ARENI Global: In Conversation

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...

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 follow...

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 mi...

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. O...

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, loc...

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 suppor...

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 t...

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...

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, producer...

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 Fe...

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 goi...

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 list...

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...

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 ahea...

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 o...

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 build   better and smarter organisations. Dr Emile Servan-Schreiber holds a PhD in cognit...

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. Step...

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 ne...

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 U...

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...

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 sho...