Ep 12: Why Don St Pierre Is Excited About Both the Wine Business and the Chinese Wine Market

Episode 12 September 18, 2024 00:58:15
Ep 12: Why Don St Pierre Is Excited About Both the Wine Business and the Chinese Wine Market
Drinks Insider
Ep 12: Why Don St Pierre Is Excited About Both the Wine Business and the Chinese Wine Market

Sep 18 2024 | 00:58:15

/

Hosted By

Felicity Carter

Show Notes

While many entrepreneurs are backing away slowly from both the wine industry and China, Don St Pierre Jr is rushing back in — because he sees plenty of opportunity.

In 1996, two Don St Pierres — senior and junior — changed the world of wine forever when they founded ASC Fine Wines in Shanghai.

Don St. Pierre Snr saw an opportunity in wine: as he later wrote about China’s 1.2 billion population, “all of these folks had to drink and eat something.”

Before long, the St Pierres were distributing Beringer and Bollinger, among other fine wines. They pretty much singlehandedly established China’s fine wine market.

Don St Pierre Jr. retired from the business in 2015, and shortly after became CEO and co-owner of California’s Vinfolio. Don St Pierre Sr died in 2023.

Recently Don St Pierre Jr founded AdaptEdge, an investment and advisory company. One of its first investments was in Vino Joy News, the media company founded by Natalie Wang.

And on St Pierre emains bullish on China, even though wine consumption there peaked in 2017. In this podcast, he explains why he believes so strongly in the country, and why he remains so optimistic about the wine industry in general.

In this wide-ranging conversation he reveals:

  1. Why he loves family-run companies and how he evaluates them
  2. How digital innovation can resolve some of the distribution bottleneck problems
  3. Why producers and businesses elsewhere should be taking inspiration from China
  4. How to research the Chinese market
  5. Insights from the Harvard Innovation Lab

As always, the takeaways will be in the newsletter, which you can sign up for at drinksinsider.com

Other Episodes

Episode 13

October 02, 2024 01:03:28
Episode Cover

Ep 13: The Future of On-Premise Drinking: Trends and Predictions From Union's Gary Ross

Who truly understands what people are drinking? In this episode of Drinks Insider, host Felicity Carter chats with Gary Ross, Chief Growth Officer at...

Listen

Episode 22

February 05, 2025 00:49:57
Episode Cover

Ep 22: The Fork In the Wine Road and Where to Go Next With Jeff Siegel

The wine trade is facing its worst trading conditions in 30 years — but it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s according to...

Listen

Episode 18

November 27, 2024 00:54:03
Episode Cover

Ep 18: Noah Sanborn Friedman on Why Now Is the Best Time to Invest in Alcohol

Noah Sanborn Friedman, the co-founder of Top Shelf Ventures, spends his day looking for alcohol brands to invest in, and he has a lot...

Listen