Community

Since a young age, community has been very important to me. Growing up, I would always see my parents host events and while they would provide their house and all the food, everyone would bring a wine to contribute. I began to think of this ritual as people sharing one thing they love with everyone they love. I thought of it as extremely intriguing to see what brand and type of wine people would bring each event. I began to associate wine with those key memories of community.

While in college, ensuring I had a close community like I did growing up became extremely important to me. So I decided to do what my parents did so well, host wine nights with my friends, my community. Despite what food we had at dinner, whether it was steak or pizza, someone always brought a bottle of wine to share with the group. Now looking back, while our choices of wine were not the best given our college budgets, the conversations had and memories formed over wine were ones that I will never forget.  

Fast forwarding a few years to joining Boston Consulting Group, I was excited to find out the role of wine still remained the same even in the work setting. While consulting, we had wine at every networking event, dinner event, social event, and client event. While I gratefully upgraded from my amateur palate, I realized that while I had so many fond memories over wine, that there was so much left to discover. I gratefully began to try learn more about wine from other consultants and sommeliers.

While I have gotten to experience wine from the consumer side, I am interested in understanding more about it from the business side. Thinking through what is the branding and marketing that made my parents’ friends for instance buy and bring a certain wine to share with their community. Thinking through the price of wine such as the lower prices that were consumed during college versus the higher priced wine consumed in consulting and how those products target different consumers. Overall, I am excited learn more about the industry and form a community with this class over wine!

I think I am about 90% wine by this point

Why am I taking Wine Dynamics

The short answer is that I love wine.

The long answer is that we have a family winery in India (called GroverZampa) that was started by my grandfather. My undergrad degree is Viticulture and Enology from UCDavis, and I have been a winemaker at Grover for almost all of my career. I did a harvest at Cakebread Cellars in Napa post graduating, but most of my experience has been in India. We have won over 80 international awards for quality during my time as winemaker, and I am extremely proud of the wine we currently produce. Grover is recognized in India for being a quality leader, and we are the second largest winery in India.

My focus has been wine production and everything technical that goes into wine making. Diligently consuming wine has been the most wonderful component of my job! My focus, understanding and experience within the wine world has been completely specialized in production thus far. I have done some work with both our domestic and international markets, but these forays have been more for me to understand the consumer from engineering the product perspective.

The actual business side has been something I have not really explored and not something that I have been drawn to quite in the same way as the art of making wine. Part of the reason to come to Business school was to pull myself out of the purely technical, and to supplement these skills with a broader understanding of business. However, I miss wine. Harvest will start soon, and it will be the first in many years that I will not participate in. This class allows me to be around my favourite beverage, while still learning so much about it!

"I love to cook with wine, sometimes I even put it in food"

There was a magnet with this phrase on it on my family's refrigerator for as long as I can remember growing up. The Manning family just loves to drink wine! Far from taboo in our home, my parents offered me wine at dinner years before I even wanted to drink. My dad is from New Orleans and my mom from a Cajun French town in Central Louisiana, and indulging in extravagant food and drink is core to our family and culture. Oh, and did I mention they're Catholic?
My mom is an incredible cook and when I picture her working her magic in the kitchen with crawfish tails and spices, there's always a glass of wine (or a bottle) right there with her. I witnessed my parents' taste in wine become more sophisticated over the years, as they belonged to a wine club with close friends in our suburb. I remember how much fun they would have testing new wines at the monthly dinners (some were rowdy events at our house), learning about new regions and varietals, and enjoying the case together at home. Wine club was an amazing "adult learning" activity and experience for them and definitely shaped their endless curiosity about wine today (although my mom is very loyal to New Zealand Sauv Blancs these days).
I benefited from secondhand knowledge but wasn't particularly interested in the details of wine until I moved to New York for college (cue the wine snobbery) and spent a semester abroad in Argentina. I took a mini-course on Argentine wines, spent time in Mendoza, and studied the growth of the Argentine wine industry in an economics class. This foray peaked my interested in learning more about wine. When I soon after interned for a "lifelong learning" education-tech company in New York, I opted to create content for a few courses on the history of wine in key regions, leveraging some prominent wine blogs.
Throughout the past few years I have not continued any formal wine education. I find the industry fascinating though as it is deeply historical and traditional yet consumers continually buy into new modern branding, tastes, and experiences. This class appealed to me as I'm excited to hear about one works in and navigates this complex world, and how the lessons can apply to other industries. I'm also very much looking forward to testing out great wines considering my GSB budget has unfortunately knocked my standards down a bit the past year...

Why Wine?

Ever since I can remember, wine has been an important aspect of my family's culture and each member's relationship with each other. My father constantly argues (playfully) with his twin brother over whether Italian or French wine reigns supreme. The rest of the extended family benefits most from this eternal debate, since they both introduce the family to new Italian or French wines they enjoy to try to gain support for their respective factions.

Since my father and mother are on the Italian side of the debate (and since our whole immediate family loves Italian food), almost every holiday or get-together includes a trip to my hometown's local Italian restaurant. Beyond the good food and better wine, the atmosphere of the restaurant makes the whole room feel like one giant family. Towards the end of their shifts, most of the waiters (and usually the owner) start to enjoy the wine with the customers who remain. And when I got older, my brothers and I would stick around after the restaurant closed and share stories, listen to music, play poker, and continue to enjoy the wine with the waiters. This restaurant also planted the seed of my affection for Port. After my parents would pay the bill, the waiter would bring over a bottle of Port and insist we stay longer. Starting when I was around 15, the waiter would sneak me a glass, and when my parents would object the waiter would rebut with "the drinking age on Long Island is 18!" I guess he wasn't a good judge of age, but at least he tried.

Clearly, wine has always been an important part of my life from a consumption perspective. I have gotten more interested in the business side of wine when a family friend opened up a vineyard on Long Island and when my former boss started looking into buying a vineyard in California. Taking Dynamics of the Global Wine Industry was a no-brainer!

Lasagna, the Andes, and this Class

 During my childhood, I was fascinated to see my grandparents, parents, and most of my close family having these engaging (and often long) conversations during the typical Sunday lunches at my Grandma’s home. I couldn’t understand how they would sit for two, sometimes three or more hours socializing and having a great time. The one common factor I could identify during these meals was: Wine!

I have vivid memories of my Grandpa pulling one bottle after another of that magical, colorful, purple beverage that seemed to make everyone happy. They would drink in these large, shiny and fancy glasses that I was not even allowed to touch (my fine motor skill was never a strength of mine), and the bottles were kept in sort of special fridge that I couldn’t dare to open.  

To my frustration, wine tasted horribly in my first try. I quickly learned that cheap and sweet wine gave me the worst of the hangovers, and I stayed away from it for a long time. The price of decent wine in my home country, Brazil, also didn’t help: wine is incredibly expensive down there and is perceived as something luxurious and fancy. Bottles that cost $5 here could easily cost $15 or more there. Living in a country where the temperature is often above the 90°F, I was happy by drinking really cold (shitty) beer.

I had to move to another country to start appreciating the drink that now I consider almost as holy: in 2014 I moved to Chile and had the privilege to drink amazing wines from vines that were grown less than 50 miles away from my apartment. The country was filled with top-notch wineries, and I visited countless vineyards and wineries during the time I lived there.

Being an avid traveler, I started tasting wines from every country I was visiting, from Italy to Turkey, from Hungary to Argentina. My interest in wine grew exponentially (so as the price per bottle, unfortunately), and I developed a huge curiosity about the beverage and the industry.

I am taking the Global Dynamics of the Wine Industry course because of my strong family ties, intense desire to learn more about the industry, and above all, my high appreciation for this drink that is critical to the identity of many cultures, Wine.

Family Business - Personal Passion

Growing up, I spent several weeks every summer at my cousin's winery. I'd hang out in the tasting room after helping my aunt in the bakery and watch people taste wine and hard apple cider. I loved seeing people sniff the wine, visibly relax, and start talking to the people around them. In the evenings, my aunt and uncle would host dinner parties, bringing people from around the area to eat French or Italian food, try the Old World and New Zealand wines they loved, and listen to Bob Dylan music. People would get tipsy and tell stories about getting hit by lightening or how they used to be the graphic artist for Felix the Cat. This association of wine with relaxation and storytelling continued through my college years into my professional life. Whenever I want to get to know someone better I invite them out for a class of wine.

The winery was best known for their hard apple cider (Doc's Draft) and Bourbon (Black Dirt) rather than for wines. Apart from a deep love of wine culture, I don't know that much about wine. While at the winery, I spent more time in the kitchen learning to cook than I did understand how they make the wine. I'm excited to learn more about wine in this class and hopefully help my cousin rebrand one of his wines.

Why Dynamics of Wine?

Ever since a young age, I have been intrigued by wine and alcohol more generally.  As a child, I always thought it peculiar that adults seemed to obsess over and intellectualize these different kinds of wine that were all essentially just grape juice and that didn't even seem to taste very good!  

By the time I hit my college days, my taste buds had matured and I had come to better understand why people enjoyed wine both for taste and intoxication, but my intrigue had not diminished in the least.  I got why loved this stuff, but I was just starting to realize how immense the world of wine really was and just how difficult it would be to master the subject.  I got hooked on learning about different varietals, regions, and winemaking techniques and began what will likely be a life long journey of learning.

Over the past several years that learning process has only accelerated.  When traveling across many parts of the world (Napa, Provence, Mendoza, the Douro Valley, Tasmania, Long Island), visiting vineyards became a must-do activity.  When planning my wedding and taking on the charge of choosing our wine list, the varietal and regional based tasting parties began and hopefully they will never end!  When holidays now arrive, I am inevitably given a book on wine or another type of alcohol.  

The more I have learned, the more intrigued I have become and I'm now excited to learn about the economic side of the subject.  To this point, I have been focused on learning almost entirely about the product and the production process and I feel I haven't learned enough about Wine the business in addition to Wine the beverage.  I'm taking this class to continue satisfying my intrige and to approach a familar topic from a different perspective.  

Why am I taking this class?

Growing up, wine has been an important part of my family traditions. I was born in Peru but my 4 grandparents are Italian and so we inherited the Italian culture of wine. Since I was a kid, my parents would add drips of wine to my glass of water and when I was old enough, I would have every meal with a glass of wine (until today). Without thinking too much about it, I continued to order a glass of wine whenever I would go out for lunch during work and was quite embarrased to receive the feedback that it was not OK in Peruvian culture to do this.

However, my love for wine comes along with ignorance about it. I never formally learned about the product or the industry. My learning of wine comes mainly through what my dad has told me and a few visits to wineries, but I want to expand this learning to appreciate more wine and to feed my curiosity.

In addition, I am working on a startup project for Startup Garage to introduce a new beverage in the US market: cactus water. I want to learn the dynamics of the wine industry to leverage learnings of marketing, branding, distribution, etc, to make more informed decisions for my team's cactus water.

Why Wine

Why Wine
by Michael Topol

I have never really enjoyed drinking alcohol (even if I sometimes indulge), but ever since I can remember, I have always enjoyed drinking a good glass of wine. Growing up, I always associated wine with family. Family holidays, family celebrations, large family dinners. At each of these occasions, my grandfather and father would produce numerous bottles of great wines (mostly old world then). As a child, I wasnt allowed to sit at the grown-ups table (I still dont), but I was allowed to have a little bit of wine. Although not as sweet as grapefruit juice, I very much enjoyed the complexity and the taste of wine, even then. As I got older, I started to earn responsibilities - first pouring the wine, then learning to open the wine, and finally, I earned the high honor of being selected for the "special trips" down to the wine cellar where we selected the chosen bottles to be drunk.

In the process, I learned to love wine, white, red, different grapes and regions, even the history associated with the wines, and grew to appreciate the hard work that went into making each bottle of wine. While definitely not an expert, I enjoyed trying to discern the different types of wine and guess at the subtle (or bold) flavors that I tasted,. Even more than that, I loved the passion that the great wines elicited, and how you remembered those wines, both for their innate value and for their ability to bring back the memories of the occasions celebrated. More than anything, wine means family, something important and special, and a way to make great connections over subtle issues. Why wine? Why not.

A clueless American in Paris - why I am taking this class - Eddy Bueser

In January of 2018, I moved to Paris to live with my boyfriend of 5 years. I loved the challenge of immersing myself in a new country, despite barely knowing how to speak the language. French culture is distinct in so many ways from American culture, but the biggest difference of all was the role that wine played in everyone's lives. To the French, wine is so much more than just fermented "grape juice" - it's a national treasure, a source of pride, and the cause of so many heated dinner-time debates. I was an ignorant innocent bystander in so many of these debates, as my SO and his friends would bicker over the superiority of "Bordeaux vs. Burgundy." Before I left Paris to come to the GSB, my colleagues pooled their money and gifted me a single bottle of wine on my last day. I only realized later, thanks to my SO, that the bottle was a Chateau d'Yquem, Sauternes - a special bottle, to say the least.

My candid reason for taking this class is that France and french culture will likely become a big part of my life in the near future (cue the wedding bells). My goal is to "be dangerous" on the subject, enough to engage in meaningful debates with my French friends, and maybe teach them a thing or two. While I don't see myself actually working in the wine industry, I'm certain that what I learn from this class will be useful in any business context, business dinners included. My second reason for taking this class is to have fun - and based off of our first class, I'm sure there will be no shortage of that in future class sessions. 

It's impossible to understand the complexities of wine - but it's fun trying

I became a wine enthusiast a few years ago when I visited a wine region in Northern Italy (Piedmont). Before that visit, I have never really thought about wine and its complexity. Fast forward 5 years (950 additional ratings on Vivino, 200 bottles more in my cellar, visit of numerous wine regions in the World), I realize that wine is a journey, not a destination. In other words, I will never entirely understand the complexities of the wine; but it's fun trying.

Further, as a lawyer from Switzerland, pursuing an LL.M degree at Stanford Law School, most of my classes are somehow law related. I absolutely wanted to do something different. Hence, I chose the topic I am most interested in at the GSB.

Why I am taking this class?

Over the last few years, I have been exploring my passion for cooking by hosting dinners for friends, learning about foreign cuisines through cookbooks and, most recently, working with professional chefs. Prior to starting at the GSB, I spent three years working at Blue Apron, the meal kit delivery company, where I worked as a part of the Culinary team and provided analytical support the team of chefs and recipe writers during the recipe development process. I loved learning about ingredients, flavors and cooking techniques from people who had worked in professional kitchens, and grew to appreciate the countless small decisions that can go into even the simplest dishes. I also learned that if you really want to have a special restaurant experience, go out to eat with a chef that knows someone in the kitchen!

As I continue to deepen my culinary knowledge and skillset, I want to gain better familiarity with different wine varietals and how they complement different foods and flavors, as well as some of the etiquette around consuming wine. My family doesn't drink wine at home, so it's been great to learn about wines as an adult. I absolutely love to travel and believe that there is so much to be learned about a country through its food - wine is a similar vehicle for exploration.

From a professional standpoint, I plan to work in the hospitality industry after graduation, and have no doubt that understanding the structure and dynamics of the wine industry will come in handy along the way. Finally, I took this class as a way to get to know who else on campus is interested in the finer things that life has to offer, so I'm excited to get to know everyone.

It Runs in the Family - Graham Topol

Like many of my classmates, wine has been a big part of my family's history and my experiences growing up. Most would consider our father (mine and Michael's) a knowledgeable wine enthusiast, if not full-fledged collector. However, whenever I ask him how to identify a good wine, he just answers, "drink what you like to drink". However, he learned his palette from his father, who was an even more knowledgeable collector, if somewhat more affected by perceived quality. Unfortunately, my grandfather passed away before I was old enough to really enjoy drinking (wine) with him, and I was never able to really appreciate or try to download his vast database of wines and tastes. This class will give me a framework to understand what my grandfather and father already know, giving me the vocabulary to discuss, appreciate, and collect wine on my own.

In taking this class, I also hope to gain knowledge and frameworks that neither of my father nor my grandfather ever possessed about the business side of wine, the changing global dynamics, and the strategy that wineries, distributors, bottlers, etc. use successfully. I hope to not just gain a deeper appreciation for wine, but also to gain a deeper understanding of the wine industry itself. I am excited to learn more about wine and the fascinating business of wine with everyone!

Why I am taking this class

I have been drinking wine of varying quality for the last 50 years. When I was in high school, we drank the cheapest wine we could acquire for the alcohol. We were certainly not looking for quality or the pleasure on the palate. My parents were not wine drinkers, although later in life my dad enjoyed his daily glass or two of Gallo jug wine. As I have matured, the quality of the wine I drink has improved (I think) and the pleasure of drinking wine has broadened to include the pairing of wine with good food and drinking wine for celebratory or other occasions.

  

As I have matured, one of my goals has been to be more thoughtful about the things that I do and experience. I am in a program at Stanford that encourages the participants to learn about and explore topics of interest that perhaps have not been part of our past lives and require us to be more creative in thinking about our work, our personal interests, and our goals and aspirations. I decided to take this class because it combines knowledge about wine – a topic about which I am not very knowledgeable – and the business of wine.  I do not have a background in business administration and like the idea of combining an activity (drinking wine) about which I would like to become thoughtful with an opportunity to learn more about business practices, strategy, marketing etc. in the context of that activity.

Why am I taking this class?

My career up to this point has primarily been focused on working with startups/technology companies. Working in this space, I was exposed to some brilliant strategists who meaningfully impacted the path of the businesses they worked with. Seeing this, I sensed a gap in my ability to break down a company's complex problems and draw up compelling strategies that I have confidence in going forward. I'm hoping this class teaches me the language and frameworks of strategy, while focusing on an industry that has inherent complexities beyond many of the markets I've spent time in prior. Ultimately, I'm hoping to deepen my strategic intuition and take lessons and insights from this class to the companies I work with.

As a Midwesterner, I'm also excited by the opportunity to work with a professor + alum who is from and dedicated to the region (something that appears to be very hard to come by). As I make decisions at Stanford regarding entrepreneurship, and thinking through where and how I spend my life, I could use as much wisdom and guidance as possible!

Chardonnay or Should I Go?

I first discovered wine out of my hatred for beer. Then, I discovered good wine out of my hatred of cheap wine. My "like" of wine as a nightly treat from Trader Joes evolved into a grapey passion when I moved to the bay area 7 years ago, and found myself within a 30 minute drive of some of my favorite wineries in the world. I struggled at first to believe that the wine makers weren't trying to BS me when they said things like "essence of hickory and leather" or "floral on the nose, honey on the tongue." I wanted to know what they meant - so I read The Wine Bible a few years ago and it completely shifted my perspective on the wine experience itself, from annoyance of snooty sommeliers to total reverence of a complex industry.

What fueled my interest in this elective is the same thing that inspired me to learn to code. My daily world runs on a language I don't understand...I should probably learn to understand it. Similarly, there's a language of wine, and an entire industry behind it, with complexities I haven't even considered. I'm taking this class to become more fluent in a product I consume, and enjoy, almost daily.