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Hi everyone, today we have in our studio two guests from Italy. They're both wine experts and entrepreneurs themselves who have extensive experience in the wine industry, and also in promoting Italian wines, including Prosecco in China.

First of all, let's say hi to Matteo and Mikelino.

Hi, hi, everyone.

Hello, hello, everyone.

And welcome to the studio.

First of all, I would like to ask both of you to give us a little bit of an idea of what you do. Could Matteo?

So I actually work for one of the biggest importers and distributors in China. I work as a senior brand manager, not just for Italian wines, but for more than 28 brands from all around the world. And I'm in China 4 years, 20 years’ experience in the wine business.

And based on our previous talk, you basically grew up with the entire wine culture, right?

My family owns a small vineyard, a place called Valdobbiadene, which is the core area of Prosecco; and I worked in a winery before for 10 years, I worked in Maldives and Dubai as in hospitality. I worked in New York, and then a little bit in Moscow for a short period of time, and Shanghai.

OK, a true expert. And Mikelino.

I am an entrepreneur. I live in Shanghai, I work in Shanghai, people know me here as the wine guy, which is the name of my company, I thought it was suitable.

I live in China since 15 years and I am a sommelier graduated by the Italian Sommelier Association. And wine is my passion.

Mikelino, you said wine is your passion, and this is very interesting because when I talk to people who work in the wine industry, this tends to be the general feeling, general sentiment, a lot of people they would say you think about wine, it's not just drinking, it's about socializing, it's about a lifestyle.

Would you agree with that?

It is, actually, I didn't always work in wine, but in the very end, the life brought me to work with my passion. And also was… many people ask me and say, why don't you work in wine? Because people were referring to me for some wine suggestions. Where do I buy this? Where do I get that?

And finally, I decided to move on and around 10 years ago, I started devoting my life to this business, even my wife finds it boring because she says I always talk about wine.

Honestly speaking from a little bit of my own experience as a drinker, a lover of wine, obviously I'm no way an expert. I always remember before the pandemic I used to go to Italy a lot, I absolutely loved the country. When I went to Italy, sometimes I would join my local friends or new friends for aperitivo. Am I correct in pronouncing that?

Yes. You pronounced it correctly. Aperitivo is a very important moment our social life in Italy, no matter if it's during the day or during the evening.

So what is aperitivo?

Aperitivo is a culture. Basically, it's the moments when usually finish your work or during weekends you get with your friends, usually before dinner, and you have a drink altogether, it’s a very social thing.

And then this actually can get into a dinner thing as well. Which why years ago aperitivo was emerged with the word dinner, which is ‘Cena’ in Italian. And we started calling it ‘Apericena’ which is ‘Aperitivo’ and ‘Dinner’.

So it basically you start with a drink, then use some small bites and cold cuts and pizza, and then goes into a 2 or 3 hours...

2 or 3 hours?

It can be, yeah, I mean, back in the day when I was in Italy…but that happened when I go back in my hometown now as well, can be we meet at 6, 6:30, and then we can start drinking and eating and finishing out at 11. That's… sometimes it's quite normal.

I guess especially on a hot summer day, when people are just basically standing around, maybe even outside and then just mingling with one another.

No. That happens also in winter. It's every season…Four-season thing.

It is every season.

Every season.

In summer, it's definitely easier because…

Regardless of weather.

Exactly. In summer, it is definitely easier, because we like to stay outside, who… everybody likes to stay outside in summer.

So do people in Italy actually often drink Prosecco as aperitivo?

I mean, yeah definitely. It’s probably the wine to go 99% of the time, because it's easier and my reason usually… we start with Prosecco, usually dry, brut, extra brut, sometimes it's extra dry, we might actually like extra dry usually, but then we start with that and then with Prosecco actually we eat cold cuts, small bites, we eat nuts, pizza goes very well; or the famous Pane sorpresa which is a sandwich very specific from our area, which is like a soft salami and a slice of local bread. That's the one that I missed the most.

Sounds really nice, but you both mentioned it's more like a dinner time thing, right? Like in the evening that's when people have aperitivo.

I think it's connected to the fact that maybe in the evening you are relaxed, you finish your work, you can have a little bit more time for yourself, even if you indulge a little bit more and stand up one glass or two. It's not going to influence your routine, your job.

But technically aperitivo means… that is translated in Chinese into the opening of the stomach. So that's what it is. It's the opening of a meal, it's the pre-meal. So it could be also during the day.

Yes, that's what we say usually in Italy every excuse is good for aperitivo.

But Prosecco and also aperitivo culture is regardless of age or sort of regions or maybe socioeconomic background?

I would say yeah.

Definitely, yeah, yeah, you could find everyone, every person from different layers of society joining an aperitivo usually with Prosecco.

I would say that is very localized also in different areas of Italy, also in terms of wines. Prosecco is an overall. Prosecco is putting everybody on the same page because bubbles, if you like bubbles, if you like sparkling.

I think aperitivo start really from Veneto probably, because Prosecco is the wine that goes with aperitivo.

Like Prosecco is the face of aperitivo when people think about aperitivo, they most likely to be thinking about Prosecco.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

And what about… in some cultures, for example, I used to live in London and that experience was like after work people just… you and your colleague might just pop into a pub for a drink. In Italy, do people go for aperitivo after work with people they work with? Like your colleagues?

Can be. Yes.

Can be. It's an open thing.

The good part of aperitivo is that it unified things. Generally, it's social moment with friends, but it can be used as also a moment to socialize with your coworkers. But could be also like sometimes you invite some business people, you invite some people that you want to have a professional relationship, you invite them for a coffee that could be that if it's the time, you invite them for an aperitivo.

It can be even formal. Despite you might stand at the bar or you might sit down at the bar and instead of having a coffee, more polite, you might have a glass of wine and talk half an hour to know better somebody that you want to work with.

It's the Italian form of social lubricants.

Or a date.

Yeah. Exactly. That's actually my next question, allow me to be a little bit more gossipy, because most of our audience are women, 70% of them are women. I just want to ask like if I, as a woman, I'm in Italy, and then after work, a colleague of mine just said, Lulu, do you want to go for aperitivo? Does that mean just a friendly colleague thing or does it mean something more like a date in Italian culture?

Well, it depends, usually if someone ask you out for an aperitivo, or a coworker is the same, it doesn't mean that it's a date; if someone else that you know already from outside your working space, it doesn't mean it's a date. We usually hang out with coworkers, with friends, and have a drink during this happy hour time.

But of course, at sometimes that can be the case, but that it's a case like there is a guy that likes you and he's asking you out for an aperitivo, that's the main purpose is to know you and to take you for a date, but mainly it's not.

That doesn't have to be.

No, not at all.

I see. Alright. Since we were talking about social life, aperitivo as a way to socialize in Italy. Perhaps this is bit of a stereotype that you would think, Italians are known to be experts at enjoying life, for us like outsider looking at Italy, we sometimes fantasize about this whole La Dolce Vita, the sweet life.

So what is your understanding as Italians? What is your understanding of La Dolce Vita? Let's start with maybe Matteo?

Oh, yeah. For us. It's more like a balance between work and life. It's how to enjoy good quality time and good quality people with good quality products. So it's more like lifestyle. It's more embedded into how to live life at its fullest, understanding when to work, when to stop working, and went to actually relax.

Yeah. Very well said. And Mikelino, what is your take on this?

We enjoy life in the aspects as you say, work hard, love hard, it's a similar thing.

So we work a lot and then we want to have our time, we want to have good time, stop worrying for the job at a certain time, and just join our friends, join our coworkers, or whoever …

Have a glass of bubbly.

Yes, have a good glass of Prosecco. But La Dolce Vita, I think is also in every aspect, not just in drinking and food, but how we spend our good time, having some good rest, or dressing up, it doesn't forcefully mean that we only like to eat and drink and not work.

Despite we all love to stay in vacations and drink Prosecco.

Work hard, play hard.

Okay, so we were talking more about lifestyle, now let's move on to perhaps more the industry. Now as Italian wine experts and importers, now which regions in China do you mostly focus on?

I know that perhaps like you said in the very beginning, Mikelino you are more localized in Shanghai, and Matteo you are more greater China. So perhaps I will ask Matteo this question, in China, which city or which region has the most Prosecco drinkers or has the most Prosecco sales?

East China, definitely Shanghai area, then probably Southwest; and also we have HongKong and Beijing at the same level, more or less.

It sounds like mostly coastal or first-tier cities.

Yeah.

If you are to sort of get out of that, to expand to grow, then which parts of China are you thinking about or which specific…？

I think it's Chengdu. So Midwest can be quite cool to think about, pushing a little bit Southwest of China can be interesting as well.

That because Tier-1 cities, everyone knows they are the most sophisticated people, more like international type of people as well. So it's in a way easy to make them understand the products and sell the products. And it's more easier for them to pick the Prosecco actually as a beverage. I always say that education is the key.

Am I right to say that both of you can see there’re, for example, in shanghai, there are many opportunities for like an average consumer to get informed and get educated about wine in general or just say about prosecco if they want to know more.

There are more and more opportunities, I would say, to be educated and the big job that the consortium is doing through Casa Prosecco, it’s, first of all, actually to hit the last known area, let's call it like that. I mean, as it was mentioned, the headquarter of Casa Prosecco is in Xi’an, and it despite the poetic point of view of the Silk Road, it's also important to know that all China is important despite the biggest sales are here in the first-tier cities on the coast.

The educational program as speak for myself, it's involving a lot of tasting, it’s involving if you let the people try and let the people discover their own taste, let our Chinese friends to know more wine and develop our own palate.

Develop their own palate. Yeah.

And then you can, little by little, recognize quality, differences, and move on, and accept new wines including prosecco, remembering that majority of Chinese people still love red wine. They need maybe sometimes a little bit of a push and we need to put a little bit more efforts and let them try something different and break some rules.

Yeah, honestly, I think some more complex red wine is much harder to drink and something as easy drinking as prosecco, but that's just personally from my experience.

It's fascinating every time I go and visit the South China like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Xiamen that people they’re actually drink more red wines but specifically more cognac, although is 38° and 40° sometimes.

And I’m always fascinated to ask these questions. Why do you do this？I mean you would think that you guys would like more fresh, nice, easy products that bring your freshness which prosecco is one of them.

But it's not, because they like that, and if you ought to do dinners like lunches as well, in Xiamen specifically Fuzhou, Xiamen, many times they bring cognac or spirits because that's how the area, that's something that's very cultural.

Yes. It's very interesting that Matteo you mentioned this whole unexpected preferences for people in the South. But in both of your experts’ point of view, what is the profile of a typical prosecco drinker in China like what kind of let's talk about men or women, age wise or preference wise, what type of people are likely to choose prosecco？

I again, that's gonna be general. So very general view, but again, I would say between 20, 30, mainly women.

Mainly women.

And as a product, usually they would go for an extra dry, so which is like a semi-dry wine prosecco. And usually again, because I think this is influenced by the international community in shanghai. So shanghai would be probably the city what you can actually see these social background or drinkers.

So it's a combination of different factors.

The returnees that they are adopted.

Yeah, like you for instance, you're being in London, I believe that London… I’ve been hanging out with British in Dubai, and also New York, but they usually in London intensely to drink beer, cocktails, but also prosecco; the prosecco sell in UK is huge, but culturally speaking they would go for beer and cocktail first.

It's a combination of factors speaking about China.

Probably women and then people who are more open, more used to sort of the international theme, the more international lifestyle. Mikelino, do you agree with this profile?

I would say the same. And I would say that women, also youngsters, millenniums…

Gen Z?

Because it's easier drink, it's not heavy red as you described before, or heavy spirits, especially if you're drinking in the middle of the day, or 6 pm, 7 pm, or with an empty stomach, you don't want something that put you knock-out immediately.

So a lighter wine, easier wine, and refreshing prosecco, this is what makes it more and more popular, especially shanghai, definitely.