The ETM Wine Academy

We recently started The ETM Wine Academy project, which rewards our best managers with an in-depth course on wine and will take their knowledge of viticulture to a whole new level of expertise.

The course is based on the WSET (Wines and Spirit Education Trust) curriculum at Intermediate and Advanced levels and has been introduced in order to maximise staff knowledge and encourage increased sales.

In every class, we spend the first half hour discussing wine management in each of our venues. The rest of the class is focused on a specific subject such as regions of origin, grape types and wine styles, understanding terroir, different appellations and food matching, followed by a tasting of five or six wines (including one blind).

We will also have experts coming in to give tutored tastings, including Master of Wines Mark Bingley and Martim Gamman, the Bordeaux Wine Council, Wines of Germany and ViniPortugal.

During the course I will analyze each pupil’s performance throughout the classes and exams. The students are expected to achieve 70 percent on each test for a pass and if they get two consecutive fails they may lose their place on the course. However, we will also award prizes such as fine bottles of wine and trips to vineyards in Europe to those who show the most improved performances.

The response so far has been fantastically positive and despite the huge amount of organisation it has taken us to get the Wine Academy off the ground it’s been worth it to receive such enthusiasm back from our staff and be able to reward key members of our teams.