Wave Maker | Tiansai Winery's Julie Li: "Play Master" Doesn't Chase Trending or Put on Airs, Turning Wine into Everyday Life

Ask AI · How does a medical background shape her marketing empathy?

Swaying a glass of red wine, chatting excitedly, JulieLiLi crosses one leg over the other. Sitting in a cafe in Beijing’s most bustling district, unconcerned with onlookers, in a carefree state, it’s easy to see why this “natural” young owner can casually “borrow” drinks from strangers at a roadside stall in a remote county and exchange insights.

Born in 1993, JulieLiLi launched the “Young Owner Today’s Sobering” account six years ago. At a time when the “factory second generation” and entrepreneurial IPs weren’t yet widespread, she seized the short video boom. Not only did she elevate Tian Sai Winery in Xinjiang to become one of the most well-known domestic wine brands, but she also completely overturned the traditional mysterious, small-circle marketing narrative of Chinese wine over the past decades.

“People who can grow good grapes are usually steady and conservative. It’s quite difficult to get them to play on the internet. And domestic wine consumption hasn’t reached a ceiling yet—if just 1% of users are willing to drink, that’s enough,” says JulieLiLi, a graduate in clinical nutrition. She doesn’t promote alcohol’s benefits but recommends the most suitable options when consumers show interest. “Life is only 30,000 days—You Only Live Once. Seeing the sea, learning to ski, drinking wine—these are all life experiences.”

A 10-person online team accounts for a third of the winery’s revenue: traffic is part of business management

The optimistic JulieLiLi is decisive in business. Before the Spring Festival, she faced a shortage of freight capacity from Xinjiang to Beijing, Guangzhou, and other places. Her e-commerce team was polite during communication, but she couldn’t secure supplies. Frustrated, she picked up the phone and told the owner directly she needed to see the wine in the warehouse by a certain date and time. “Of course, the owner is my mom, but I say this not because of our mother-daughter relationship, but because I’m confident as Tian Sai’s largest distributor—my team of 10 people generated 30 million yuan in sales last year, a third of Tian Sai’s total.”

Starting e-commerce from zero just five years ago, even amid shrinking global alcohol sales and many wine merchants lamenting slow sales, JulieLiLi’s team has achieved impressive growth—beginning in 2020 with the “Young Owner Today’s Sobering” content account, entering e-commerce the following year. By 2022, sales reached 16 million yuan, maintaining over 30 million annually since.

In contrast, several leading wine companies have seen less optimistic performance trends over the past five years, with some alternating between profit and loss or experiencing revenue declines starting in 2024.

JulieLiLi at ProWine Germany

“People’s consumption habits have definitely changed in recent years: drinking has decreased from three sessions to two, and alcohol isn’t the only spiritual comfort anymore—you can buy LABUBU, raise virtual pets to soothe your mind,” she says, sitting in a Starbucks at Wantong Center in Beijing, holding a glass of red wine. The AI era has accelerated the decline of offline community concepts. “Today, I went to support a friend’s new bar, bought a drink, and took a glass out. I also bring wine to local markets and fairs to shoot videos—kind of replacing friends who don’t have time to go out and play.”

Now, about half of the videos on the Young Owner account feature street food from across China—JulieLiLi, relaxed in front of the camera, a 90s girl with two dimples, eating potato strips and braised pork rice at a rural market stall costing only 30 yuan, with a bottle of aged Maotai or a local white liquor. This starkly contrasts the typical male business banquet scenes in traditional white wine ads. Surprisingly, these seemingly “nonsensical” street stall videos garner far more traffic than “serious” content about wine expos, wine tables, or wine science.

Since a barbecue “dirty stall” in Beijing in June 2022, her contrasting content—featuring skewers, candied tomatoes, and a bottle of wine—has garnered over a million views, three times more than other winery visit videos.

“No one wants to be lectured,” JulieLiLi explains the shift in content. Those interested in food and drink outnumber those solely interested in wine, and more than those interested in wine enthusiasts. As long as her “mini variety show” videos generate enough traffic, they can help the niche wine industry reach a broader audience. “Now, 60% of my live viewers have never tasted Chinese wine.”

But when the funnel is large enough, different opinions flood in. Last year, she posted a video of driving 300 km from Chengdu to Longchang for lamb soup. Some viewers weren’t moved by the street food, and a comment appeared: “Your overseas experience was a waste.”

JulieLiLi, who rarely interacts in comments, responded promptly: “Traveling abroad broadens horizons, including not judging others without knowing the full story, and not placing yourself on a moral high ground to criticize. The more I see the world outside, the more I realize how vast it is, and how different cultures, people, and voices can coexist.”

“I hate all practices that divide people into classes. That comment clearly tries to rank people—like studying abroad is some high-level thing,” she explains a year later. “I don’t argue with criticism; I won’t waste energy trying to justify myself. But ignoring bad comments doesn’t make them disappear. Only when they get negative feedback do they eventually fade away.”

The “factory second generation” who don’t follow the typical script of life are often targeted by social media criticism. Good looks, a nice education, simple dance moves, and rustic factory backgrounds once became viral secrets. But many viewers with a “watch and laugh” attitude leave comments like “Dancing can’t save a business.”

“Doesn’t dancing save a business? Then I might as well dance,” JulieLiLi says bluntly. Many criticize the second generation for chasing traffic, but traffic is essential for business. “If you see e-commerce as a department store, short videos are like showing how lively the street is. If you open a restaurant alone, no one comes. But if you build a Disneyland in front of it, customers will come. It’s about attracting people—whether you dance or not, just don’t be vulgar,” she jokes. “At the department store entrance, you need to find ways to draw people in—whether they dance or not, just don’t offend public morals.”

In her view, the industry’s past tendency to elevate white and red wine to an overly luxurious level is disconnected from everyday life. “It’s just alcohol, meant to serve people. I drink wine when I have barbecue, whether white or red. I can, so can you.”

From medical student to winery “player”: Using emotion and empathy to restore wine’s equality

JulieLiLi’s demeanor is relaxed both on and off camera. She recalls that in middle and high school, her grades were always top of the class. She once missed a point in Chinese because she hadn’t read “Water Margin,” unable to answer a question. “Actually, I could memorize every annotation of classical texts word for word.” Perhaps her “photographic memory,” as she calls it, helped her as a tour guide after graduation. Now, she films in unfamiliar cities without scripts, drawing on her knowledge and improvising on the spot.

“The biggest creative bottleneck now is switching between e-commerce and video—one is data-driven and very rational, the other is highly emotional and hard to switch between,” she explains. She divides her time equally—half traveling and shooting, half sitting in live streams.

JulieLiLi during a live broadcast

“The most painful part of e-commerce live streaming is having to repeat the same script forever. For example, if our retention is 50 seconds, I have to act like a robot, repeating the same lines so every new viewer knows what I’m doing,” she admits. Compared to the freedom of creating videos—more artistic and unrestrained—she feels a conflict when returning to sales pitches.

“I’m not someone who seeks fame or likes exposure. Earning money is more important,” she says. She’s increasingly focusing on e-commerce sales, but her small team of ten doesn’t impose performance targets on the hosts.

“First, I don’t like competition. Second, we interview 20-30 people to hire one. If they’re here, I trust their self-discipline and responsibility to do things well,” she explains. Unlike school, where answers are often right or wrong, the workplace requires understanding that life isn’t a multiple-choice test. It’s about grasping the question’s context and finding better solutions.

Unlike many “second generation” kids who plan their lives around “succession,” JulieLiLi was in a free-range state before officially joining the winery in 2020.

Her interest in biology and chemistry in high school led her to choose clinical nutrition in college. But when she started dealing with real cases in her third year, she was overwhelmed. “My empathy is very strong—I found those recordings too painful and told my teachers I couldn’t do it.” After switching to wine studies in graduate school, she traveled across Europe within a year, exploring new places every weekend, and even worked as a tour guide after graduation.

Once, visiting a medieval church in Italy, she wasn’t impressed by the architecture’s grandeur but thought, “This is the result of exploiting the labor of the lower classes.” Her strong sense of equality makes her eager to show the accessible side of wine drinking. This preference isn’t just about market positioning but rooted in her childhood.

“Elementary school was very happy; the rules were strict but fair,” she recalls. “The principal greeted us at the gate every morning. Once I was caught chewing gum, and he said, ‘JulieLiLi, please spit the gum into my hand.’ That was a kind and inclusive way of teaching, not one based on fear.”

She insists on sharing half of her team’s annual profits with her partners and strongly opposes “competition” as a source of happiness. “Many see pain as profound, but pain is just pain—it doesn’t bring anything. Happiness for me comes from achieving goals one after another,” she says. “I don’t agree. Life should be like calculus—you’re happy with each slice. Suffering first, then sweetness, is pointless.”

She recounts a childhood conversation with her mother: “LiLi, you play at home every day, now you’re fifth, if you work harder, you might surpass others.” She asked her mother, “Why surpass others? What’s the difference between third and fifth?”

This Spring Festival, she visited the God of Wealth and only wrote her mother’s name. “My mom is 58—still in her prime!” she says seriously, showing a photo of her and her mother. “Look at her—she can still work for another thirty years. So whenever someone asks if I’ll take over, I say, my mom is still in her best years.”

Epilogue

Mother and daughter work hard in their respective fields. JulieLiLi, who has traveled across China, never stops moving. On March 10, after a fast-paced live session, she set off for Europe to attend a German wine exhibition.

“As in movies, exploring the world is a journey of seeing the universe, meeting people, and understanding oneself. The more places you go, the more you realize how small individuals are, and how to accept different customs and voices,” she recently shared in a video about dipping sauces for dumplings. Some comments questioned, “How can it taste good without sugar or pepper?” others said she added too much. “Once I bought Shaomai in Inner Mongolia—some places weigh by skin, others by filling. People said I encountered a black shop. But in reality, local customs vary, and people don’t realize the differences between regions.”

“History is full of unpredictable coincidences in individual choices,” she notes. Her favorite book last year was Kangxi’s Red Ticket, which recounts Kangxi’s 1716 edict to Europe, involving interactions with Jesuits like Verbiest and Nian. It details how missionaries used astronomy and mathematics as “keys” to enter the Qing Palace. For example, Kangxi’s comment on algebra’s “mediocre algorithms” wasn’t out of arrogance but to understand the book.

“Historians have long hoped to write beautifully, to reveal the big trends behind events, like studying physical phenomena—finding the laws of history,” says author Sun Tianli. “This leads to a focus on abstract big history, neglecting individual lives and the randomness and uncertainty in personal trajectories… If we accept history as not abstract but composed of vivid individuals, we should respect personal destinies and their inherent unpredictability.”

“This book offers a very different perspective on history,” she says. China’s thousands of years of history are rooted in diverse regions, customs, and landscapes—just like wines with regional styles. She wants her friends from Fujian to see life in the Northeast, and friends from Hebei to experience the local flavor of Hunan.

“Last year, I visited Wuliangye and Luzhou Laojiao, explored the distillery, and tasted freshly distilled 70-degree liquor—so fragrant.” She plans to visit Moutai in Guizhou this year. “Young people drink whiskey without complaining about the high proof, so the key isn’t lowering alcohol content in Baijiu.”

At this moment, she’s no longer the middle school student who memorized classical annotations perfectly. She’s recording the spontaneous expressions of strangers who happen to appear on camera.