Le vin est ce qu'il y a de plus civilisé au monde.

Le vin est ce qu'il y a de plus civilisé au monde.

This statement from French Renaissance writer François Rabelais translates to: wine is what is most civilized in the world. For reasons I will explain, I am not at this level... yet.

I grew up in New York to French-American parents and attended a French high school, the Lycée Français de New York. As a byproduct of my French education, I grew up drinking French wine. To top it off, my great-grandmother's cousin was Nicolas Ruinart, the founder of the oldest champagne house. However, despite my upbringing, I know very little about wine, largely because I frankly find the number of châteaux impossible to keep track of. However, I do know quite a bit about a less civilized alcoholic beverage: beer.

This summer I worked at AB InBev in their accelerator program within their corporate venture fund, ZX Ventures. I was focused on reviving a British legacy beer within their portfolio called Bass. After interviewing 60+ men between 21 and 35, I became acutely aware of the emotional drivers that support purchase decisions in alcohol. My team's hypothesis was that, as men graduate from college and enter the workforce, they trade-up from light beers (lagers) like BudLight to IPAs to signal that they are "grown up." Yet, most of these men don't even like IPAs. I am curious to explore similar evolutions in psychology and taste within wine over the course of a consumer's lifecycle.

A key concern for ABI and the beer industry as a whole is that beer will undergo "winification" - this means that beer will no longer be known through the power of its brands but by its varieties (IPA, lager, weissbier, etc.). I am curious to explore the consolidations in the wine market and ways that wineries have developed (and protected) their brands.

Through this course, I am excited to fill the gap in my French education and enter the ranks of the most civilized.