Reader-friendly website opens world of wine
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Alvin Huang, cofounder and CEO of Vinehoo, has an innovative and adventurous spirit. He says he wants to be a person like a bottle of Gaja Barbaresco, in which the vintner Angelo Gaja boldly presents the beauty of Nebbiolo, one of the oldest grape varieties in Italy.
“I hope to use the most creative and modern approach, with mobile Internet thinking, to pass on classical wine culture,” the 32-year-old software engineer tells Shanghai Daily.
In 2008, he and his partner Roger Hou established Vinehoo, which combines a wine knowledge platform with a separate e-commerce platform. It is probably the biggest and most influential wine media in China.
His website has 20,000 unique visitors a day and 25,000 active registered users. Its weibo (Chinese version of Twitter) account has 70,000 followers.
“For a wine website targeting comparatively niche audience, the figures reflect a powerful influence in a specific group,” says Liu Jiayan, editor-in-chief of Sina.com Shanghai bureau.
At Vinehoo, everyone can write about wine and food, and knowledge is available to everyone.
“My editorial team is decentralized and we call our model ‘10 editors, 100 contributors and 1,000 wine lovers’,” says Huang, a Shanghai native.
Articles are mainly written by contributors including wine columnists, industry people and wine geeks with specialized knowledge of specific wine categories. Diverse content includes wine investment, undiscovered wine regions, food and wine pairing, wine auctions, reading menus, and other topics.
Editors mainly plan features, integrate information and examine content.
Comments and tasting experience are posted by ordinary wine drinkers.
Down-to-earth, original content is essential, Huang says, not jargon-filled writing favored by Chinese and other wine experts.
“Many Chinese wine media are addicted to writing obscure and complicated things that only they understand, more for showing off and personal amusement than communication,” says Phillip Gao, publisher and editor-in-chief of Le Vin Wine.
“That’s because some of them position themselves as professional media while Vinehoo is mass media,” Huang explains.
His content is reader-friendly, with topics such as “10 things you should know about German Riesling” and “10 Burgundies worth trying.”
Instead of abstract wine critics’ words such as “feminine, implicit and elegant,” Vinehoo uses concrete taste descriptions such as acidity, astringency and alcohol strength.
The website is practical, including pairing food and wine. Editors are working on a Chinese wine restaurant guide.
Last year, Huang launched an e-learning platform with China’s first and biggest wine database. It introduces around 1,000 grape varieties.
The price database lets users enter a wine. It then shows prices of various distribution channels, both online and off, including supermarkets, restaurants and wine shops. Many are competitors. Prices are frequently updated. Compiling is laborious.
Chinese wine media are improving, generating original content instead of copying and translating articles from Western media, Huang says. Much is due to new multicultural wine editors with overseas education.
The editor-in-chief is Michel Ning, a graduate of ESC Dijon Bourgogne with a master’s degree in international wine and spirits business. The deputy is Oliver Zhou, a graduate of the University of Southern California.
Huang used to work for IBM where he had to entertain many clients from state-owned enterprises. Drinking is the traditional way of socializing in China.
He considers himself li ke nan, a science geek, but with a literary touch.
He is determined to keep his side of the enterprise independent and separate from sales,
He greatly admires English business magnate Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, now developing commercial space travel.
“My biggest dream is going to Mars,” says Huang who enjoys space science fiction that involves “daring to dream and taking risk.”
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