The Fizz #93: Chin-Wu Chen is bringing organically farmed California wines to Taiwan
Chin-Wu Chen speaks about his history as a seismologist, pivoting to wine, and staying connected with Taiwan through sharing California wines.
For this issue of The Fizz, I spoke over Zoom with wine importer/exporter Chin-Wu Chen of Lolo House Wines, his recently launched company, importing sustainably made wines from small California makers to Taiwan. Chin-Wu has a fascinating history. He grew up in Taiwan and studied seismology, developing high-resolution seismic array imaging tools that help us better understand Earth’s interior, and earning his PhD in the United States. After burning out in academia, he began working at Matthiasson and fell in love with organic viticulture and natural wine. Then inspiration hit. Here was an opportunity to bring together two worlds, introducing the Taiwanese market to organic wines from small California makers.
Through Lolo House, Chin-Wu is doing the forward-thinking work of introducing California wines to a market that is growing, interested, and ready for an infusion of exciting and thoughtfully made product. His story is one of many small business owners across the country, building a company out of passion and determination. I’m excited to see Lolo House grow and small California winemakers be celebrated across Taiwan and beyond.
Margot: Tell me a little bit about yourself. When we first met, you mentioned that you were a seismologist in your past.
Chin-Wu: Yes, I got a PhD in seismology and worked as an assistant professor in Taiwan doing research, studying earthquakes, and also teaching students.
Margot: What does studying earthquakes mean? How did you get into that?
Chin-Wu: I grew up in Taiwan, born and raised in Taipei, the capital city where I’m talking to you from right now. I happen to be pretty good at taking exams. As an Asian child, the best thing you can do for yourself and to make your parents proud is to get good grades, go to good schools, and get a stable and respectful job.
I moved through Taiwan’s education system fairly smoothly as it’s mostly based on standardized exams. Why earth science? Most of the departments and programs I picked as interests were about the outdoors, so forest programs, geology programs, or science programs, because at that time I didn’t know better [laughs]. I felt like I was an outdoorsy type, so I thought this would be a good career path, studying geology, studying forests.
Margot: What does it look like to study earthquakes? What was your day-to-day?
Chin-Wu: In seismology, you actually spend a lot of time in front of computers. I analyzed all the seismic signals right when earthquakes happen. Nowadays, there are sensors around the globe that record all these vibrations caused by earthquakes anywhere around the world. So I collected those, and there’s a central repository. Every country has a central repository of databases open for the science scientific community to use.
I downloaded those data sets and analyzed the data, using earthquake signals to study the history of the earth. Basically when an earthquake happens, the vibrations actually travel through the interior of the earth, like the whole earth. The earth is like a bell being rung by all these vibrations. By recording them, analyzing those signals, we can trace back the path of those energies traveling inside the earth. The core of the earth is made of iron alloy and heavy metals, and there’s mantle with all the different rocks, but because of the high temperature and pressure, the rocks can flow—that’s the middle part of the earth. I was studying the interior structure of the earth and how the earth came to be.
Margot: Wow, incredibly interesting. Is there anything that you learned during your time that was a mind blowing moment?
Chin-Wu: I was studying how we got all these continents being preserved on the surface of the earth, not being consumed or destroyed over billions of years. My most proud result is that I found that—well, at that time I was studying the Canadian continent, which was one of the oldest continents on earth still preserved at about 3.5 billion years old. So it’s almost as old as the earth itself. I was studying that using earthquake signals.
On earth, there’s the plate tectonic theory. You actually interviewed a winemaker a while ago, Shelby Perkins. She was explaining about subduction and plate tectonics. So I was also studying that and I realized that the whole dynamic system of Earth actually started operating as early as 3.5 billion years ago. In geological time, almost as soon as Earth was formed, the Earth had this dynamic system going on. That’s how we got all these continents. [Read more about Chin-Wu’s work in seismology through his cited articles. There are many!]
Margot: Wow that is wild! So you became a seismologist. What happened between you doing that work and coming to the United States?
Chin-Wu: I actually did my PhD in the US. I spent seven years living in in the United States and then got a faculty position offer back in Taiwan, so I moved back to Taiwan after my degree. I was teaching at the university and felt like I would be a scientist or a scholar as a career and move through the academic ladder and retire, things like that.
I never thought of other possibilities. Quite unexpectedly, a few years into my academic career in Taiwan, I realized I was losing steam. Seismology is a hard science. We don’t usually get motivated students. Looking back, that’s my theory, maybe part of the reason I left. I was so enthusiastic about the science, but it’s hard to convey or bring students into the same state. I was getting bored and couldn’t see myself doing this until retirement.
I also met my future partner at that time, and she was also thinking about pivoting from her previous career and moving to the United States to learn English and do something else. I was inspired by her. She moved to San Francisco while I was still working in Taiwan. We were long distance across the Pacific for two years. It was not sustainable. So I decided to take a leave of absence from my teaching job and moved to San Francisco with her.
Margot: Did you have an idea of what you wanted to do?
Chin-Wu: No!
Margot: So, how did you end up in wine?
Chin-Wu: I was curious about wine in college, and especially when I was in the US actually, I was exposed to wine there, because it’s easy to access. You can buy wine in Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.
I didn’t know anything about wine. My parents do not drink. I started picking random bottles—the quality was hit or miss. But gradually, I became the wine guy because I was the most interested in wine among my friends. I’d be tasked with getting a bottle of wine for a party or for a dinner. I wasn’t serious about wine until later when I moved to San Francisco.
San Francisco is really close to Napa, and my partner, she knew I was starting to get seriously interested in wine, and she actually suggested that I should move to Napa and give it a try. I’m eternally grateful for her support. In 2017, we moved to Napa not knowing what to do, but realized there is a college called Napa Valley College—a community college. It’s really affordable and has a nice viticulture and winemaking program. Anyone can take classes there and you don’t have to be a full-time student.
I started taking general viticulture classes and tasting classes. They have six week tasting classes focusing on just one country, like wines of France, wines of Spain, things like that. I realized, oh, there is so much to learn about wine! That was really the starting point of my wine education.
Margot: Did you feel that because you had an academic background, it was easy for you to jump into wine education?
Chin-Wu: Definitely. But with wine, it’s not just exams or memorization. There’s a hands-on component, so that’s really interesting and new to me. It’s not just reading books. I can actually do something. So I decided to become a full-time student and take all the classes.
Margot: Did you have a goal in mind or was it just out of interest and we’ll see what happens?
Chin-Wu: Just see what happens. Then one thing led to another. One semester in, I met a fellow classmate who was a sommelier working at a local bar in Napa and she knew someone from Treasury Wine Estates, which owns Beringer. At that time, they were looking for a Mandarin speaking tour guide to cater to their Asian buyers, especially buyers from China. There were not many Chinese speaking people living in Napa. That classmate made an introduction, and I got the job because of my native language.
Margot: What was that experience like?
Chin-Wu: It was a lot of fun. It was my introduction to hospitality, doing tours and wine tastings. I was there for about two years, all the way until the pandemic. Then there was a hiatus. Everything reset. After two years at Beringer, drinking all this new oak, 15% alcohol—classic big Napa wine. I felt a little bit over-saturated. Beringer was a big, more commercial winery. There was only so much I could do. I did tours, I did wine tastings, but I almost never met the winemaker. I never knew anything beyond the tasting notes.
The scholar part of me was feeling that something was missing. I wanted to learn more. The pandemic gave me a nice opportunity to reflect on what I really wanted to do with wine. I knew I was interested in organic farming and during the pandemic I became more concerned about global warming and climate change. I did some online boot camps trying to get into that realm. I was applying for some tech jobs, thinking that I could apply my previous scientific training to do something related to climate change. Maybe data analysis or something like that, but I didn’t succeed. Then I realized that organic farming and is also a way of tackling climate change.
After the pandemic, I started applying for smaller wineries that focused on organic agriculture. I applied to Matthiasson and I applied to Frog’s Leap. Those were the only two wineries that I wanted to work for. I didn’t get a job at Frog’s Leap, but then Matthiasson got back to me.
Margot: Was it a big culture shock, going from Beringer to Matthiasson?
Chin-Wu: Oh yes! Totally. I feel really lucky to work at Matthiasson. The setting, the intimacy, the personable environment, and especially Steve is so inspiring. My first day, he sat down with me and another person, another new hire for three hours working us through most of the wines he made and talking about his philosophy, walking us into the vineyard.
I spent two years at Beringer. I saw the winemaker maybe once. But since day one, Steve was right there and ready to bring us in. That is really inspiring.
Margot: Do you get to spend a lot of time with him today? What’s your relationship with Steve and Jill?
Chin-Wu: They are extremely busy, so I don’t think I spend as much time with them as I would like, but whenever I get a chance or if I have questions, I can stop them anytime and say, hey, do you have five minutes? Steve is so willing to share and teach. He would start for talking for 20, 30 minutes until Jill came over saying, hey it’s time to go. That’s their fun dynamic that I observe, and part of what makes Matthiasson work. Jill takes great care of the business, while Steve has the space to be more adventurous.
Margot: You’ve started your own importing, or I guess I should say exporting company, selling wines in Taiwan. It seems that you found a way to continue the connection that you have with your hometown.
Chin-Wu: It actually has to do with Steve and Jill again. I’ve been working at Matthiasson since the summer of ‘22 and around the end of ‘24, I decided that I just love their wines and their philosophy and I had an urge to share it. Because I still have the connection with my country, with Taiwan, I feel like the best way for me to share Steve and Jill’s work with more people, is to go back to my country and use my language. They were really supportive. Even though Taiwan is a small market, it’s probably not helping too much for the business, but they were really supportive and happy to see me move into a different path.
Margot: What is the wine culture like in Taiwan? Is it a big drinking culture?
Chin-Wu: Yes. Most people drink beer and whiskey—those are the two most popular beverages. Wine comes in as a third.
Margot: Who’s drinking wine in Taiwan? What is the demographic? Is it more of a celebration beverage? It sounds like it’s not an everyday beverage?
Chin-Wu: So in Taiwan, the imported wine, more than 50% of the wines are from France. The wine culture is really niche. Many people see Burgundy as the only wine that you can drink. That’s still living in the past. Some of those people are influential writers, right? Or in the wine industry, having an education in France is what people look to. That has shaped the landscape of wine in Taiwan for several decades. Since maybe the eighties, nineties. French wines are the pinnacle of wine there, and American wine is nothing.
But the younger generation—I’m talking about from twenty-somethings to forty-somethings, they are more open-minded. They are trying all the different wines from different countries, not just Bordeaux and Burgundy anymore. Especially in the past five years or so, natural wine is becoming a trend in Taiwan. So in Taipei City, a city of two million people, there were more than twenty new wine bars popping up in the last five years. They’re focusing on natural wine.
Margot: It sounds like your job is twofold. One is education helping folks understand why American wines are interesting and why they should care about them and two is actually putting the bottles in hand, right? Saying here’s why you need to be drinking this exact thing that I have for you.
Chin-Wu: It’s definitely both. When I introduce American wine, especially new California wine to the market, and this is a market where people only know about Opus One and Mondavi, the Robert Parker era of Napa wines, I find it really challenging to let them know that there is another type of wine in California as well.
I started my business exactly a year ago. I imported 1,000 bottles back in Taiwan and did some industry tastings around this time last year. The feedback I got was okay, these are from Napa, but they don’t taste like Napa. I say this is actually what Napa tastes like. You have to turn their heads around.
Margot: When you’re introducing these wines, are you mostly going through natural wine bars? Are they more interested in the product, or are you focusing on the broader market as well?
Chin-Wu: Exactly. At this moment I’m focusing on wine bars or restaurants that have a wide list focusing on natural wine.
Margot: Are you working with any other producers besides Matthiasson?
Chin-Wu: I work with Megan Bell of Margins, but unfortunately she’s closing her winery. I also work with Tessier. So right now I’m representing these three brands.
Margot: What does your future look like? Are you trying to bring on different producers, or are you focusing on making headway into Taiwan with Matthiasson?
Chin-Wu: I’m definitely trying to get to know more local producers. I would love to tap into Oregon and Washington later, and even the Finger Lakes. But at the moment I feel like because I have to travel back and forth, between San Francisco and Taiwan—that’s enough travel for me. I’d love to go to Maine Wild Wine Fest!
Margot: We’d love to have you!
Chin-Wu: Through learning more about different producers, I’m getting to know the landscape because I myself am still learning. I’d like to go visit more producers that align with the story I’m trying to tell, but at the moment, my top priority is to move through my inventory.
Margot: What kind of story are you trying to tell? What are you looking for to bring back home?
Chin-Wu: The story of the winemaker is most important for the consumers in Taiwan. For example I represent two female winemakers, so that’s interesting, it’s new for those consumers. I really want to focus on organic farming and why a winemaker decides to go that route. The technical part of winemaking is not that interesting to them yet. I also like to talk about the geology and climate of this area.
Margot: Do you find your geology history intersecting with the work that you do? Does it help you understand your work or explain your work?
Chin-Wu: Definitely. I myself enjoy that intersection. I can use some of the knowledge I learned in my previous life to help me better understand the region, and to get that across to my audience. But I have to be careful because not every wine drinker wants to know—many just don’t care about that side.
Margot: There are folks who have a similar intersection of wine and geology that can be in quite high demand in California—basically, terroir consultants, in a way. Did you ever consider going that route or a soil consultant route?
Chin-Wu: Yes, but I realized that soil consultancy is quite different from my background, since my background is pretty purely academic. I see bigger pictures. I can talk to you about how California was being formed 145 million years ago, but it’s hard to directly or immediately put that into the context of a vineyard. I like that story, and I like to talk about that whenever I get a chance, but there is definitely a gap. I took a class on soil science when I was at Napa Valley College, but it’s not just geology, and it definitely not plate tectonics, although they are related.
Margot: One thing we touched on when we last spoke was the purchasing system in Taiwan. As an importer, do you feel that you have stronger access to retailers or to the consumer? You can sell directly, is that right?
Chin-Wu: Definitely. I went to several wine fairs already last year. I set up a booth and offer free tastings with other importers. If they want to buy, I can directly hand over a bottle to them. No middle person.
Margot: You’ve gone a year with this business. When you look into the future of Lolo House, what kind of challenges and opportunities are you seeing?
Chin-Wu: As a one person company at the moment, it’s not easy. My mom is my angel investor. The challenge is definitely cash flow. If I can’t sell my inventory quick enough, the turnaround would be delay. Then it would be hard for me to go to another producer, and import more wine. That’s definitely a limited resource. The capital is certainly the biggest challenge.
Margot: Are you buying outright from winemakers? Purchasing a pallet and then it’s up to you to sell that pallet in Taiwan?
Chin-Wu: Yes. Is there another way? I don’t know.
Margot: Maybe? I’ve heard some people do it on a consignment or pre-order system? I wonder if there are other types of financing systems.
Chin-Wu: There could be a pre-order system but that happens if the market already knows about the wine. Opus One will be always on pre-order basis. Maybe we’ll get there. That’s the hope. That’s the goal.
Margot: Are you considering any outside investment?
Chin-Wu: I would welcome investment, but this is my first time running a business. I have a really narrow business education. I’m figuring it out as I go along. It’s fun, but at the same time it’s scary.
Margot: How do you see Lolo House evolving?
Chin-Wu: I would definitely hope that I can be the go-to importer when people in Taiwan think about American wine, especially American natural wine or natural leaning wines. I hope to be that importer. Maybe even more important to me is sharing the idea behind organic farming. So basically sharing Steve Matthiasson’s whole philosophy, to make his philosophy or in general the natural wine philosophy more known to the Taiwanese market.
Margot: I’m excited to see how Lolo House thrives! Thanks for your time—hope to see you in Taiwan someday.
You can support Chin-Wu’s work by following Lolo House on Instagram. If you’re a winemaker interested in getting your wines to the Taiwanese market, reach out to Chin-Wu on Instagram via DM. If you’re interested in investing, reach out—the Taiwanese wine market is growing tremendously.