When Vino Joy News arranged to interview veteran bar owner William Zhu, the timing proved unexpectedly poignant. Just days before, SOiF — the Shanghai natural wine bar he had helped build into one of China’s most influential wine destinations — quietly closed its doors.
For many in the industry, SOiF wasn’t simply another wine bar. It symbolised two of the defining trends that reshaped China’s wine scene over the past decade: the rise of natural wine and the explosion of the bistro format. Centred on natural wine, it became one of the driving forces behind Shanghai’s natural wine movement; at the same time it rode — and helped create — the city’s bistro boom, witnessing the format’s climb from niche concept to mainstream trend.
But trends rarely last forever. Shanghai’s two-month Covid lockdown in 2022, the years of weak consumer spending that followed, and increasingly fierce competition gradually eroded both markets. SOiF’s closure has become one of the most symbolic moments in this latest cycle of China’s wine industry.
Although Zhu had stepped away from managing the bar several years ago, news of its closure still hit him hard. After learning SOiF was shutting down, he posted a four-and-a-half-minute tribute video on the Chinese social platform Red Note. Filled with old photographs and clips documenting the bar’s journey, it ended with an emotional toast.
“Here’s to a golden era we’ll never return to — and to our youth, not worth much in money, but something we can never buy back.”
As one of SOiF’s three co-founders, Zhu admits he had long expected this day would come. The reason, he says, was simple: none of the founders had been focusing on SOiF for some time. Zhu himself exited the shareholder group in 2023 to devote more energy to his own bar, Forage. “The bar no longer belongs to me,” he says. “But we built it from nothing together. So when the day finally came, it still hurt. Making that video was my way of looking back, reflecting, and saying goodbye.”
I’ve known William for six years. Whether during SOiF’s peak or throughout the difficult years since 2022, he has rarely spoken in emotional extremes. Instead of dwelling on highs and lows, he prefers dissecting the structural forces reshaping the market. In many ways his career mirrors the complete lifecycle of Shanghai’s bistro boom — and with SOiF closing just as our interview began, the conversation became about far more than one entrepreneur. It became the story of an era.
An Unlikely Pioneer
Unlike many European winemakers born into wine families, Zhu discovered wine relatively late. Until he finished university, he knew almost nothing about it. “I didn’t even know what Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay were.”
He studied French at Sichuan International Studies University before deciding that language alone wasn’t enough. “I realised language was simply a tool, so I applied to business schools in France.” Among his offers, Burgundy School of Business stood out for both its reputation and its specialised wine management programme. Growing up in Yantai, a traditional hub of Chinese wine production, he figured that even if everything else failed, he could always return home and work for a winery.
Instead, wine quickly became a genuine passion. After graduating, Zhu worked throughout the trade — beginning as a sommelier at a renowned restaurant on Shanghai’s Bund before moving into sales and marketing for wine companies. Around 2018 he started moonlighting at Vinism, one of Shanghai’s earliest natural wine bars. It proved to be perfect timing.
The Boom Years
Those were the years when Shanghai’s wine-bar culture was exploding. “Every summer, no matter the weather, all I did was answer the phone telling people we had no tables left.” Vinism was constantly full. Eventually Zhu asked the owner a simple question: “Business is this good. Why don’t we open a second location?” The owner had been thinking the same thing, and invited Zhu to join him. “I said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
He left his corporate wine job and co-founded SOiF. It would soon become one of Shanghai’s defining natural wine destinations — and, for many consumers, their first introduction to the bistro concept. “It’s no exaggeration to say that before SOiF opened, hardly anyone in China really understood what a bistro was.”
The timing couldn’t have been better. Despite Covid beginning to spread globally, Shanghai still had a large expatriate community, and SOiF quickly became a gathering place for creatives, food lovers and young professionals. “Every night we were full,” he recalls. Its success inspired a wave of imitators: bistros spread across Shanghai before expanding into provincial capitals and second-tier cities, turning what had once been an obscure French word into one of China’s hottest restaurant concepts.
Even now, six years later, Zhu’s excitement is obvious when he recalls those early days. Ironically, he believes the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 were actually the industry’s strongest. “People still went out drinking despite the health codes. SOiF, my later project Forage, and the whole bistro category experienced explosive growth.”
As a natural-wine-focused venue, SOiF also helped introduce thousands of young consumers to wines that looked and tasted very different from conventional bottles. Their unconventional labels, anti-industrial philosophy and lifestyle branding drew curious drinkers looking for something new. By late 2023, a Chinese consumer-media outlet found that Dianping — the country’s largest restaurant-review platform — returned more than 83,000 results for “natural wine” in Shanghai, against around 26,000 for craft beer. Not a direct measure of venues, but a sign of how prominent natural wine had become in the city’s dining culture.
When the Bubble Burst
If 2020 and 2021 marked rapid expansion, 2022 became the turning point. Shanghai’s more than two-month lockdown not only devastated hospitality but fundamentally changed consumer behaviour. “The impact was enormous.” Foreign customers left the city in large numbers, and — more importantly — consumer confidence collapsed. “Rebuilding confidence takes several times longer than destroying it.”
Shanghai’s bar scene has never fully returned to pre-pandemic levels. For businesses built around nightlife and social occasions, declining willingness to spend proved even more damaging than falling foot traffic. But Zhu believes Covid tells only part of the story. The deeper problem, he argues, was uncontrolled expansion — too many bistros opening too quickly. “Opening more bistros wasn’t a bad thing in itself. But after 2022, many places called themselves bistros simply because it was fashionable. They hadn’t invested in their products or built loyal customers.” As quality grew inconsistent, consumers gradually lost interest in the concept itself. “Consumers were already disappearing. Then they became disillusioned with the category.”
Natural wine followed a remarkably similar trajectory. Its appeal initially came from curiosity: consumers were drawn to its unconventional production, distinctive labels and alternative image. But as the market matured the conversation shifted, and many discovered that what they really enjoyed wasn’t natural wine itself but the novelty surrounding it. Questions about inconsistent quality, flawed bottles and overhyping grew more common — on Red Note, posts declaring “natural wine tastes terrible” became a familiar sight.
Zhu doesn’t shy away from the criticism. Every emerging category, he says, experiences a curiosity-driven boom: “When something new becomes fashionable, people’s first reaction is naturally to try it.” Eventually, though, markets become more rational. “Whether in terms of flavour or philosophy, I think only about 10 to 20 percent of wine drinkers genuinely embrace natural wine.” Most, he says, are indifferent; another 10 to 20 percent actively dislike the taste.
“People who drink wine are already a minority. Natural-wine drinkers are a minority within that minority.”
He sees natural wine occupying the same position within wine that wine occupies within the broader alcohol market. To him, that doesn’t represent failure — it represents normalisation. The bubble has simply deflated: those attracted by novelty, social media or fashion have moved on; those who truly love natural wine have stayed. That philosophy now shapes Forage, where — instead of focusing exclusively on natural wine — the bar also serves cocktails and a broader drinks selection to reach a wider audience.
Still Here
Throughout our conversation, Zhu remained remarkably measured. He rarely used dramatic language. Asked about the difficult years the wine industry has endured, he avoided blaming the market or romanticising the past; instead he analysed shifts in consumers, distribution and product positioning. Some of his conclusions are surprisingly unsentimental. He doesn’t believe today’s market has simply become worse — he believes it has returned to what it always should have been.
Yet he has chosen to stay. When asked why, he jokes first. “Because my lease hasn’t expired yet.” Then he becomes serious. “Wine is what I studied. I don’t really have another specialty. More importantly, I still enjoy this industry.”
He believes China’s wine market has already endured its most painful adjustment. “Consumption has certainly shrunk, but shrinking isn’t the same as disappearing. I think we’ve now reached a relatively stable level. If it kept shrinking at the previous pace, there would hardly be a market left.” Then comes perhaps his bluntest assessment: “To put it another way, the old wine industry was experiencing false prosperity. Many consumers were simply following trends. Rather than saying today’s market is shrinking, I’d say yesterday’s market was inflated.”
“The old wine industry was a false prosperity. Rather than say today’s market is shrinking, I’d say yesterday’s was inflated.”
It is exactly the same conclusion he draws about natural wine — and about bistros. New ideas become fashionable; capital, brands and consumers rush in; eventually the excitement fades, the excess disappears, and what remains is the market’s true size. That, Zhu believes, is where China’s wine industry now stands. Growth may never again resemble the boom years, but healthier growth remains possible. “I don’t think we’ll ever return to explosive expansion. But I do believe the mainstream consumer base will keep growing slowly.”
Not through another viral trend, nor one spectacular marketing campaign, but through patient consumer education. “Everyone working in this industry needs to keep introducing wine to new people — to help each person who might enjoy wine find the bottle that’s right for them.”
As the interview ended, one thought lingered: William rarely used words like “boom” or “next big thing” — phrases that have become almost obligatory in today’s restaurant business. Instead, he kept returning to two words: product, and consumer.
Six years ago he helped create one of Shanghai’s defining natural wine destinations. Today, with SOiF gone, natural wine back to being a niche category, and the bistro craze largely over, he still spends his days behind the bar, talking with customers about wine. For someone who has witnessed an industry’s peak, perseverance no longer feels like optimism. It feels more like acceptance — that every market eventually returns to reality, that trends always fade, and that lasting industries are built not on hype but on people.
SOiF’s lights have gone out. For William Zhu, however, the story of wine is far from over.
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