Ep. 477 wine2wine Session Recordings | What's Next for Wine Education

Italian wine podcast. Chinchin with Italian wine people. Italian wine podcast as wine to wine twenty twenty media partner is proud to present a series of sessions chosen to highlight key themes and ideas and recorded during the two day event held on November twenty third and twenty fourth twenty twenty. One to wine twenty twenty represented the first ever fully digital edition of the business to business forum. Visit wine to wine dot net and make sure to attend future editions of wine to wine business forum. Welcome to wine to wine twenty twenty and the future of wine education. With Ian Harris, chief executive of the wine and spirit education trust, a benchmark in wine education. Ian, enhance the trust's global reach, narrowing gaps between wine professionals and wine consumers. Her majesty, the queen bestowed in the prestigious honor of MBE or outstanding achievement. And service. Questions for Ian can be submitted online. Ian, over to you. Monte, thank you so much. And it's a pleasure to be here at the at the wine to wine business forum. I'm just sorry I can't be there in person with a glass of wine in our hands. I'm sure we're all sad that we can't, we can't meet face to face. But, thank you very much for inviting me to make this presentation. And what I want to look at is what's next for wine education. As you very kindly said, Monty, I've had eighteen years running the WCT And and we have become the benchmark for wine education and qualifications around the world, not just for the industry that we were set up to serve back in nineteen sixty nine, but also for consumers who want to learn more about this fascinating subject, which is been my life for for over four decades. So I'm gonna want I'm gonna look at three questions when it comes to wine education. The first is how has the delivery of wine education changed over the years? And then I'll look at how the last six months have shaped the future and then why wine education is more important than ever. And looking back at the history and how the delivery of wine education's changed over the years, really, really the the clues in the photo on the on the left hand side of the screen. And that that book there is called Inveno Veritas, and that is the first the first documented view of education for the global industry. And it was written by a gentleman called Andre Simont, who is in the picture there, and this was written before the first World War. So formal wine education has actually been around for, over a hundred years. And when it comes to global delivery of wine education, it started off mostly with trade associations who understood the benefits of training. And, and here's just an illustration, to show that The WCT back in nineteen sixty nine was born out of the Wyman spirit Association of Great Britain, who prior to the foundation of the W OCT had had been running courses. So what you've got on the left hand side is the last certificate that was produced by the Wine Spirit Association. And then I just thought I'd brag a bit, and as well as, the very kind words Monty said about being recognized by, her majesty, the queen for services to the wine and spirit industry. I thought I I do actually know something about it as well. So I passed the WSTT diploma back in nineteen eighty. However, that was a time when if you knew about Bordeaux Burgundy Italy, port, and Sherry. That was that would pretty much get you through the examination. But, of course, the world has changed, not just since Andre Simon ran those first courses back in the first World War Day, but also, in more recent years. So I think it's a good idea to just take a look at, formal wine education and how that's evolved. So the the Institute of Masters of wine was founded in nineteen fifty three, and then the WCT was founded in nineteen sixty nine by the same organization that set up the Institute of Masters of wine, with the idea that the WCT would provide the stepping stones up to the level of MW for anybody wanting the knowledge to then be able to get on to the master of wine qualification and join the Institute of Masters of wine. So that was back in nineteen sixty nine. And Totally coincidentally, nineteen sixty nine was also the year when the guild of Sommeliers was founded, and that then morphed into what we now know as the Court of Master, Sommeliers. Which is a worldwide organization. And at the same time, there were Sommelier associations all over the world, doing education from a perspective of the of the Sommelier and and particularly the hospitality sector. So, in Italy, for example, I I stand to be corrected by anybody who's listening to this session, but I know that there are over eighteen different sommelier associations delivering education just in the Italian market. But it's not just it's not just a UK thing, because in nineteen seventy seven, that was also the year that the society of wine educators was founded. And that's that's that's, another organization based in the states which is dedicated to wine education. And then if we take from the turn of the millennium onwards, we see a real shift. And from two thousand five onwards, there was a real shift into focusing on different and specific areas of the world. So organizations like the wines skip scholar guild started, generic bodies such as the, Bordeaux wines started their own school called Le Côvanda Bordeaux, and go moving into the new world. Why in Australia also put a real focus on education. And there's a good reason why there's a focus on education, which I'll come to when it comes to answering that third question on why why an education is important. And we've also got and you can see in the bottom right hand corner of that screen, a lot of people getting involved in education, not just on a formal basis, like ourselves, but podcasts happening all over the world about particular items of the wine trade, which might be of interest to consumers. But the main thing that's happened really over the last, certainly fifty years, and the clue here is in the title is that the whole world wants to know more about wine. So it's not just restricted to those countries that are the big producing countries. The whole world wants to know about wine. And the WCT has grown from being a UK centric organization back in nineteen sixty nine to an organization that now operates in seventy five different countries around the world. And when you look at the places that are doing the most line education, you would be very surprised, but maybe not surprised to see that China is up there as the biggest region for us. And certainly, if you've told me twenty years ago when I joined the WSTT, that China would be a big market for us, then I would've I would've I would've I would've wondered what you're talking about, but actually China is, one of our biggest markets as is North America. So the world has changed, and the world wants to know more about wine. And the wine market is evolving, not just in terms of consumption, but also in terms of production. And that also brings into question the importance of wine education. And I I just, reproduce this by kind permission of Jances Robinson, which just shows over the last twenty years what's happened in terms of wine consumption. So the the big two markets of France and Italy, which still, rank incredibly highly in terms of production. The the consumption in Italy and in France is is going going down as a percentage of of the the world's total. But that doesn't mean that education, is is unimportant. If anything, education becomes more important when producers in big producing countries like France and Italy are looking to export their wines and to compete on the global stage against other countries which are producing wide. And interestingly, those two countries, which I just highlighted Italy and France, are W City's fastest growing markets at the moment for students. In Italy, last year, we had well over a thousand students. And in France, it is near five thousand. So big markets as far as the WSTT is concerned. So that's a bit of a look at what's happened in terms of why in education. Now the last six months, of course, have been six months, which I certainly don't want to have to relive. So I'm gonna now gonna address the question of how are the last six months shaping the future of wine education. And again, the clue here is in the picture on the left hand side of this slide. And actually, the the world has moved online, and the world has moved online not just in terms of wine education or indeed in education in general, but because of the necessity of having to stay at home, not being able to get out as much as we would like, the world is going online. And that's exactly what is happening with wine education. And it is having it's having some very good benefits for the wine consumer, but it is changing the landscape in which educators such as ourselves operate. So, basically, if you look at what's happened in the last six months, there's this thing called coronavirus, and it hits wine education very hard. WCT runs courses all around the world. So we've got over eight hundred centers dotted around the world. China, as I said, few slides ago, is now one of our top three markets alongside the USA and the UK where we were founded fifty years ago. But what happened in in February was that we all heard about this flu like virus that had hit Wuhan in China. And, actually, our student numbers in China collapsed in February. In China, we should have been doing two thousand students a month just in mainland China. And in February, just after Chinese New Year, that dwindled to absolutely zero. And then, of course, in March, the coronavirus hit the rest of the world. And that's where it really hit markets which were running courses on a face to face basis. So what happened March, April, May, was that our student numbers dwindle because ninety percent of our students take their courses in a physical environment, followed by an exam again, in a physical environment. So the low points were April and May, but we did rebound in June and July. And the reason for that was because we introduced the ability not just to do WSTT courses online, so to do the education online, something which we've we've been doing for over a decade, but also the ability to do an examination online to gain the world renowned qualification, which is a WSTT accreditation at different levels. So we introduced, we we we fast track digital offerings, and not just in terms of, examinations, but also in terms of ebooks because now you can do a WCT course from the comfort of your own, share without having to get out of it except to answer the door to get the delivery of the samples into and then go back to your chair and everything else can be done from the comfort of your own seat. So we had to, at WCT respond incredibly quickly to what coronavirus threw at us. So we now have a digital end to end offering in terms of education and also in terms of examination. And what this then did was a pro a proliferation of even more education available online. So wine education moved online, and indeed much other education moved online as people were unable to get out of their houses to fulfill their either their professional needs or their personal needs for education. So we moved our education and exams and our books online in May. However, we know through research and also from the last few months where we've started to rerun courses in a physical environment around the world that that most people still want to be in the classroom with a glass of wine in their hand being taught by somebody who's got a glass of the same wine in their hand with the ability to talk to the person sitting next to them or opposite them to discuss the merits. Of a particular wine and and to compare tasting notes. So I firmly believe that wine education will stay very much in the classroom in the majority of cases. But that doesn't mean to say that online is not important because it is. So what has happened, though, is that not just a proliferation of online wine courses being available, but If you Google free wine courses, this is what you see. It's this is this is just something I got from Google last week when I was putting these slides together. What are the top ten free online wine education options? So there is a lot of education available on the internet, which is free, and and some of it is pretty good. So it's not just people starting up internet sites doing education. A lot of these sites are doing education very well. Of course, what they cannot do and what they don't do is to offer qualifications, which is the core business of WST. So people doing a WCT course will be looking to have a qualification and a certificate at the end of it. So it's very much a question of education can go online. Examations can even go online, but there is still no substitute for actually getting together. It's a social industry that we work in. Everybody likes to be together. They like to have a glass of wine in their hand. So, yes, online is gonna grow. So if we're looking at how the last six months was shaped Wine education. Online has really taken a leap forward, and it will continue to grow particularly in countries, like America. And America is our is one of our top three markets. And when we are teaching WCT programs to people who might live a thousand miles away from their nearest center. Our online option becomes more and more important. But looking at the third question, which I was asked to address, which is Why wine education is more important than ever? The clue again on this slide is in the picture on the left hand side, and it all comes down to to money. Because education is the driver of profit for all sectors of the wine industry, whether you're a producer, a distributor, a retailer, a restaurant, or even a consumer education drives value to this industry. And I'll just show you a few slides on on why that is and how it will continue to play such an important part for wine producers and wine distributors and indeed retailers and restaurants as we come out of the coronavirus pandemic, which I'm sure we're going to hopefully within a few months. But what we we are working all of us are working in an industry where the wine category is being valued, and that's that's all over the world. So and what this chart is designed to show is that the world the world is producing more wine than it can consume. That's been a fact for probably twenty, even thirty years. So the world is producing more wine than it can consume. And what that means is that the wine category is being devalued, and that's because producers and distributors are chasing volume because they've got tanks full of wine that needs to be sold, which can lead then to discounting because they need to clear the tanks ready for the next vintage. And that then results in margin and that's margin reduction for everybody. So whether it's the the wine store, the distributor, or the producer, if the consumer is able to buy good wines or acceptable wines at a lower price, then the industry loses because every sector of the industry from production right through to the product being served at the point of purchase, everybody's losing out because the consumer is not paying more. And that's a classic sign of devaluation of the category. So the benefits of of education, and I I've spent eighteen years banging on about this, is that education is a is an investment that pays back, and the best informed your your employees are then the better they perform, and the more they are able to persuade the consumer to trade up. So improve customer service, improve staff retention as well. If you give your staff an accredited, educational program, they will stay with you longer. And if you don't, that's improved in many, many industry. And it also raises the self esteem of anybody who's working in the industry. And let me just, for the last two or three slides, just show you some about some work that WSE has done over the years. To demonstrate the benefits of training and education. And one of the one of the best surveys that we did, were was was a few years back now, but we we did a study with a a UK drinks retailer, which showed that investment paid back in just three weeks. So indexing from, from a hundred, and we did a trial in certain stores. And sales grew by six percent with WCT training. If you add sales trained on that, it grows even more. So that's that's the benefit that within the retail sector training brings to the business. And in the hospitality sector, and those people who work in the hospitality sector will know that education is a key tool to persuade consumers to trade up. And again, this is a bit of research we did. Was in the UK, but it was it showed very clearly that if someone who was working behind the bar recommended a wine to a consumer. They were very happy to spend much more than if it wasn't recommended to them, and they just have to look at a wine list and choose for themselves. So think the phrases like I would be willing to spend twenty five percent more if a wine was recommended to me. And that that is a a really key statement to see. But we have also done studies in and this is one that we did in in Swave. So this is where producers are turning to education, give themselves competitive advantage. And that's because wine producers in Swave aren't just produce aren't just competing with the person who's down the road. They're competing with the world for sales of their own wine. So this is just an example that of of a study that we did in Italy. And consumers also want to know more about wine. So we did a we did some research amongst consumers who've done a WCT course, and this shows that increased knowledge makes them more likely to trade up. And and the more a consumer is willing to trade up and has a reason to know why they're going to get a better wine if they spend more than the more will be injected into all sectors of the trade from producer right through to retailer. So hopefully that has answered three questions. We do have some time for questions, which I think Monty is going to facilitate, but If you haven't done a double city course, come and join us. We had over a hundred thousand students in the year before COVID hit us. So if you'd like to do a double city course, come and visit us at double city global dot com, and I can't promise that I will be at the end of the line. For one of my team will be there to help you. So thank you very much for your attention over the last twenty minutes, and I'm very happy to take ten minutes of questions. And I will try out my Italian and Monty. I'm sure you'll correct me if I get this wrong, but thank you. I just wanna say thanks, to Ian for outlining the advantages of education, not just, of course, for, the pupils themselves. But also for our industry, in general. I mean, Ian, can I ask you a question? I mean, where can our industry improve its productivity, financial productivity, via education? What are what are we still not doing that we should be doing? I think the the main thing Monty is really to really cascade information down. It's not it's just it's not good enough just to say, that's alright. My sales team know about wine. They'll be able to sell more into into a retailer, or they'll be able to able to sell better wines to us Sommelier for for their restaurant mindless. It really does go all the way down the chain. So really promoting the idea of education right down the chain, and even, and I love to I love to see, educational initiatives happening in a restaurant or or in a store where consumers actually have someone who who can tell them why a particular wine costs twenty euros versus fifteen euros. So from it's it's a it's something that I've been banging on about for years, anyone who's who's prepared to listen. That education adds adds value at every sector of the industry from producer right through to the consumer. So my message would be to all companies, whichever bit of of that chain of of getting the the wine to the consumer, whichever bit you're in, whether it's production, distribution, retailing, hospitality is just use education as a driver for your business because it works. It really does work. Okay. We've got a question about, the past rates and completion rates of the course. There is any sort of difference student experience or difference online versus traditional classroom. That's a very good question. I mean, the art the the short answer to that is is actually there's there's not that much difference. When you're doing an online course, particularly if it's, if it's a higher level course, you will need to have the samples to be able to then then do the work and answer the questions about a particular wine. But actually, levels one and two, which are our two lowest levels. You're not tested on your on your tasting skills. It's only at level three and diploma that you're you're you're tested on your tasting skills, but it is still very important even if you're doing an online course to taste the wines. And thankfully, there are particularly in the coronavirus, era There are a lot of companies producing excellent samples in small bottles to allow students to taste the wines as if they were in the classroom. So, actually, there's not very much difference in the passcode. Why has why has China become such a big market? It's such a big country. One point one billion people, isn't it? Last time I was looking? I think, as an excellent question, I mean, China is China is starting to embrace all things from the western world, whether it's motor cars, clothing, and wine is just not the next thing. China has been embracing spirits for much longer than wine. And if if you look at the the Chinese word for alcohol, it actually it actually it's the same whether it's a wine or a spirit. So big spirits companies were were making inroads into China twenty, thirty years ago. I used to work a big multinational called Seagram, and it was certainly it was certainly our biggest growth market when I was working for them in the mid nineties. But, but wine has has become very popular in in in China. There's some fantastic wines being produced in China as well, and it's it's really an interest in people expanding their knowledge and expanding their repertoire. There are a lot of people who are suddenly finding that they've got the the money to be able to afford imported wines. So it's the so it's a it's a question of the scale of the country, but also the interest from and it is the it is the upper middle classes in China. Let's not let's not let's not hide that. But it's it's it's because of there's an interest in wines and where there's an interest in wines in a market starts to grow. I have a question how, the benefits of education regarding that and other regions were quantified. Sorry. Could you repeat that, Monty? Could you just question about how the benefits of education, regarding other regions were quantified in terms of America? Sorry. The Swave study. Sorry. The Swave study? Well, the Swave study something that we did with the consortium, but we have done other we have done other studies around the world. We actually did do one in America, but I'm I have to be quite careful about publicizing it because, because there's there's quite a lot of confidential information in there. But in terms of quantifying it. So if you spend this on education, it'll put you that much on your bottom line. That, apart from those two studies, which I referred to, which we did in the UK, unashamedly, apart from that, a lot of a lot of the evidence is apocryphal. So it's it's people talking to me. Certainly, when I go around the world to trade shows, in the days when I could go to trade shows, people are saying to me how how much they were then able to trade people up and to to talk up different wines because of education. We have done studies around the around the world as well, but not not quantifiable as as in the UK, studies that we did a few years back. Okay. I'm I'm in Italy. I live here now. Do you have a WSTT structure in Italy? Yeah. Well, it won't take structure. Yeah. We work through a, a panel of third party providers, around the world, including Italy, and I have to say it took a it took a little while to actually, to set up some schools because as I said at the beginning, a lot of, education in in Italy comes through various sommeliers. So, but, from from our perspective, in Italy, hired six years ago, we have, I think, about twelve centers in it. Okay. I think we have a surprise, Ian, in the form of Stevie Kim. Oh, hey. Hey. How are you? I'm very well. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I can't be with you, Stevie. It's, to interrupt this, like, party here. You're fine. Partie, I have a I've got a cup of coffee. I don't have I don't have a glass of wine in my hand. I'm afraid. So that's So, Ian, I would like to present to you, Johnny Bernow. He is the exhibition manager, of Vinitling. Okay? Right. That's right. So he would like to say something in Italian, and then I get to be his translator. Hello? Okay. Okay. Okay. W you know, the Randa mayer, Steven speaker. Aviso, Stevie. Oh, okay. Translate for you. So let me translate. Okay. So let me transfer it for real. Since nineteen ninety six, the international military award has been awarded to illustrious Italian and foreign personalities from the world of wine and wine making who are particularly distinguished in the international context for their work. Past winners include, Brenda Meyer, Steven Scurryer, your buddy, I got it. I knew well. Yes. Actually, you know, he left me the case because he just took the trophy and put it in his duffel bag. Alright? But we will send it to you with the the case or I will have to bring it to you in person when we're able to fly. Let's do that. Let's do that. Yes. It's Gina Gallo, you were saying, and many other famous personalities. So we've been meaning to give this to you. Of course, been it to me as and postponed. So this year, the award goes to Ian Harris. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yeah. You don't hear it, but chief executive of W Set, a global leader in wine education. He has led W Set to having courses in more than nineteen languages in seventeen countries. And push them to evolve and adapt to an ever changing market. It can be argued that no one else has done as much to modernize and promote wine and spirits education around the world. His vision is matched only by his passion, and this is why he is being presented with the award this year. And I'm also grateful. We, I'm personally also a provider, an APP provider for w. Yes. I think it is the gold standard of wanting education. Congratulations. To you and congratulations to w set. Stevie, that's very kind. Thank you so much. If if I could just say thank you to you, Stevie, for coming on the call. But also to Johnny, thank you so much for honoring me in this way. You can't see behind me, but this trophy when I get it will be right next to that picture of me with the with the queen of England. So Oh, that's it. It's beautiful, by the way. So I think it's It could stand right next to her. Perfect. I'm sure I'm proud to be be alongside the Village of the International Ward, and I look forward to sharing a bottle of wine with you very, very soon. And a very nice bottle at that. You're on. But thank you so much. I'm I'm always Thank you. Bye bye. Listen to the Italian one podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We're on SunCloud. Apple podcasts, Himalaya FM, and more. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through Italian wine podcast dot com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. Until next time.