Vender una botella de €180,000: dentro del mundo de las subastas de vino con Amayes Aouli

00:00:00 This is Dolia Talks with me, Giovanni Binello. Now, Dolia Talks is the show where we discuss with the best sales and marketing professionals in the world of wine, spirits, and beverages in general. Our guest today is Amayès Aouli. Amayès is the Global Head of Wine and Spirits at Bonhams, one of the world's best auction houses.

00:00:21 Now, Amayès told me that the biggest sale that he closed was a 180,000€ bottle. And that's a truly mind blowing number. And in this episode, we will actually go through how these prices are set, how they influence the overall wine market, and actually how can wineries approach the wine ocean world.

00:00:39 Amayès has also a ton of knowledge and insights on market and consumer trends, so we also discuss how we can attract young people to the world of wine and also which are the new export markets following the USA tariffs. So I hope you enjoy the show, as always, remember to subscribe and leave a review on Spotify and if you have any feedback, ideas, or suggestions, my email is [email protected].

00:01:00

00:01:03 Giovanni Binello: Hello Amayés, welcome to Dolia Talks.

00:01:05 Amayés Aouli: Hello Giovanni, thank you for having me.

00:01:06 Giovanni Binello: So I would like to start from an interview gave recently, which I read where you said something which actually I think it's quite interesting you said: when the market is having different dynamics, the auction is an echo chamber of the market. So I was curious, what's the current state of the wine auction market, and what do you think it's telling us about the market trends in the wine industry?

00:01:30 Amayés Aouli: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the, the auction is the most transparent of all players, whether we, we like it or not, that's, uh, that's just a pure fact, right? The prices are known, even our margin or buyer's premium is known. So you can extract many, many trends, uh, from the auction market and when the market is up, you, you know, need the auction to, to break some records. But it's kind of like one of the, uh, of the players when the market is soft and even declining. That's, exactly where it plays its most important role of being a barometer. And again, the markets, funnily enough, and it's kind of counterintuitive, has not been as high in terms of volume of transaction as in when the market of wine went down for roughly the past, uh, the past two years.

00:02:14 So it's an echo chamber because you can tell which producers still hold its value. Some producers has falling. Same for regions, same for countries, same for different price points, and not talking about the difference between wine and spirits. So the markets for auction is effectively very vibrant, very dynamic. Um, and then we've got many, many sub trends that we're probably going to discuss in this, uh, in this episode.

00:02:38 Giovanni Binello: And do you see maybe from the beginning of your experience, something changed in the past years, uh, in, in the market in terms of trends, which region are, which regions are most popular?

00:02:49 Do you see some changes, some macro changes?

00:02:51 Amayés Aouli: Yeah. You've got many, many macro changes. Again, like we can, we can go from the buyers to the producers, we can go in terms of prices, et cetera. But let me try to summarize it let's say in two main aspects. Uh, the first one is in terms of wine region, so spoiler alert, Burgundy, uh, has been on the rise for the past 15 years, and it's a suitable, let's say wine region for, for auction because it's rare by default, right? When you think about one of the most iconic name, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, if you take the Romanée-Conti, we're talking 6,000 bottles for virtually and conceptually 8 billion people. So like this is an auction material in itself. It's much more difficult for the heavy producers, so namely Bordeaux for instance, whereby you've got hundreds of thousands of the same wine hitting the markets constantly, and so Burgundy is much more, it's smaller, it's adventurous, it's like a place by curiosity, et cetera. So every region with by default and embedded rarity will probably tend to do a bit better, uh, in the auction as a mechanism. Uh, and the second one is let's on the buyer side. You've got a huge rise, and you have seen a huge rise, uh, especially since 2008, from Asia, because Hong Kong has lowered the tax to zero the duties, so it's effectively a free port for, for wine and funneling through all Asia. Apart China, who's now becoming more and more an excellent productors, uh, an excellent producer, sorry, of fine wine. The rest of the region is not producing, so needs to import a hundred percent, let's say 99% of the fine wine they, they're consuming. And then the second biggest market being in the US and for probably a different reason, but in the US consumer has been much more sophisticated. We've seen a lot of groups, a lot of, journalists, a lot of critics, a lot of knowledge coming from, from the US and so from Asia to the US, you've got now a global market, assuming that Europe and especially the UK, has always been, let's say, for the past 200 years, a place, uh, for, to exchange, um, the finest wine in the world.

00:04:48 So now you've got these three pillars in terms of buyer and the, and effectively most of that trends are very new, if not in the past 10 years. Good.

00:04:56 Giovanni Binello: And you mentioned duties. Did you see an impact of the recent tariffs that the US uh, imposed and do you think actually will have a larger impact? Because i'm hearing different perspectives. Someone tells me will not be as big as we expect. Someone tells me it's a disaster. So where actually do you think the needle stands?

00:05:17 Amayés Aouli: Um, it's probably too soon to tell. Uh, the tariff has, um. into place less than a year ago, and so the world of wine is not moving as fast in that, in that respect. So a lot of stock are already in the US so they are without the tariff. The first signal we can see is, funnily enough and it's completely counterintuitive, I all our wine auction in the US are doing great. We're like close to a hundred percent sell all the time.

00:05:40 You've got to be bounce of interest from client because mechanically you creating a kind of barrier, right? A barrier to entry. And so all the stock that are already there are slightly higher in terms of price. It's too soon to tell because again, we need to see how long it's going to last. We're seeing a lot of, uh, bonded warehouse in the US, which is a new concept because there was no tariff before. So now we see, especially on the East Coast, uh, the capacity of people to store their wine in a bonded way, and then for the biggest collectors, for the biggest trade, they by default and before the tariff have a global warehouse system. They've got account in many, many warehouse, so you can be like a collector from New York, but having part of your wine in London, in France, less so in Hong Kong, so you can delay, your, shipping and your arrival and that, that we see at the fine end on the market. US just to finish US is a wine producer as well of extremely good quality, everyone think about California, but uh, other states like Oregon for instance, are producing exceptional wines and more and more so, uh, after every vintage. So it's very, very complex between the domestic dynamic, the international dynamics, how long we think the, the tariff will stay in place. And so yeah, question mark.

00:06:55 Giovanni Binello: Are there, actually my personal curiosity, are those wines you mentioned from the US popular in Europe, or do we tend to stick more to France, Italy, and to the traditional European regions.

00:07:07 Amayés Aouli: So it's starting to, um, not, not, sure. There is a, a, a massive market. I think it's starting, especially for the top, top wine, like, you know, Screaming Eagle, Opus One, Harlan Estate is kind of like, you know, iconic name from the US, but by default it's probably the most expensive wine to produce in the first place because you need manpower, you need like extremely high insurance costs due to the fires, for instance. So producing a bottle in California already, ex-domaine, direct, breakeven, is already extremely high. If you add the taxes, exchange rates, and the shipping, it is very difficult to compete with the old Europe, whereby for like 30, 40 euros, you're starting to find absolutely extremely, uh, well made wine. So, so the competition is by default, a little bit biased by that. So I don't think there is a big market, uh, for them there, but for branding, they need to be present across the globe. Yeah.

00:08:01 Giovanni Binello: And so you, before you mentioned those like big names these, these wines, you say the ones that get actually sold the most are the most premium ones. What do you think drives these premium positioning, we can also say perception maybe? So is it branding, is it the reviews, is it just the price? So what do you, what do you think are the factors that actually drive this positioning?

00:08:27 Amayés Aouli: There is a wonderful group called Areni Global, and it's the first think tank around fine wine and they're spending hours, days, weeks of seminars trying to define what is fine wine and what is not, because in our category, we've got that question mark right? When it's art and when it's, uh, craftsmanship, right? So very difficult to draw a line. I would say in a simple way that that's the connection between a terroir, the wine maker and then global recognition. So if you've got the three and global recognition can be, uh, you know, books, critics, communication to the world, tasting, et cetera. If you've got the three of them, and if you add a fourth element, which is consistency, i.e. you're not doing great wine one year and then you walk away, et cetera. So you had that for 10, 15, 20 years so that people can take, can test your back vintage, can, you know you've got, you produce a consistent brand, then you usually becoming a wine kind of regardless of the region, right? Like, um, sometimes the region helps you, sometimes the region draws you back if you want to, to be, uh, on top of our, of our pyramid. But like you can have names completely agnostic of their region, right? You can think about Emmanuel Reynaud for, for Rayas, for instance, La des Péres in Languedoc you can, you've got this kind of winemaker and terroir that are standouts towards region. So I think that's probably the, the best way of thinking what is a fine wine and what is not.

00:09:54 It needs to be widely recognized. And just to finish, I think it's exactly why wine is becoming closer to fine arts, right? You can have beautiful artists nearby, young creators, et cetera, but they need to have this worldwide recognition, and that takes time, that takes, um, you know, a lot of people to appreciate the, the art artwork.

00:10:15 Giovanni Binello: Okay, so what you're saying basically, because it also was one of my curiosities, let's say you cannot intentionally create an investment grade wine, so you need a lot of work before and then maybe at some point it will arrive.

00:10:30 Amayés Aouli: Yeah. So first I don't think wine is a good investment, uh, material, right?

00:10:34 Uh, it's probably the most sensitive product, uh, ever produced by mankind. It's complicated to move to ship, as we say, it's sensitive to every single tariff, uh, and so on and so forth. So when you think about it. It's like, you know, uh, equity is better, right? Like in five millisecond I can buy a Tesla and Apple stock in my phone and like walk away, right?

00:10:53 So it's, it's not, it's not an investment grade element. The time will enhance its rarity, will enhance its test profile and probably if you pick the right one, will enhance his, um, global recognition. So there are some names, there are some winemaker whereby you can buy a bottle at like 100€ and then it's becoming 10,000. But that's probably not for us, that's for our children. Probably take more than a generation to, to realize that fully, and so you cannot make intentionally an investment grade wine. You can invest in a winery, you can invest in the people, you can invest in talents, you can, you can do that.

00:11:31 And hopefully some people are doing that for pleasure, for joy. But so apart of your winery, apart if you do just buying a collection of wine that you like, that you love, that you know the guy, that's probably the two best advices if there is a financial return. But again, I would say that's not, um, the main purpose and the main and the perfect vehicle to do so. I

00:11:56 Giovanni Binello: I'm trying to think from the perspective of a wine producer, maybe who is listening to this. Okay? Does it make sense for someone to start thinking in the future, like, how can I make this wine a wine that actually can go in an auction and get sold for a hundred thousand Euros? So my question would be, does it make sense as a strategy for a producer thinking as if that wine would be sold at an auction in 10 years or 15 years?

00:12:23 Amayés Aouli: So I, I would tell him this is a wrong objective. Uh, being sold at auction is not the correct objective, and usually in the, from what I see in the, in the world in general, is like failure to express what is the right objective. What you're trying to say is, will my wine be appreciated in 10, 15, 20 years time? And that's probably the best objective, and if you wine is appreciated, thought after, that's, you've got a community of people that recognize your name, recognize your work, love to share your wine, love to give it to their doctors, lawyers, to their friend, et cetera, et cetera, then by default and as a consequence, the prices will go and auction being just a mechanism, uh, transparent mechanism. Then it'll go as a consequence, um, but never as a, as a primary objective. And guess what? The top names currently at auction now, they were not made in with that let's say value creation element. They were made just by pleasure, by consistency, by chemistry, by heart, but they were not made to be at some point at auction. If you think about Henri Jayer for instance, who's probably one of the most iconic producers in the wine world, he, he had a philosophy co completely contrarian to his time, and he's considered as an artist, and so every single bottle at auction now is even more priced because he was considered as an artist and right after his last vintages, his domain was separated into two cousins for the exact same terroir. The prices are, you know, 10% of what they were when it was originally, because the terroir matters, don't get me wrong, but it was his soul and his name and his signature that was appreciated by the market. So again, I don't think you can create with that in view, and if you think about an artist, many of the artists, they, they start poor and they spend most of their time in that current state before, at the end of like 10, 20, 30 years of production, the market realized, uh, that oh my God, this is great art. Same for wine. And

00:14:27 Giovanni Binello: So I, I would like to come back to this because also you make this comparison with fine arts, and we discussed about fine wines and you need quality consistency. In this podcast, we talk a lot also about marketing and communication. Where does marketing and communication stand in the wine, in the fine wine market?

00:14:50 So my first question would be: do fine wines actually need marketing and communication?

00:14:55 And the second would be, how can you actually tell this story? Because I cannot think of a famous artist who did crazy marketing communications. I mean, in the end, you become known because of your, of the quality of

00:15:07 Amayés Aouli: work

00:15:08 Giovanni Binello: no?

00:15:09 Amayés Aouli: Uh, yes and no. It's because probably you and I have a different meaning of marketing. When you think marketing, you think modern marketing, like you think about, I don't know, social media, emails, uh, you know, campaigns, et cetera. The marketing as a whole is the art of telling a story. It's the art to market a story, right? If you write a book on whatever Château that's marketing, right? You, you having a book, beautifully made, well written, with good, beautiful pictures. This is like marketing, let's say in the noble sense of the term, quote unquote, right? So if you do a tasting in, I don't know, beautiful hotel in Los Angeles, right? That's marketing, right? You, you bringing your wine towards the end of the world in the Pacific Coast, and you are meeting 20 clients if you do a wine dinner in South Korea. So all of that is effectively marketing. If you host people to your domain, to your winery, and you just select them carefully, if you do a video, if you do a movie, all of that is, is marketing. And, and I think, so marketing in that sense is important in the noble sense of the term, right? Um, and when you think about many, many of the top domains now, they're actually doing a lot. They're doing conferences, they're doing action, they're doing movie, they, they're doing cultural production, how many books you've got on, on Yquem on Domaine de la Romanée-Conti how many, uh, UNESCO appreciation has been made from Burgundy, from Champagne?

00:16:30 So all of that is effectively part of, let's say, real marketing and not just pushing beautiful pictures on on Instagram. One part of it, and that can work for, you know, Champagne, for instance, which is much more consumable than, you know, than any other region. It can work for some Italian wine, some French wine that are meant to be consumed fast and not being aging. But for the fine wine there is marketing too.

00:16:55 Giovanni Binello: And who is the, let's say, the, the typical profile of someone who buys this wine and listens to this communication and is the target of these marketing activities? So what do you see is the, the target people and if you, if you can draw a picture of someone that buys this wine at auctions.

00:17:13 Amayés Aouli: So again, if we are the echo chambers of the world, we are the echo chambers of humanity as well. So we've got a myriad and, and literally there is no client looking like the other one, but okay, I can see some patterns for the, for the sake of the conversation. So first our client base is, is roughly 70% individual and 30% trade. So let's exclude the trade because it's like kind of mechanical, the fine wine merchant if you want, for the individual. Uh, let's say you've got like three main categories, right? You've got the very young, so under 35, 40 years old, he's starting a collection, right? He's starting to collect, he has done the first part of the journey with, you know, tasting, tasting, reading books, getting interested, et cetera. He's mainly located in top cities like New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, this kind of place, and he is starting to have an income whereby, you know, he, he wants to have a bit of fun and to, to search some, some special wine. Uh, we like this kind of profile because it means that if well handled, it's going to to be a long term client and then it's going to buy more than he can consume, probably resell and continue the journey there. So it's a, it's a fun client base, and it's kind of important. We believe that probably 30% of our bidders are below 40 years old, right? And we work a lot trying to get that younger and younger again. The second part will be, let's say more than 45 years old, so much more mature, much more, uh, you know, well advanced in, uh, in the career, et cetera, and he's going to buy more quantity. Effectively, it's got more, more power. So he's going to, to solidify, uh, a collection. And the final one is probably after 60, 65 years old, depends, whereby either he's going to sell to disinvest a lot and we need both to play, we're brokering between people of that age to, the younger crowd. But you will still have some, you know, focus, so it's probably going to buy the highest price, but in lesser quantity. And so ideally it's of course not, uh, an ideal world, but ideally you have the three groups competing on, depending on the curation, et cetera, and you can multiply them by location. And you've got variation between Asia, US and European client, but roughly speaking, it folds into these, these three demographics.

00:19:19 Giovanni Binello: So you, you said something that's quite interesting. We are trying to attract as much young people as possible.

00:19:25 I, I think this is gonna be interesting since you are the echo chamber of the world as a general point of view for all wine producers. So how do you attract and which are the main strategies to attract young people to the world of wine, in particular fine wine? Because what we read it's not really clear, but what we read is young generations aren't necessarily as into wine as older, one generation. So how do you see this trend and actually, what do you think are the best ways of attracting these people, these young consumers, to this world?

00:19:56 Amayés Aouli: Yeah. Well, attracting is probably not the perfect word because they already, uh, like they're already attracted.

00:20:01 And again, they need to have done few wine courses and being interested in the first place, right? We cannot attract someone that never had a glass of wine in his life. And then, okay, let's bid on a, on, on, on a cool wine now. So you need to have done a bit of your journey, but it's effectively by providing knowledge, experience, good marketing. So we're doing events, all the time everywhere in the world. Can be wine tasting, wine dinners, can be conferences, can be videos, you know, have a, a really strong social media presence. But effectively I think the, way young people are attracted is by human connection. So if you spend a dinner with them, you are best friend forever. Not, not because you see what I mean? Not because they are wired wired differently, but because I think we are at a time of humanity where we value a lot human connection. And if you spend an hour, six hours with someone, it means a lot, uh, much more than before because you had like a thousand of other one hour that you can have spent completely differently starting with bio with yourself.

00:21:01 So, so the, the value of human connection is high. The meeting the producers, we're doing a lot of partnerships with producers, uh, Ornellaia in Italy and you know, Delamain in France and Delaunay in Burgundy and so on and so forth, primarily for that reason because we can host dinner with them and test wine that no one had a chance to test in the presence of the wine maker with some support from Bonhams and from us.

00:21:25 Giovanni Binello: So, of course I'm, I'm part of me is also a tech person, so is there some technology involved in this world of auctions just maybe to see if there's some tech opportunities

00:21:36 Amayés Aouli: in the future?

00:21:37 So not enough Giovanni, not enough. We are old. We, we are old house of 230 years old, but yes. So technology is coming, uh, at its own speed.

00:21:46 I can give you some examples. For instance, when we, when we price wine, we now are helped by, uh, you know, let's call it AI to make it simple, but so with like a data that is going to be fed into a, into a system, into a platform, same for the targeting, depending on the one we're putting at auction, we've got, you know, pockets of people that are going to be targeted more. Of course we do have the social media let's say regular kit of Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, uh, some ads, some profiling, uh, as well there. Um, but that's to me on one side, extremely important to add some technology to be faster, to be more efficient, to be more targeted, but the world of wine is, uh, effectively and you cannot do nothing about it, uh, about, about experiment. So it's, it's a support, definitely. It make us faster. A hundred percent, but ultimately it's meant to be shared, to be enjoyed, and it has the only capacity, which is actually a magical, almost, to transform time into memory. So time is going the same way for everyone on the world, but the memory is probably something very, very precious.

00:22:53 So fine wine is, has this capacity of making a commodity something unique. ,

00:22:59 Giovanni Binello: And so if I think of, let's say this profile that you described to me, there's a lot of things aside from wine that they might might purchase. There might be some other luxury item, some clothing, some luxury cars, houses, for example. Where do you think wine and fine wine is positioned inside of this portfolio of, of investments or of ownership? Yeah. Do you think it, it can be actually perceived as similar as another luxury slash expensive item, or do you think it's a

00:23:36 Amayés Aouli: a different

00:23:36 Giovanni Binello: positioning?

00:23:37 Amayés Aouli: So two questions. One, one for consumption and one for investment. Let me, let me split the two. So I'm sitting in a global auction house which, as you said is, uh, offering watches, jewelry, cars, uh, paintings, of course, uh, furniture design and, and so on and so forth. The The main difference between other categories like you need wine all the time, right?

00:23:55 That the only product eventually, either you or someone is going to destroy it one day by pulling the cork and transforming that into memory. You don't destroy your watch and hopefully you don't destroy your car. And so ideally, you keep it for the, for the next generation or as long as you can. Wine is not meant for that. So, virtually, again, probably the wine auction my team and I are running are for 90, 80, 90% of the client base at Bonhams, which is not true on the other side, right? Like how many watch you buy per month? That, I don't know, probably anywhere close to zero, and how many bottle of wine you can buy per month? Probably more than zero. So effectively we are a transversal category that fits to everyone and anyone. And by the way, we're talking about the higher price because it's what's impacting our mind, but we sell bottles starting from like 50, 80 Euros or USD, right? So it's not just the top, uh, top DRC and the top, uh, top Petrus is literally fine wine, that's our border. But suitable for every price point. And then when it comes to investment, which is again, for wine is a little bit quote unquote, right, because you're going to drink some, there is a, a concept in fine wine, which is very fun.

00:25:06 It's effectively, the wine is going to improve in price by the time. So give it one more year to whatever, uh, cool, wine and mechanically, conceptually, it'll be rarer, hence it will be a bit more, more expensive, which again, doesn't happen in art or in watches, right? Like some artists can fall, because it's not trendy anymore.

00:25:27 Uh, and so on, so forth. So you've got people investing with that view. The only thing, the only question mark is the time horizon. And if you do that with wine, you probably need to be ready for a good 10, 15, 20 years and not trying to, to flip over two, three years, which you can probably more do with fine arts and with, with watches and be there when the market is down and resell when the market is up.

00:25:52 That's probably something you can do. Again, I'm a little bit beyond my, my area of knowledge and expertise, but for wine, usually what I find is people is lacking a longer time horizon, and expecting to have shorter one, it's not fitting with the category.

00:26:06 Giovanni Binello: Do people buy to drink or to resell?

00:26:10 Amayés Aouli: Okay, let, let's put the trade aside, right?

00:26:12 The trade they're here to sell, right? This is their job. And guess what? They are like, you know, in the streets, you can Google their name and et cetera. That's their job for individual, believe it or not, I've never met someone who just buying without consuming. What I met 99% of the time is people buying much more than they can possibly consume.

00:26:32 Um, because guess what? There is a limit of what you can consume per day. Uh, and so if you're buying more than that, then effectively you're starting, you're starting a collection, but it's, it's almost impossible and conceptually won't work just to buy without, uh, without being interested, without sharing, without drinking, without, uh, having this path there. Uh, and the thing is, the following is like if you don't buy with passion, you will tend to buy the high names that are high because of whatever. And guess what? The higher you are, the more likely the prices will go down and the more you know, the more early you will find the next names. So, so it's effectively you have no other route than reading, meaning, sharing, going to the vineyard, attending tasting so that you will recognize the name that will go so, if you want to go the investment route, you need to do that with passion, if not mechanically. That won't work.

00:27:30 Giovanni Binello: And I want to come back to something you said before. So you said it might happen that some artist actually goes a bit down in popularity because maybe they go out of fashion, or some, some new artist might emerge and it happens that actually young artists emerge from nowhere, or I can think also of fashion, fashion, yeah, it happens more and more often that new brands which are much less flashy, without like huge names, huge brands actually become a lot popular in the luxury segment, no? So you see a lot of people buying some new unknown brand instead of Louis Vuitton or other brands. So my question is, do you think there's space in the wine market also for this to happen? So we will see some new producers with modern names, a bit unknown names, younger brands, which might, actually become fine

00:28:21 Amayés Aouli: wines or reach that level.

00:28:23 Yeah, absolutely, and again, wine and art are absolutely related into that. So just before technology and to come back into more your space before technology, if you're an artist, a wine maker, you're encapsulated into a, gender if you want, right? You're impressionist or you know, you're modern art or you're whatever. Same for wine. You are burgundian producers, Bordeaux producer, Champagne, Piemonte, Tuscany, et cetera. Now with technology, you've got much more direct access, right? And if you're cool, if you're crazy, if your wine is good, you can skip out that path, and that's why you've got independent fashion producers, independent artists, independent winemaker that are not part of a group, not part of a school, not part of a region, and that can go go like that. So the time to recognize your value is actually made faster by the capacity of broadcasting it. And it's happens in singing, right? Like, you can have someone like after three weeks, oh my god, the song is great, like you don't need to belong to hip hop or, or classical school or whatever and then take 10 years to get known. And that, that's probably a good thing for technology. The bad thing is like, Hey, where's the consistency here? Because I don't want to live in a world whereby it's like flashy pop stars for two weeks and then moving and moving again, I think it will be, uh, you know, brand tiring. But, but apart from that, um, from that small drawbacks, I think that it has a lot, a lot of effect. And we start to see that, we start to see producers from region that are less known and, you know, some innovative person here or there that's actually doing better than the established region.

00:29:57 The same trend we see, like some counter example, like you, you take Château Lafleur, for instance, which is one of the most iconic wine producers in Pomerol. They decided this year to get out from the Pomerol appellation, so that they don't have any rules to follow guidelines, mainly on irrigation, on wine making, on grapes that they could grow, just to say like: "I'm done". And Liber Pater, who's one of the most highest priced wine in in the world, he's actually in Bordeaux, but it's in Vin France. So like he doesn't want to have any boundaries to what he can, produce. So yeah, you've got this between collective and individuality dialogue, relationship that is completely helped and pushed by, by modern technology.

00:30:40 Yeah.

00:30:42 Giovanni Binello: What's the impact of, you mentioned this choice of leaving an appellation, does it have an impact actually on the perceived value of the wine and on the pricing options also, for example?

00:30:53 Amayés Aouli: I don't think the relationship is that is, is as direct as, uh, as that. So an appellation is a structured framework so that everyone can do the same and collectively grow the name, Burgundy and then within it Mersault, and um, or Montrachet, this kind of thing. So it's a structure, right, to give you guidelines so that it's not a gazillion amount of people doing crazy things here or there. Leaving an appellation is actually a gesture to do the exact opposite. To say, I want freedom to do the wine I want with the grape, I want, et cetera. And so this freedom is both sides, right?

00:31:25 It's good when it's creating something exceptional, with a good wine maker, good storytelling, and it can be a certain degree bad because it means that the appellation is not helping collectively to grow. So if I'm a nearby producer, I will like, Hey, why is this guys leaving? I mean, we help him for like 50 years and now as soon as he starts to become famous, We out and so on. So it's it's a complex debate, which, you know, I think it case by case, but it's, it's very complex between collective and individual actions.

00:31:57 Giovanni Binello: And what's the role of, and what's the impact of actually an auction price and the results of an auction on these kind of assessments. So before you were mentioning, of course, an artist might disappear, a wine might disappear. How does it work? I mean, if an auction goes bad if an ocean goes well, I imagine most of them go well, but it happens, what's the impact on the fluctuation

00:32:22 Amayés Aouli: of the price?

00:32:24 That's a very good question. so the auction, the only thing that it's giving you, it's giving you the level of interest in your wine, Uh, in your, in, in the set vintages, we've got version per vintages as well, in the future. So from the past and into the future. Right? So, and it's just a present point. So it's a level of love, effectively, uh, and a level of price. So it's giving to the producers a kind of trajectory. One auction, not meaningful. Many, many auction, then it's starting to give you a trend, a trend up a trend soft, a trend down, and it's giving you the way of which your bottles and your previous vintages are being shared and exchanged. I think there is a dangerous zone when the auction is actually selling your bottles lower than your primary markets, because it means effectively that clients, wine lovers, people can find your bottles usually with some maturity, with some rarity embedded, lower cheaper than the retail. So your retail will becoming much more difficult and then you will start to, again, like in a love relationship, you will start to feel less love here whereby it was a question of price. So when it's up fine, you can continue your journey, you can continue to have your allocation to, to sell your wine, et cetera. And and the producers, to be honest, they're looking at auction far more often than not right now, I think they are the, the number one people registering into the auction just to be able to see the prices. So I think that's the relationship that's in place here.

00:33:55 Giovanni Binello: And we were speaking about like new brands that might emerge. On this podcast we had, um, a lot of producers, which are not like typical wine producers. We had some natural wine producers, we had some, uh, low alcohol, no alcohol producers. Do you see those products actually at some point reach the level

00:34:14 Amayés Aouli: of the fine wines that we have Well, uh. Yes, and, and no because it depends on the liquid, the product, and the producers. So, yes, because guess what, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti is a natural wine, is biodynamic. Guess what, Domaine Leroy is a natural wine, is biodynamic. And guess what? Henri Jayer was one of the first wine producers to do that. So effectively being closer to nature, whether you want to call that biodynamic, organic or whatever is part of the trajectory and there is no way back here, right? So it's effectively not the main turning point here. The real question is the rarity and the aging potential. So if it's rare, fine, auction as a mechanism will help this rarity And if age is giving an additional element of taste, then it helps rarity by default and then it help the prices as a consequence when you take, for instance, no alcohol wine, I don't think, and I'm not sure they can age. Might be wrong, it might be my misunderstanding of the, of the content of the product, but I don't think they can age. If you're thinking about someone producing, as good as it can be, it's not a question of taste here and you will notice that I've never said the world good or bad, but if someone is producing a liquid that can be replicated as some spirits, for instance, where it's more recipe element, then there is no nothing at auction, right? So auction rewards the rarity and the time.

00:35:46 Giovanni Binello: Okay, interesting. So I would like to move to let's say the final section of this interview,

00:35:53 Amayés Aouli: Sure.

00:35:54 Giovanni Binello: Which is what I like to call the quick fire, uh, I know we're

00:35:58 Amayés Aouli: Italian and French, so probably

00:36:01 Quick quick is not part of our DNA, a part of right?

00:36:03 Giovanni Binello: us.

00:36:05 Amayés Aouli: È impossibile, Giovanni We can

00:36:07 Giovanni Binello: We can try.

00:36:09 We, I think we are more people to get a glass of wine, have a

00:36:12 Amayés Aouli: hours

00:36:13 Giovanni Binello: lunch, maybe. That's a bit of a better setting for us.

00:36:15 Amayés Aouli: Exactly.

00:36:16 Giovanni Binello: But yeah, the idea would be I would ask you some questions not necessarily linked between each other. And I would like you maybe to answer like really in a few sentences, give me your point of view.

00:36:25 Amayés Aouli: Sure.

00:36:26 Giovanni Binello: On these questions. So my first one is actually a question we ask to everyone on this podcast, and we had some really interesting points of view. So I'm curious about yours. So let's say tomorrow you wake up and you see an email saying that you inherited a winery. And that would be a winery with a lot of tradition, also a lot of budget. So which will be the first three things you do

00:36:50 Amayés Aouli: tomorrow morning?

00:36:51 Okay, is easy one. Well, I wish to receive that email. First one, I'll invest heavily in the nearby charity. Every one region has a charity, I had the chance to be the head of Hospice de Beaune, uh, which is the biggest, uh, wine charity event in Burgundy, but same applies in Bordeaux, Champagne, everywhere in the world. So will be number one there because wine is meant like that in a good vehicle. Second, I look for the best team, starting by the wine maker, but not only, in the vineyard, et cetera, because with that talent, there is nothing you can't do. And the third one, I invest in hospitality. I think a wine domain and a wine estate should be a welcoming place, so to have good times with good people. So it's easy, but that will be the three thing I do. If I receive that email, please don't hesitate to send it to me. By the way,

00:37:35 Giovanni Binello: I wish, I wish I could. So: recent news, I think it was two or three weeks ago, the new Michelin Guide for wineries What do you think will be the impact of, of that on the wine

00:37:49 Amayés Aouli: and also on the auction market in your specific

00:37:51 Giovanni Binello: case?

00:37:52 Amayés Aouli: So, funnily enough, I was in the room, uh, at the, a beautiful restaurant called La Tour d'Argent in Paris for that event. Um, listen, too soon to tell. So my understanding is that they're going to to star and to rank the producer regardless of their cuvée et cetera, uh, based on an important element, which is consistency. And so, far on many other element, but they will rate the consistency of producing good wines, which ultimately is good. I don't think they will, there will be any immediate consequences because of wine lovers and people that, uh, that know wine, they will probably look on cuvée by cuvée type of element. But again, love the Guide Michelin, they've got a proven record for restaurants and more recently at hotels. So we'll see.

00:38:38 Giovanni Binello: This is my, actually my personal curiosity. What's the craziest auction or sale you

00:38:43 Amayés Aouli: made or you saw in the Well, I had the chance to have many, many worldwide records. I will probably, and it'll be hard to be beaten, I will probably say the 2022 Hospice de Beaune wine auction where I was, um, the head of the auction and it was the biggest wine charity auction in the world. We break the record by two times, posting a casual 32 million euro, a hundred percent going to the the hospital of Beaune. And so, yeah, we break the record by almost two times and it was absolutely insane and crazy. Um, but hopefully I, I bring that to the hospital because I was close to, to be one of their guests, uh, that day.

00:39:31 Giovanni Binello: There

00:39:31 Amayés Aouli: It was 32 million

00:39:32 Giovanni Binello: the whole auction.

00:39:34 And the most expensive bottle?

00:39:36 Amayés Aouli: The most expensive bottle. Uh, so like the, well, the Hospice de Beaune is a cask auction, so cannot can think in bottle. The one i, I personally sold was in a charity dinner, at the Clos Vougeot whereby a single small bottle of white wine, uh, called, Montrachet de Saint-Romain went for 180,000 Euro, a hundred percent for charity, and I break my own record for white wine, which was before 90,000 with the same bottle. So it's, it has double the same bottle, and it's still, as of today, I think the highest price paid for a single bottle of white wine.

00:40:14 Giovanni Binello: And people actually drink those. I, I think I would think twice or thrice before

00:40:18 Amayés Aouli: drinking

00:40:18 Giovanni Binello: a 180,000 Euros bottle.

00:40:21 Amayés Aouli: Yeah, I, I think they do. I don't know for that one specifically, but I think they do in general. Yeah.

00:40:26 Giovanni Binello: So, um, since you see also a lot of different markets internationally. If you could say one market that might be the future for exports or in general, also for the wine market, what would you say that is?

00:40:42 Amayés Aouli: Well, I think the future is clearly in the Middle East region, not in a single market. First because they're starting from, you know, a smaller base, but also because they're attracting a lot of talents, a lot of investment, and a lot of of new companies. So being the Emirates, being Qatar, being Saudi Arabia, Kuwait to a certain extent, the whole region is actually a place of international meetings of international encounters. And to be honest, I, we never found, uh, better than wine to connect, uh, human beings. This is the fastest growing region, it's well documented for Dubai and it's starting to become so more and more. Of course you've got a religion and a culture to, to respect, but this is becoming an international place with international people and not only the local with a strong religion. So within the respect of, uh, of the culture, I think it's going to be a fastest growing place.

00:41:40 Giovanni Binello: Did you see or intercept one consumer trend or a change in the market that you think fine wine producers are mostly ignoring and they actually are actually not ready for in the future.

00:41:52 Amayés Aouli: I, I think the, the global de consumption is the elephant in the room. We will collectively as a humanity drink less and less, and that's good. I think we'll tend to drink better, because we're going to value the moment much more than any of our ancestor. And effectively I think they're capturing it, uh, relatively well. There is one thing which is a higher price point. I think the new generation won't be ready to pay more than a certain amount on, on the drink. But if you see it in a, you know, uh, an understandable and casual price point zone, I think, uh, yeah, uh, you'll do great. Everything. Uh, super expensive with no reason will fall because we'll have access to information. So we'll be able to compare, we'll have much more access much more easily. So, so fine for the top, top ends because that's time which gave their value, fine for like, you know, the comfort zone of the good product well priced. And I think everything below like the quantities of cheap wine, I think will disappear from our radar in less than a generation.

00:42:55 Giovanni Binello: Let's say I call you in a couple of months, hopefully, and I tell you I want to start actually to invest in wine. Where would you advise me to start investing in which region? Which wine? I mean, is there a,

00:43:10 Amayés Aouli: a

00:43:10 Giovanni Binello: target

00:43:11 Amayés Aouli: which is, say more suited than others?

00:43:14 Yeah. First I will, I will ask about your taste, your age, what you want to, like, you know, what you want to do.

00:43:18 Again, investment is a secondary nature, but, uh, still I think look for a region that are on the high. So like the Loire Valley for Italy, I'm a personal, big fan of Italian wine as you know, Giovanni, so anything especially Piemonte and Tuscany, but outside of their, that region as well you've got beautiful, um, Abruzzo, you've got beautiful wine everywhere in Italy. So look for the names that are on the high, so again, Loire and Italy are the, probably the two, the two spots I will look for. But then more than that, uh, producer names. You're starting to have some in Switzerland and Germany, uh, in Spain as well. Look outside of the natural region, but have a, a kind of like diversified, if you want portfolio with some strong names, primarily Burgundy, Bordeaux Champagne, and then add some cool element, cool aspects, out of it. But, so that would be my suggestion. And then we'll, we'll need to have a lunch, a dinner, or an aperitivo to discuss that, uh, in detail.

00:44:17 Giovanni Binello: Looking forward to it then. The final question, and this is also a question that I ask for myself because one, I make myself, I make a culture, and second, I know what to choose. So what's your

00:44:29 Amayés Aouli: favorite wine that you have ever

00:44:31 Giovanni Binello: drank?

00:44:31 Amayés Aouli: Well, the next one all the time. The next one is my favorite one because, um, walking through the, the discovery pattern, but no, like, wine is again, a good capsule from memory, and I've, uh, asked my wife, what, 20 years ago, in Tuscany, in Fiesole which is overlooking Firenze with a. A bottle of Biondi Santi, from the, from the vintage of our, our first meeting, and like the wine, the moment, uh, the time, and of course the, the nature of why we're here, is emotional. So each time I'm having that bottle, uh, I remember about that, that, that, that moment. And I think that's what again, uh, fine wine is made for, is to have, uh, to have some remembering there. But, uh, yeah, uh, I think that this one.

00:45:12 Giovanni Binello: I love it. Then, Amayés, it was a

00:45:14 Amayés Aouli: pleasure. Thanks

00:45:14 Giovanni Binello: for being on the show.

00:45:16 Amayés Aouli: Giovanni, grazie mille ancora, merci beaucoup.

00:45:19