INTERVIEW WITH EVY GOZALI, CEO OF SABABAY WINERY

Could you share with us one of your typical workdays?

For the morning routine, I wake up, workout, have breakfast and I mostly work from home unless we have early meetings in the office. I communicate and get update on business progress from my team in Bali or Jakarta. At lunchtime, I like to try different restaurants since now I am in F&B business. After lunch, I stay in office until finish and before dinnertime like at 6 pm; I try to do my yoga session for 1 hour just for stretching as in Jakarta you tend to sit too much.

How would you describe Sababay in one sentence?

Sababay is Award Winning Indonesian’s wine made with passion, a story of faith, perseverance and creativity.

If you could pick one place to be your dream destination anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

San Diego! I love sunny days, beach, warm in the daytime, cool in the night kind of weather, neither too humid nor too cold. One of the places with all-round best weather is at San Diego, USA. (I actually Googled this one, lol)

What is the biggest challenge you’ve overcome so far in your career?

I am a city girl, I study Economics and master in Financial Engineering, and after college my dream is to be working in Wall Street. And now I am the CEO of a winery in Bali and we work with farmers directly in this agriculture sector. The biggest challenge is to work in an industry, which is completely not my background; to learn everything about wine and grapes in a country where we don’t really have wine culture. I am still learning new things every day, but I believe being recognized in the market, by winning international awards, me and my team have overcome one of the biggest challenges so far.

What are two of your most favorite wine brands?

Chateau Figeac, St Emilion. I enjoyed the wine but most importantly when I visited the winery, on my way out, I met the owner coming out of her house, which is next to the winery. I still remember her bright sky blue sweater and blue flats, she smiled at my family and I approached her just to say hi and soon she invited us to her house, she was like ‘would you like to see my garden?’   Of course we said yes! And her chateau, her ‘garden’ is so well manicured, like a true French palace garden. The shapes of each sections, the color coordination, don’t look like a usual garden for me.

My second pick would be Francis Ford Coppola winery, own by the famous one and only Francis Ford Coppola, the director of The Godfather movie. He is Italian American and He does the winery his way, as a movie , which was so cool.

Tell us one name of figure that has inspired you the most in life?

My mom. She is the founder and visionary of Sababay Winery.

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