Q&A: Jason Ginsberg and Mandy Chan

The couple behind Hong Kong fine wine merchant Ginsberg+Chan share their insights on the market, its future prospects and how they’re celebrating 15 years in business.

How did your passion for wine begin?

Mandy: "Jay, you tell the story." Jason: "It came about at a dinner party after many bottles of wine. We hatched this crazy scheme of moving to Hong Kong and getting into the wine business. Once we decided that’s what we wanted to do we really dove into it doing our WSET and travelling around the world to wine regions." Mandy: "We were definitely approaching it from the excitement of being entrepreneurs in wine as much as anything else. The way we opened our wine business in Hong Kong did come from a very outside-looking-in perspective. In Hong Kong at the time there was a UK merchant-style of selling wine. We came from a very Canadian perspective."

How would you describe the Canadian perspective?

Jason: "I always joke that as Canadians we appreciate the word ‘value’ – getting something that’s an excellent product at a good price - but our customers here don’t care about that word so much. It’s often easier to sell a case of DRC La Tache than it is to sell a really cool up-and-coming new Burgundy producer that we’ve discovered." Mandy: "We tend to attract the real wine geeks that are looking for value in that regard. That’s worked for us, but it’s still slightly different to the Canadian value in some ways. We’re not trying to do cheap, but we are trying to do a certain type of cool. I find that somms really like our list because of that. They like to see all the cool names in there with the baller names and the super geeky ones, so they tend to really appreciate our list, but I’m not so sure that everybody gets it."

Why is it important to keep the cool-meets-value aspect?

Mandy: "It represents who we are. If we were just to look at the numbers we might not stock all the wines we do, but because it's our business, we have no other investors, we want to do a little bit of what we like too." Jason: "Yeah. We buy pretty much everything we own because we really believe in it. We curate our list, and I don’t want it to just be the classic stuff because it’s too predictable and too easily replicated. A lot of the stuff that we pepper our inventory with is stuff we think is great value. There’s wine I really love and nobody gets yet, but I’m usually vindicated years later. We have one of the most eclectic lists in Asia and there are a lot of people who really appreciate it."

How is the market changing?

Jason: "When we first got started there was one wine and one wine only: Bordeaux. Eventually the market broadened to Burgundy, but I think in the last five years we’ve seen a real opening up in terms of appreciation for other regions, even outside of Europe. Ten years ago if we told our clients, ‘hey, try this incredible Pinot from Oregon’ they would have said ‘Thanks, but no thanks’. Now Pinot from Oregon is one of our best sellers. It would be nice to sell La Tache everyday to everybody, but it’s also nice when people appreciate that there are other great wines and they’re not embarrassed to put them on the table beside La Tache."

What is pushing this change?

Mandy: "The more the Chinese market opens up the more we are going to see that. If you look at Chinese customers, they're much more open minded. China itself is producing wines that are not just Bordeaux blends. They’re experimenting with lots of different grapes. In the future we’re thinking that we might start to stock some Chinese wines. That would be really exciting for us."

We’ve talked about how the market has changed, but how have you changed and grown as business owners?

Jason: "Our approach is much more structured now than it was in the early days. It was much more flying by the seat of our pants because the market was pretty wild back then." Mandy: "In general, I don’t think we’ve massively shifted. We've always wanted to have a wine list that was super cool. I know cool is subjective, but what we think is cool. We’ve always wanted to do that and I think we’ve stuck by that. Now, while the market is changing, it just gives us more bandwidth to dedicate our inventory to that than before."

What are people drinking right now in Hong Kong?

Jason: "Burgundy is still king here. White Burgundy in particular has really taken off. Selling white wine five years ago was not easy, but I would say it’s almost become easier now to sell white wine than red wine. If you had said that to us 10 years ago I would have thought you were crazy. Now, we do loads of white burgundies; Chardonnay from Oregon; wines from all over Jura; Champagne has really taken off. "Bordeaux has come back as well, but old Bordeaux, and mainly because the prices are so compelling. You can go back and find a 30-year-old Bordeaux for the price of a really nice village or a mediocre premier cru from Burgundy. We put a lot of effort into finding really good 1980s and ’90s Bordeaux, and they just fly when we have them."

What exciting new projects do you have coming up?

Mandy: "We’ve just launched our first Burgundy trip, which is taking place in July. We have some local partners in Burgundy that we're really excited about – they're going to show off Burgundy in a way that speaks to us. There’s nothing better than trying a wine with the producer, having access to that, seeing their story and what they’re about."

Are there any challenges you are proud to have overcome?

Mandy: "15 years is a long time. Our 10th-year anniversary was when the protests were happening here. We felt like it wasn’t the right time to celebrate because Hong Kong was in a really bad place. So much has happened to Hong Kong - the city, the industry, us personally - and now I feel like it’s time that we celebrate it. There are challenges but the simple fact that we’re still here is cause to celebrate." Jason: "I feel like we’ve made it through the hardest parts. The last few years have been really challenging on so many levels – personally, financially. But I feel optimistic about the next five years. We’re already seeing changes; the city is definitely coming back. There are new restaurants popping up everyday, there are people moving back to the city. Hong Kong has come out of a convulsion and is now forming its new identity. It’s a new era for Hong Kong, which is definitely more Chinese. Mandy and I are excited to be here and to be part of that."