I wrote about my plans at the beginning of this year.  One of this plans was to have a big summer party at the Buon Respiro. And this did happen! Many family and friends came on June 22. Next year it should be still bigger. Reserve the last Saturday in June to come to Umbria.

I am now  living the life of a business man. I understand that spending also 5000 Euro for a small winery is an important expenditure and there is the immediate question of "return on investment". Nevertheless WineSong (my Italian-Chinese company) has now 2 promotion contracts for Umbrian Wine in China, a third one in the pipeline. We shipped 1000 sample bottles in spring and now we are assaulting the market. WineSong works on 3 levels, as a promotion agency to find importers for our wineries, as importer, who sells to distributers and resellers and we have also 2 Internet platforms to sell to the public. Theoretically a perfect coverage from B2B to B2C.  Obviously all this works  only, because WineSong is a Italian/Chinese joint venture.

At this moment I am in departure for a 3 month stage in China. Investment conference and agricultural fair in Chengdu, wine fairs in Shanghai and Qingtian, "many open bars" and tastings, especially in Beijing and Guangzhou.  In between these activities I will work 4 weeks with my friends from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science. I am not separating completely from Agricultural Data and Information Management and I am acquiring a distinct knowledge of precision viticulture. I am looking very much forward to my stage in China.

These are turbulent times, in which sovranism is invading the left and the right. Liberal values are under serious threat. It is worrying that Xi Jinping seems one of the most reasonable politicians on the scene. I am in font of further globalization and integration of this world, I am strongly in favour of the liberal values that we   made to rights in the last 40 years. And I strongly believe that capitalism is a success story if it is continuously  linked back to social responsibillity. We still can learn from Ludwig Erhard, Robert Kennedy or Ralf Dahrendorf, but also from Nelson Mandela and Deng Xiaoping.  Sometimes I get the idea to engage and to start on the political level again. But I am much too cynical for doing this. I don't want to convince the "masses" anymore.  So I am simply watcher of the situation.  I am particularly curious what will come out of the further development of AI, something what most politicians seem not to understand even basically.

Sometimes I comment on my facebook page.