Meet Ian Dai: The Rebellious Chinese Winemaker

The college dropout is now an independent winemaker, selling wines both in China and internationally.

Seventeen years ago, Ian Dai made a decision that would alter the course of his life. Then a college freshman in Australia, Dai found himself at odds with his family. What began as a seemingly significant dispute—now faded into distant memory—led Dai to drop out of school and return to China. 

Upon return, he ventured into the booming fine wine retail industry in Shanghai, right in the midst of a golden era marked by the rise of the “red obsession”.

What followed was a decade-long trial and discovery. Dai immersed himself in various roles as a sommelier, retailer, consultant, and educator. Yet, something was amiss. 

“I have explored every aspect of the wine world and tasted everything I desired,” Dai reflected on his decision to start his own brand, XiaoPu, his natural wine brand, in 2017. “Creating a wine that I truly want was the only thing I hadn’t yet accomplished.”

Right from the start, he embraced the “slow wine” philosophy during a pivotal moment when China’s fine wine market began to shift. Today, he’s recognized as an unconventional Chinese winemaker, fiercely charting his own path. 

Dai the Person: His Experience and Personality

In 2008, Dai spent a year working in a wine retail shop in Shanghai, followed by a sommelier position at Da Marco and the Fairmont Peace Hotel.

After completing his two-year contract with the Fairmont Peace Hotel, Dai joined a start-up focused on a wine-related social media platform, gaining valuable management experience in the early stages of a business before venturing into entrepreneurship.

Following the social media project, Dai served as a consultant for WINE100, a wine competition in China, and for Penguin Guide (企鹅吃喝), a lifestyle influencer initiative. He then joined Amazon as a wine and spirits buyer.

However, at the global e-commerce giant, Dai felt a lack of job security. “The senior management at Amazon was considering shutting down the China business, while many in China were unaware of it,” he recalled. “It was a difficult time. The business kept declining, but everyone pretended everything was fine.” 

By the time he left Amazon, Dai was at a breaking point. He had spent a decade exploring every corner of the wine industry—retail, sommelier work, consulting, corporate buying—but the gnawing sense of incompleteness remained.

“Most things were boring to me,” Dai recalled his beginning of entrepreneurship, after leaving Amazon, “I drank all Bordeaux fine wines of different vintages, and felt a decreasing interest in the world of wine: I had done many things I could.”

About XiaoPu, the Nomad Wine Brand

In 2017, Dai took a leap of faith. With a small team of fewer than five people, he founded XiaoPu, a natural wine brand that embodied his rebellious spirit and his belief in what he calls “slow wine.”

XiaoPu is not your typical winery. It owns no vineyards. Instead, Dai adopts a nomadic model, sourcing grapes from six regions across China, including Ningxia, Tianshui in Gansu, Hohhot in Inner Mongolia, Huailai in Hebei, and high-altitude vineyards in Xiaojin in Sichuan, and Deqing in Yunnan which sit at elevations of 2100 meters and 2600 meters above sea level, respectively. For the first time in 2024, he expanded internationally, using grapes from New Zealand for Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir.

Dai chose wine regions without any pre-established standards, considering any place that offers a new style of wine for XiaoPu. Under the nomadic model, XiaoPu maintains a small production, with only 40,000 to 50,000 bottles per year.

The choice of a nomadic model was primarily budget-driven; as an independent winemaker, Dai could not afford the significant costs associated with owning a vineyard. From growing vines to building markets, it’s a long and slow race. Even for his small business operation, it took seven years to break even, Dai revealed. Covid-19 only extended the uphill climb. Patience, as it turns out, was the most important lesson Dai learned from his entrepreneurial journey, he admitted. 

Now in its 8th year, Xiaopu has expanded beyond home, exporting to Hong Kong, Macau, and most recently Australia. 

As a Chinese wine brand, Dai aims to convey a deeper cultural message through his wines, which is reflected in the label design of XiaoPu. Some series of XiaoPu labels feature Chinese calligraphy, drawn from ancient copybooks or inscriptions by renowned artists.

“As a new wine region, we need more content on the label, so our consumers can read and understand more,” Dai explained.

This attention to storytelling aligns with XiaoPu’s mission to connect with a specific audience: young, adventurous individuals who see wine as part of their lifestyle. Unlike traditional fine wines, which dominate the Chinese market, XiaoPu embraces natural wine—a niche concept that appeals to those seeking something fresh and unconventional.

“It is a small market, but it will grow,” Dai said, noting that business gatherings—the primary consumption scenario for traditional fine wines—were declining during the economic downturn, “We may never enter the business gathering market, where wines are expected to look luxurious.” 

“Our wine is not traditional at all; it includes various unusual elements,” Dai described XiaoPu wines. “It is something creative, challenging the boundaries of your recognition and understanding of taste.”

“It is completely different from the textbook and authority,” he continued, highlighting the rebellious characteristics of his wines. Like himself, the young man who dropped out of university nearly 20 years ago.

Observation of China’s Society

“Slow wine” is the slogan for XiaoPu, shown both on its official website and Instagram account. “To make time-demanding wines,” Dai explained his winemaking philosophy on Instagram. 

Beyond wine, Dai observed that the concept of “slow” contrasts sharply with the mainstream Chinese values of entrepreneurship and lifestyle. 

“In China, starting a business, especially in the internet industry, is measured in days. However, wine is a slow process, where changes can take years to materialize.” Dai explained the difference in pace between wine, an agricultural product, and the fast-moving technology and internet sectors, which dominate China’s entrepreneurial landscape.

“Patience is something my generation, particularly those of us who grew up during a time of rapid development, often lacks,” Dai continued, reflecting on China’s fast-growing society in the early 2000s. “Everything that happened while we were growing up occurred so quickly.”

China’s accession to the WTO in 2001 ushered in a booming international trade and a surging economy. Along with emerging industries and entrepreneurship, wine—originating from the West—entered China as a symbol of high-end society, yet it conflicted with the lifestyle of a developing country.

“Now we are in an era that demands hard work; we are not wealthy,” Dai noted, emphasizing that the majority of Chinese people cannot adopt a relaxed lifestyle that aligns with wine-drinking habits.

As a former wine educator, Dai observed that many people in China learn about wine not out of genuine interest but as a tool for social capital. “They can be quite snobby, learning about wine merely for the sake of appearing knowledgeable,” Dai remarked candidly about this group of people who are unlikely to become consumers of unconventional XiaoPu, “The wine education system in China is still quite traditional.”

However, Dai is confident that XiaoPu will reach a larger target audience, who enjoy wine as a lifestyle and embrace creativity, as the consumer market develops, even if it may never become a mainstream option. “Like other subcultures in China, social media allows each subculture to attract a larger target group,” he said. “It can become less niche, but not for the general public.”