeah, and now some of them are really into wine, right? And just I think that is part of the learning experience, but without necessarily the formality of certifications, which are also a path if you're getting more serious about it. You know, you could do all the certifications, whether it's you know, the wine and spirit education trust or even wine folly's got uh classes more for like non-professionals and things like that. And that's that's all great and helps you like learn and understand, but nothing beats just tasting different wines with your friends and having a good time because you want to have a good time and you want to try different things, and you know that's that's the core of it. Because if you if you don't if you're missing that and it just becomes too academic, then like you know, you're gonna not that that passion's not gonna spark. 100%, man.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

Well, where can people go to learn more about you and what you do and the wine that you make?

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Yeah, uh for the wine that we make, that's just wentivineyards.com and and Google or and certainly like the Exchateau Wine uh business podcast is a great way to explore the business side of wine, which you know most people don't talk about that much. Um and then uh yeah, if people are interested in the what Asian Wine Association of America is doing, it's I think it's a wawine.org. Um, and you know, learning how to support both Asian food and wine together, but Asian-owned and uh or winemaker, Asian-owned wineries or winemakers.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

I love that, man. Well, I appreciate you and you taking the time, man. This has been a fun masterclass. And uh one last question. If you were to pour three glasses for someone right now that was getting into wine, what three glasses would you pour?

SPEAKER_00 47:01

Ooh, that was just getting into wine, huh? Yeah. Um I would probably pour like one of my uh I don't drink a lot of burgundy because it's super expensive, but you didn't give me a budget here, right? So like I mean, you know, like a uh a Shambol Moussini, you know, uh Pinot from Burgundy. I I love the softness and the floralness of that appellation, um, against like, you know, probably like a uh a higher end class growth Bordeaux, you know, maybe from Polyac or something. And then like uh, you know, one of the stalwart Italian wines, you know, like I said, like a Barolo Barbaresco, just like it gives you kind of like the the areas of the world of the classic wine regions of the world to see like how that plays against your your your palate, you know.