When Morgana Miolo started doing business in China two years ago, the Brazilian was struck by the cultural differences of operating in the world’s second-largest economy.
“The Chinese close a deal with the most important person at the table raising a glass in toast higher than the others,” says the gaúcha, as people from Brazil’s southern state of Rio Grande do Sul are known. “My first time there, I didn’t know this stuff.”
More unusual than the vagaries of doing business in China, however, was the product Ms Miolo was selling. Hailing from a country best known in China for its savvy on the football field, this fourth-generation scion of a family of Brazilian viticulturists was in Shanghai to establish a market for her Miolo wine brands.