When I first arrived in Vietnam... I fell in love with Hanoi! I knew I was going to be a Hanoian from the moment I set foot in this town. That was 12 years ago. I spent six crazy years here before work took me down south to Saigon.
Returning to Hanoi makes me feel... like I am coming home. My wife comes from this city, too. Forget all that talk about Saigon or Phnom Penh being the jewels of Southeast Asia. Hanoi is the real jewel. I couldn’t feel better right now.
The challenge of doing business in this city... is to understand your client’s needs! The wine market here is in some ways extremely well-developed. In others it’s still very immature. There are those customers out there, the connoisseurs, who really know their wine and are prepared to spend big bucks on top quality reserves. But then you will see some wine drinkers drinking a premium wine like the Chateau Mouton Rothschild 2000 with ice and lemon. The mot tram phan tram culture is still a big thing and with wine drinking it’s no different.
The wine business in Vietnam is all about... branding, tasting, knowledge, friendship, training and more training! And that’s just the start of it.
My competitors should watch out because... I am 105kg and I take up a lot of space. I don’t mince my words, either.
I only just realiSed that... although I have seriously missed Hanoi, I really need to buy some warmer clothes.
Frenchmen have the biggest... egos. Well, probably. But I guess we all knew that anyway. The rest is normal sized.
My greatest achievement is... my family, of course! And my team in Ho Chi Minh City, too. I hope I will be able to have the same confidence, respect, fun and pride with all the people I work with in Hanoi. If it works out it will be a blast.
My idea of perfect happiness... is going through a bottle of Rockford Basket Press Shiraz with friends in a high-end restaurant. And that’s before we move onto the big boys!
If I could change one thing about myself... I would change absolutely nothing. I am handsome, awesome, intelligent and, best of all, French!
