ARENI Global: In Conversation: Recent Episodes
Pauline Vicard
Through a comprehensive research and publication programme, ARENI exists to inform, inspire and empower those invested in the future of Fine Wine. Join us as we explore the Future of Fine Wine, in conversation with experts.
Wine professionals are now fully aware that climate change is having an impact on wine. But what can we do about it?
Wine experts Michelle Bouffard and Jeremy Cukierman MW are two of the three co-authors of a new book called Quel vin pour demain? Le vin face aux défis climatiques, or What Wine Tomorrow? Wine Facing Climate Challenges, which is about to be released in both Spanish and English.
From vineyards all the way through to wine retail, they discuss how people around the world are rising to the challenge. In researching the book, what did they discover? Let’s find out.
According to Bloomberg, plant-based foods are expected to exceed $162 billion, or 7% of the global food market, within the next decade.
In its latest report UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's estimated that 25% of its customers will be vegan by 2025. This growing interest in plant-based diets is already impacting the way that fine wine is being produced and distributed.
What could a 100% plant-based food and beverage system look like?
This podcast is a recording of a live Insight Series organised by ARENI on March the 2nd 2022, gathering four international experts and moderated by award-winning journalist Elin McCoy.
Is wine good for your health? And if it is or isn’t, what are the consequences?
The wine trade has certainly always embraced the message that moderate drinking is part of a healthy diet. But wine is now under attack by the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Beating Cancer – which has stated that there is no alcohol consumption without health risks. This could lead to serious consequences, including cutting funds from alcohol production.
In this episode, we speak to psychiatrist and drug researcher Professor David Nutt, on what is known for certain about wine, alcohol and health.
David is the chairman of Drug Science and in 2020 he published the book Drink? The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health.
This week, we meet David Garrett and Behdad Shahsavari, two seasoned entrepreneurs who are highly involved in both the tech and fine wine worlds.
They will shortly be launching Club Dvin, one of the first wine clubs based on NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.
They have also attached NFTs to Robert Parker's private wine collection which is being sold for charity later this year.
Together, we discuss not only how NFTs and smart contracts actually work, but also how they could impact the fine wine supply chain.
In this episode we meet Rebecca Hopkins, founder of A Balanced Glass, who is on a mission to help wine professionals stay safe and healthy while navigating a career in alcohol.
We look at the pitfalls and problems of working with wine, and ask what role fine wine plays when it comes to questions of health and well being for both employees and consumers.
In this special episode, journalist Felicity Carter and ARENI's executive director Pauline Vicard explore the concepts of authenticity and typicity, looking at what the concepts mean in different cultures.
Diving deep into history and social science, they explore how these concepts arose and how they're being disrupted by a new emphasis on individuality, versus the collective visions of previous generations.
This week, we meet Corina Kwami, an American jazz singer, tap dancer and performer, and a passionate music historian. A “bridge builder”, she uses her background and her PhD in social science from the University College of London to bring a global renaissance variety to her playing and storytelling.
We explore the origins of jazz and the music’s social role in the world today, and what Fine wine could learn from jazz in terms of interpretation, blending, control and the power of bringing various voices together.
This week we meet Georgia Panagopoulou, known as Wine Gini on social media. Georgia is head of one of the biggest online wine communities, including both Facebook and Instagram where she has 112,000 followers.
We discuss how social media campaigns are created and measured, while debunking the digital clichés, one by one.
This week we meet Professor Ricky Burdett and discuss the way metropolises like London, New York or Shanghai are changing, and how these changes are likely to impact citizens, consumers, trade and merchants, transport and logistics.
Ricky Burdett is Professor of Urban Studies and Director of London School of Economics Cities and Urban Age: a global centre of research and teaching dedicated to the future of cities. Professor Burdett is a member of the Mayor of London’s Cultural Leadership Board, former Council Member of the Royal College of Art and a Visiting Professor in Urban Planning and Design at Harvard University.
This week, we meet Sandrine Goeyvaerts,a Belgian wine merchant, journalist for Elle magazine and author of several books on wine. Her latest work, "Manifeste pour un vin inclusif (Manifesto for an inclusive wine) argues for a different use of language within the French-speaking wine world and looks at how changing the language of wine could open the door to new consumers.
The interview that follows is in French. For the English transcription of this conversation, visit areni.global.
In this episode we meet Amrita Banta, founder and director of Agility Research, a luxury consulting company ranked among the top ten globally, which focuses on the affluent consumers of luxury and premium brands.
We discuss how COVID changed the relationship between Asian consumers and luxury goods, and how the past few months have led to renewed spending, and to Fine Wine finding its way into millions of Asian households for the first time.
In this episode, we share a conversation that took place in the 2021 edition of the Batonnage Forum.
Bâtonnage is a US-based initiative stirring up the conversation on Women and Wine. Its annual forum brings together wine professionals as well as wine industry supporters to discuss and act on the unique challenges and opportunities that women in wine have faced both historically and present-day.
On the 23rd of June 2021, ARENI invited Felicity Carter, Editor-in-Chief at Pix and Jordan Sale, CEO and founder of 81 cents, to talk pay gaps, negotiation skills, globalization of the work place and financial transparency.
In the middle of the UEFA European Football Championship, we meet wine critic and journalist Tim Atkin MW and Phillipe Auclair, England correspondent for France Football.
In this special episode, we discuss this very popular social phenomenon, while having a lot of fun pairing football players and teams with their wine equivalents.
We meet Tom Marchant, co-founder and director of Black Tomato, an award-winning agency which creates what they describe as unique and perfectly-tailored travel experiences.
We discuss what luxury, hospitality and creating experiences means in practice.
In consideration of ARENI’s latest report, we compare and contrast what fine wine consumers have in common with affluent travellers.
Conversations about diversity and inclusion, along with discussions about how to open the doors to Black and other marginalised groups, have been long-overdue. But, finally, the last 12 months has seen an outburst of publications and initiatives aimed at taking action.
But within wine, many of the voices speaking out were American. Although some wine articles included voices from South Africa, local voices were often missing.
We meet British journalist Tomiwa Owolade to discuss the complexity of the BIPOC situation in Europe and notably in the UK.
It's been a year since the murder of American George Floyd, a crime that galvanised widespread protests and political organising in the US. The world took notice and conversations, protests and other actions against racism spread internationally.
Twelve months later, we meet Dr Akilah Cadet, founder of Change Cadet, a US-based change management and organizational development consulting firm supporting diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the workplace.
We take a moment to look back, measure the progress and ask what the next steps could be. What would true diversity mean for Fine Wine?
Money is not the most comfortable of topics in the wine world, though fair remuneration is the key to increasing the diversity of voices and talents.
In this episode, we meet Andrew Jefford, an award-winning journalist, wine writer and educator, and one of the only major figures in an otherwise opaque industry to publicly reveal his revenue and earnings. We discuss writing, negotiation power and transparency, and how to define one's worth in today's wine world.
Professor Shirley Mueller has had two careers. Her first was a practising neurologist and a tenured professor at the University of Indiana in the United States. She left both practice and academia to become an investment advisor, and began writing for Physician’s Money Digest about the neuropsychology of investing.
Along the way, she developed a deep passion for Chinese export ceramics and became an ardent collector herself. We meet to discuss her latest book, Inside the Head of a Collector – Neuropsychological Forces at Play.
In this fascinating conversation, we explore the question of what drives collectors.
Celia Tunc is Secretary General of France’s Culinary College. The association, founded by 18 of the most renowned and influential French chefs – including Alain Ducasse, Joel Robuchon and Paul Bocuse – aims to represent, promote and transmit artisanal culinary heritage through tradition and innovation.
Celia emerges from a year that shook France’s relationships to gastronomy, restaurants, producers and winemakers, with the belief that the future of the world requires a new relationship to food, based on craftsmanship and diversity,
We meet her to discuss the challenges that lie ahead.
The three tier system regulates the distribution of alcohol within the United States. The Federal framework stipulates that a spirits or wine producer (the first tier), should sell first to a distributor (the second tier), that will in turn, sell to a retailer (the third tier). This retailer must have a license to sell alcohol either in a shop (off-premise) or in a restaurant (on-premise). This Federal framework changes at the state level, with each local government putting in place specifications and regulations according to their interpretation of the Federal requirement.
This system, established since the end of Prohibition, makes distribution of alcohol between local zones, counties or state borders extremely difficult.
What if there was a legal way to work alongside the established three-tier system in the US to create a disruptive route to market, based on convenience, while working within the system? What would it take to build a distribution channel that would allow consumers to directly order cocktails - or wine- on their phone, and receive it a mere three hours later at their door?
What would this new “non-premise” channel mean for spirits and wine brands alike? How could it address the upper-end of the market and not only offer convenience but create bespoke, premium experiences?
We talk to Tim Angelillo, founder and CEO of Sourced Craft Cocktails, and discuss how he used his 20 years of experience working for tech giants to create an efficient data and information based system that answers these questions.
This week we are pleased to share the recording of our Insight Series Re-inventing restaurants, rethinking wine lists, recorded on the 2nd of March 2021.
With the insight of 6 international experts and guest star co-moderator James Tidwell MS, we start to imagine the trends and levers of change that will allow restaurants to re-surface, and decipher how they will affect restaurants’ wine lists going forward.
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Antoine Abou-Samra - Founder, A Table for Two, Lebanon
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Ray Isle, Executive Wine Editor, Food & Wine Magazine, USA
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Stephan Leuschner – Director International Key Accounts, Rational, Switzerland
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Tinashe Nyamudoka - Sommelier and Founder, Kumusha Wines, South Africa
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Jon Pepper MW, Managing Director, Tenuta del Mundo, Italy
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Laurent Plantier, Co-founder, Alain Ducasse Entreprise, and Partner, FrenchFood Capital, France
What can Fine Wine learn from coffee? And what, in turn, can coffee learn from Fine Wine?
This week ARENI speaks to Peter Giuliano, the executive director of the Coffee Science Foundation, to explore what two of the world’s favourite beverages can offer each other.
This week we meet popular food writer Alicia Kennedy, who is currently at work on a history of veganism, to be published in 2022.
We discuss food and the many issues surrounding it, from politics and labour to hospitality and sourcing. In exploring what the future holds for ingredients, recipes and the restaurant experience, we consider their impact on the future of restaurants and their wine lists.
This week we meet Véronique Pardo, food anthropologist and director of France's Observatoire des habitudes alimentaires ("Eating Habits Obeservatory"), where she heads two major programmes on food behaviours, cultures and human/animal relationships.
We discuss with her the values of eaters today and how the current crisis has changed some of the foundations of our food systems. How has human food become an object of such moral concern in Western societies? Are the criticisms of meat eating, and the trend towards vegetarian and vegan consumption, redefining our food model and our vision of the world? If we are what we eat, what do our Western eating habits say about who we are?
The following conversation is in French. For a written transcript in English, please follow the link to our website.
This week we meet Dr. Constanze Stelzenmüller, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Her areas of expertise include transatlantic relations, German foreign policy, NATO, the European Union’s foreign, security and defence policy, international law, and human rights.
We discuss with her what is at stake for international diplomacy in 2021 and what the global challenges ahead mean for us as citizens and wine trade people.
This week we feature not one but two guests to discuss collective action in the Australian and New Zealand Fine Wine scenes, and whether they can become a model for the future. Andrew Caillard MW, founder of the Langton’s Fine Wine classification looks at what brings organised gatherings together and walks us through colonisation and how its impact is still felt today.
Peter McAtamney, principal of Wine Business Solutions, then shares inspirational ways to rise above self-interest. He defines what the “common good is” and illustrates how the Fine Wine community can benefit from collaborative working.
This week we meet French researcher Emile Servan Schreiber to discuss the power of collective intelligence, and the different ways to harness, measure and maximise the efficiency of our joined brains. As we navigate our way through the "wisdom of crowds", we also explore how women and diversity can help buildbetter and smarter organisations.
Dr Emile Servan-Schreiber holds a PhD in cognitive psychology from Carnegie-Mellon University in the US, as well as undergraduate degrees in mathematics and computing. He is the managing director of Hypermind which operates in both France and the US, and creates prediction markets.
This week New York-based wine marketer Erica Nonni facilitates a conversation between Eric Asimov and Stephen Satterfield about the language of wine.
Eric Asimov is the New York Times’ Wine Critic. His weekly column appears in the Food section of The Times. He is also the author of How to Love Wine: A Memoir and Manifesto, and Wine With Food: Pairing Notes and Recipes From The New York Times.
Stephen Satterfield is a food writer, multimedia producer and founder of Whetstone Magazine, a beautiful publication about food origins, culture and the anthropology of food.
These two leading voices in the wine industry share a curiosity and sense of responsibility when it comes to how we communicate around the complex topic of wine. Does language provide or hinder access to wine information? How does it relate to the assessment of wine and to regionalism, fundamental to traditional wine producing areas? Should there be a universal language in wine?
This conversation, which took place at the July 2020 edition of Fine Minds 4 Fine Wines, touches upon so much more than language, not just how we talk about wine, but the greater impact it has on our culture.
This week we are extremely pleased to welcome a trio of Fine Wine legends. Acclaimed journalist Elaine Chukan Brown meets living icons Bill & Will Harlan, for an exclusive and very intimate discussion on transmission where Father and son discuss their evolving relationship through Harlan Estate’s and Promontory’s milestones. As Will prepares to take over from his dad, they share with us the next steps of their 200-year plan.
This interview was recorded prior to the fires currently devastating Napa and Sonoma wine countries, affecting some of Bill and Will's properties. As we are sharing this interview, we want to send our thoughts to both of them, and to the Napa and Sonoma wine communities. We are here and ready to help.
Today's episode is a recording of a conversation facilitated by Trisha de Borchgrave between Ambassador Anthony Gardner and Dr. Robin Nibblett on regulations, trade and tariffs that took place during the July 2020 Fine Minds 4 Fine Wines Global Think Tank.
Ambassador Anthony Gardner, whose illustrious career straddles international finance, politics and law, served as one of the most successful US ambassadors ever to the European Union, from 2014-2017 under President Obama. He's also a member of the Council of Foreign Relations in the US, and produces wine in Tuscany.
Dr. Robin Nibblet is the beloved director and chief executive of Chatham House since 2007. Prior to that he was Executive VP at CSIS in Washington DC, another one of the US's leading foreign policy think tanks, where he also ran the Europe programme and led its initiative for a renewed transatlantic partnership.
Trisha de Borchgrave, is a current affairs writer and senior associate at the Global Women Leaders Strategic Philanthropy Project, a group of over 100 women working on private public initiatives to empower women and girls in the humanitarian and development area through access to education, healthcare and economic opportunity.
In today's episode, this panel of exceptional talent and insights discusses the future of the transatlantic relationship in modern times and the geopolitics of fine wine.
This week with Pr David Heymann and Karina Robinson, we are getting inside the the World Health Organisation (WHO) to learn how WHO is addressing the Covid-19 pandemic, what's working, what's not, and ultimately how the wine trade can plan ahead in such context.
Professor Heymann, teaching at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is now working with the WHO to combat Covid-19. He has spent 22 years working with WHO in Geneva, on secondment from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has been at the forefront of battling AIDS, malaria, measles, tuberculosis and polio, and he also coordinated the global response to SARS. In 2009 he was appointed an honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his service to global public health.
Today, with Rodrigo Sepulveda Schulz, founder of Expon Capital, we discuss the world of technology investing and how the current economic climate is affecting this space. Rodrigo shares his experience as an early stage investor in companies that meet the UN's Development Goals, discusses the four major technology milestones the world has seen thus far and his thoughts on how technology is, and should be used, to disrupt the fine wine world.
This week with Claire Soares, founder and CEO of Up in the air Life, a luxury travel agency based in the US, we discuss what luxury and hospitality will mean in a world post covid, and how to harness the power of experience to create milestones, memories and magic in wine tourism.
Today, with multi award-winning lifestyle, travel and wine photographer Matt Wilson, we discuss the power of visuals and how they can convey a sense of connection and experience that words simply can't. Matt's singular personality shines through his work, which breathes a unique sense of life and action into his subjects. In this episode, Matt shares why fun is so important in wine photography and offers his expertise on how wineries can better harness the power of visuals in a digital world where seemingly everyone has become a photographer.
Today with Shanika Hillocks, food & wine digital strategist, published writer and active speaker, we talk digital strategy, influencer marketing and brand engagement. As we re-assess the weight of words and the power of pictures in a deeply shaken and polarised world, we also explore good practices for Fine Wine estates and brands, and the best way for them to cut through the online noise, build meaningful relationships with trade and consumers and embrace their responsibilities.
Today, with Erin Gore and Karli Warner, founders of The Garden Society based in Sonoma, California, we explore the growing world of Cannabis. As we explore their strong ethos - to become the most positive and trusted cannabis brand for women by delivering exceedingly great products that turn down the daily chaos and turn up the joy – we also draw many parallel between their world and the Fine Wine Ecosystem, discussing millennials, language, terroir & provenance, and responsibility.
Today with Xavier Rolet, Knight of the British Empire, former CEO of the London Stock Exchange and 2017 Harvard Business Review 100 Best CEOs in the World, we take a bird’s eye view and explore the current situation’s global picture. We discuss finance, international governance, tech and sutainability as key levers of change, and how they are extremely relevant to both big and small players of the Fine wine world.
Today, with Richard Portes, Professor of Economics at London Business School, we discuss the economic impact we're seeing as a result of Covid-19, and the specific implications this has for the wine world.
Originally from Chicago, a Rhodes Scholarship brought Richard to Oxford University in the UK. In 1983, he founded an organization called the Centre for Economic Policy Research, a network of mainly academic economists whose objective is to promote collaboration in research and dissemination among both academics and policy makers.
Richard's academic, research and policy achievements are numerous, and he's currently deeply involved in EU financial stability policymaking. He took time out of his busy schedule to talk to us about the pandemic economy and how this is much different than that of previous recessions, with an unprecedented outlook for a "return to normalcy."
Today with Pr Beverly Skeggs, one of the foremost feminist sociologists in the world, we explore the links between sociology, marketing and Fine Wine and dive deep into behavioural science.
Building on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of Cultural Capital and distinction, we re-visit the concept of personal taste and how culture (including food and wine) can be seen as a device to classify people while wondering if our inner distinction of “Fine Wine” is used to classify and cast out not only a category of products, but a category of individuals, going back to the genesis of "Us and them".
Far from being abstract, this interview casts a different light on some of the Fine Wine ecosystem’s oldest battles and answers some key questions on Fine Wine language, symbolic and its struggle to break cultural codes.
Today with Minter Dial, we revisit some of our research, exploring the key notions for the future of Fine Wine: Diversity, Agility, Sustainability and Purpose, and what they could mean in a post-Covid 19 world.
After 16 years leading the digital transformation in L’Oréal, Minter Dial is now an acclaimed author and international speaker, looking at the world through the lens of technology, branding and digital strategy. Through his boutique agency The Myndset, Minter creates bespoke executive programmes designed to activate strategy and accelerate transformation.
We ask Minter his view on our changing ecosystem, discuss his latest books, and craft a vision to futureproof our businesses.
Today with Elizabeth Linder, we explore our changing societies, in order to get a deeper look into the new paradigms appearing through Western societies, shaping a new social framework for Fine Wine. As most of the world has now been in lockdown for several weeks, we all had to transfer most of our conversations to the digital world.
Though digital conversations are being useful to establish a regular level of connection, are they still relevant when it comes to etablishing trust, complicity or intimacy? How can Fine Wine, a social and human product that is meant to be shared, can create new paradigms to thrive in the digital world?
We ask Elizabeth her views on how these rules of conversation and engagement and explore the numerous opportunities the current and most unique situation could create for the Fine Wine ecosystem.