Ep. 920 Rethinking & Re-Shaping Wine Education Over The Next 20 Yrs | wine2wine Business Forum 2021

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For more information, please visit wine to wine dot net and tune in every Thursday at two pm central European time for more episodes recorded during this latest edition of wine to wine business forum. Good afternoon, everybody, or good morning, depending on, where you are in in the world. And welcome to our session. Phone rethinking and reshaping wine education for the next twenty years. So today, I'm here with Jimmy Smith, from the West London wine school, some other wine schools. So we're here to have a, conversation, just really think about what's been happening over the last while and, the impact that's, is likely to have on one education. Before we get started, we're going to introduce ourselves. So let's start with Jimmy's Hello, everybody, wherever you may be, it's a delight to be here. Thank you so much for the introduction, Mary. As mentioned, I am Jimmy Smith, so I am the owner of two wine schools here in the United Kingdom. One is West London wine school, which is the largest independent WST provider in the UK. South London wine school. I also have a wine bar called Stratton winehouse And then the last business is an online educational portal, which is called wine with Jimmy. So I do basically wine buying and wine education, and that's my specialty here in the UK. Thank you. And my name is Mary Gormack Adams. I'm a master of wine, and despite my absence, I live in New York City, and I've been living here for almost twenty years. I am director at International Wine Center, in Manhattan. And International Wine Center was the actually, brought WSE team to the United States over thirty years ago, and, was the first WSTU school in the in the Americas. And I'm also one business strategist, but I've been teaching and talking about, what, one, I'm teaching WSTT since two thousand and two, when I first moved to the United States. So it is absolutely my pleasure to be here with, Jimmy, to to talk about, wine education and, how it might, reshape and rethink itself over the next twenty years. So, basically, so if the next, sort of, half an hour, we're basically going to try and try. We don't have a place to discuss, and explore the struggling forces, including a pandemic, but also our technological, social, economic, and, and cultural forces that are are sort of forcing us or making us rethink, wine education. Maybe just a little bit of tweaking, more reshaping, or maybe completely, inventing it as we develop, one education in terms of content, format, and delivery over the next twenty years. So we don't necessarily have all the answers, but, I think this session will be useful in terms of discussing and having, you know, insights from two very different perspectives, with their sort of fingers in the education pie going back over at twenty years. I think, Roy, it's it's been called a special relationship in the past, isn't it? The US and the UK Absolutely. I said to we'll continue with that and I said to tund in between. And but I think you have, two, enormously important markets, for one, one education, and, I hope that, during the session, that you'll, you know, get some interesting insights as to, the impact of these forces, also the the different, political business, the regulatory environments, and social forces that are helping shape, wine education in terms of how we how we reach people, how we extend that reach, and how we deliver, for the future. So, that means to you. So where what are we going to talk about? Okay. So next slide, actually, we do have two more slides, if we could. Yeah. We could keep going, please. Yeah. Okay. So so these are some discussion points that we are hoping to to get, true. I think it's important to start with where we where we work and sort of have a have a little look back at, sort of traditional one education model before, twenty twenty when, there was major disruptions around the world. So look at sort of how how, how COVID then impacted, what we do. And I think throughout that entire time, the world's faced with a lot of, social cultural and and political unrest around the world, which, you know, feeds into for everything we do. And, obviously, technology feeds hugely into how we have managed throughout COVID. And with that in, in mind, we are going to chat about, how we come out of this because there is no going back to the the old past, but how we, how we create how we evolve, for the next sort of twenty plus years. What do you think, Jimmy? Have a good agenda to start with? That sounds absolutely wonderful. Yeah. Get really, really excited to get stuck into this. So yeah. Okay. And I think we can close out the the PowerPoint so that, hopefully everybody can see us more clearly as we sort of dive into the, our conversation. So you may have thought we'd start with with you, and maybe you could tell us a little bit about sort of, the past, how sort of your education models that you you work with sort of pre twenty twenty. And and and and how then that sort of, I guess, came on step a little bit as we, started in third March twenty twenty with COVID. Yes. Well, interestingly, for us, we, of course, being a to wide schools. We have, quite a big reach across the United Kingdom. So it's gonna be an interesting discussion in terms of how the US versus the UK has affected it. But for us, of course, just like everybody else, we work stuck in our tracks and we could not move as soon as the COVID pandemic was unleashed upon us. And this was, back at early twenty twenty. Now before that, we, as a wine educational model, we were not online. So we were purely classroom based. We would also, tend to have quite a few people in our classrooms as well. I'm really praying upon the the social side of of wine education. And the same with our professional courses as well. So we would have classroom based, education. And it was, it was it was a wonderful, wonderful way of doing it. But, however, we were thinking and toying with the idea of, online education, but it was it was sped up. But no doubt we're going to talk about, that approach as well. Now pre COVID I have the Westland White School and Southland White School post COVID. We have the online formats of both of those, and we also have, my wife, Jimmy online portal as well, which has been a huge thing to, to to move forward. But everything got brought forward quicker. We had to learn a lot quicker. We had to really react because when COVID came into play in March, everything stopped, and Mary, you'll know this as well. So all the financials stopped. Everything stopped. But we had customers, and and these are very professional and also consumers who were just crying out for something. They wanted to do something in those early lockdowns. So we we quickly moved at that point to put an online education into play. But it was all absolutely new to us. So we're gonna talk a little bit, Mary. I think later about the challenges of online platforms, but how we've had with that. So I'll leave that for now, but we were largely classroom based. We were very much, you know, maybe sort of local schools. I I opposed that you look at a lot of white schools across the United Kingdom, they are very much based in certain urban centers. And, really, we were looking around our locality, and that, of course, has changed dramatically with with the online, the online approach. Yeah. I mean, I I would totally echo, Jimmy, what you're saying, and I think we had we had a few additional wrinkles here in New York. So the US is is a very large, wine market. So the, the rolling out of wine education tends to be, in person and and local. So in regarding WSTT, you have, you know, schools in in in many different states. A little wrinkle, and each state has its own set of, you know, rules and regulations. And New York is, sadly unusual in that wine schools are regulated by the New York edu board of education. So, that means that everything we do has to be, approved. So on top of any other sort of, like, WAC team, environment you're working in, there's also New York State. On that fateful day, second week in March when we were closed down because of pandemic. As you're saying, you know, it's not like you have no customers at your store. We had eight level two courses, in progress, already started on two level threes. And we had, for WSTT, and we're we're also in middle of diploma. So it's all about, oh my goodness. Are we really shutting for two weeks or what's happening? And how do we manage, our our current student body, who, as you said, are are just in the middle of our courses. So people are scattered. And that created another wrinkle, at that stage, everybody here in the US was, the the word of COVID pivot, you know, adapting to to Zoom. And and and as you say, we We didn't have an online offering, also we would has been approved by New York States to offer, the same classes in an online environment as well. So we're like you, you know, we we had certainly had we had to scramble, how do we, How do we, continue to support our students and and even move to, pivot to Zoom for remaining classes, that created, another challenge, but we got there. And I think, one thing that's COVID has shown us is, resilience and the the creativity and and how quickly we can, adapt and and evolve and embrace a lot of, technology tools. And because I think with that, if you think back twenty years ago, this happened, it would have been quite, impossible. Mhmm. So, Jimmy, I'd love to sort of them talk through, you know, pivoting to online, and then there's always the sticky question of wine. Well, Matt, Mary, before we do, can I just ask you a quick question? Did you find then? Because this isn't intriguing for me because, of course, you have different politics, around, wine in the in the in the US, as you mentioned. Did you did you find that the you said the the New York, at the governing body? Did they were they flexible in terms of you pivoting to Yes. They were flexible, but they were slow. So it it took, so that that was saying a, you know, second week in March only closed. There was another month before we had, received approval for every single course. That we wanted to, so say, level one, line, level one first, level two wide. And just to kind of process that paperwork of being approved temporarily to, continue these close classes, over Zoom. And that was separate to our then, embracing the online, classic and offer online courses, which similarly had to go through not just a can we do it but creating of another curriculum and submitting an approval? So it's it's a lengthy process, and I think even within the US, it's not really understood the implications of, operating in a state where, one education is regulated. By the states in terms of the military scope, basically. And, it is it is good in the sense it's regulated to protect, the students. And but when you're already operating under a solid the environment, such as the WST, it just, it just puts an extra burden in terms of everything that you're trying to. I'm I'm getting a headache just thinking about the administration of all of that. So Yes. Yeah. Congratulations to get through it. It's great that you're on the other side. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, I think, I I I I give enormous credit to to our team. We're a small team in terms of feed. The full time came at the school or five. We, you know, you hear everybody talking about getting into baking and doing all these things during lockdown. We were working flat out just to, to to convert and to pivot. And I'm I'm working remotely. And so this was a this brought us another challenge for us because, wine. So, our students you know, they want to taste wine during classes. So when we convert it to to Zoom, and that was another challenge because, when COVID hit, people spread everywhere. So it's a very large country, and also as a licensed school, we don't have a license to ship warning or to, remodel wine. So that took another couple of months to work on how do we, How do we deliver on on the wine tasting part? And, that really happened a few months later after we kind of did zoom the theory, and people started coming back to the city, and then started our own mini bottling line. At the school where students would come and, and pick up, the boxes. And that worked tremendously. That was an enormous breakthrough to, to get over that hurdle. I think I yeah. I'd like to echo that as well. It it's, first of all, you mentioned your team. It's the same here, we've got a wonderful team that, once again, worked flat out. You know, we were working if we were working sixty hour weeks beforehand, we were working seventy hour weeks, you know, and we were just putting in the extra time to make sure that the business would would would have an offering would be able to do something. And, our steps, we actually have a slightly different step process as how we got into it because the first thing we did, which was in the first of April, I remember that purely as as if it was yesterday because it was our first online tasting that we did with a South African winemaker Peter Allen, but what we did initially is because we didn't have the little re bottling facility straight away the same as you, Mary, that came a little bit later. We were actually sending out full bottles for consumer events, but not WSET at that point. So for our consumer based events, which maybe meet the white wine maker or whatever it may be, we were actually working with our suppliers here in the UK that works with our with our schools as well as our wine bar, but to deliver those cases directly to the the doorstep of the consumer And that was actually our our offering for about three months from about March to June or April to June, July. We offered, four cases of wine. So six, six wines in a box. Send to the doorstep, but we would actually have to change our model of attaining because we couldn't expect, our consumers to, drink six bottles of wine in the night. So we, I mean, some of them were like, yeah, that's fine. But we have a we have a responsibility, in terms of consumption of alcohol. So we we actually broke our taste since it's two or three. So it would meet the winemaker, but if we have two Tuesday nights or three Tuesday nights where you have two wines or three wines, per evening, and making it with people like Coravan, who would then, you know, people be able to taste those wines at home. So, actually, our model begun like that, because that's been so successful, we've continued that model But because that model is not always applicable to, professional courses, we've we've adapted to the the sample bottle, markets as well, which I think was first pioneered here in the UK by sixty seven pound miles. And we we tied him tied him with that as well, but we we are now doing, the sample bottle across all of our formats. It may be consumer. It may be professional, but, but, yes, these these little sample bottles, if you put the right team behind you, the right equipment for re bottling, and the understanding of, you know, time scales about how how they can keep, how long they can keep, then it can be really successful. And it it's been a fantastic, a discovery for us. At hand, I want to I wanna put in a little sort of selfish point here if I may, because me and and Mary, you know this recently about me. I'm I'm a father. And another one's on the way, it's quite nice to be at home a bit more rather than in a tasting environment continuously. So it's quite nice to do online tastings at home for me selfishly. It means I'm always here. So it's quite quite been a quite a nice process for it as well. Yeah. I have to, I I agree with that, but even though, you know, I'd never like to go back to the, a heart of the lockdown, but, I think, I never again get the same time to spend it on my my my husband and now. So I was eighteen just gone off to college. I just want to add in a little bit, what you were saying about the the the samples. You know, we were incredibly angry at yourself. You in in the UK with the ease with which you could, at bottle. And again, you know, sort of all of that is terribly regulated and by state here. And and our our, our students are offering the tri state, so not just New York in in in terms of where New York City is. So it's equally New Jersey, Connecticut, and, you know, we in the in the months we were researching, how do we, how do we create and how we deliver on on the the little bottles? We talk to to, you know, people were saying, well, why don't you do what X is doing in California? Well, you know, that's not possible because we're in in New York. And so we did talk to a number of New York State wineries. It would've been very expensive for WCT classes, but even if we had sort of just bury that, and they could only then ship to our students who are in New York City or New York state. Yeah. And so that was never going to work. And what we did then, we just basically, borrowed all the wines as we ordinarily would, and and, two people from our little tiny teams, basically in house open bottles. Just the front board. It was a it was not done in a in a sort of a, a scientific environment. And in the study environment, we could do it in, and we, also bottled, sort of, samples from the instructors at the same time and some sort of light for samples that we would test. I have to say the the quality and integrity of the wines, was phenomenal because we were teaching with those wines as students would pick up four weeks at a time. And that we could not ship, and they came into the school and they picked up a little box. And then we would, taste, and I was very often that fourth week teaching. And I have to say, the the the the wines kept nominally well, and that saved us. That was just the fact students then could taste. We could have resumed our classes with tasting, which, as you know, Jimmy, you know, tasting is the applied period, and there are critical parts to, to to a wine class, and particularly for our our professional students, who are, you know, sort of tracking for the various credentials, not being able to taste have been a big issue. Yep. I'm conscious on time. So shall we She, I just wanted to ask you, ask you one more question in terms of the, just in terms of what we've learned. Did you find that also, you know, for yourself and also, you know, you, instructors that are educated to work with you you have to rethink how you deliver your class via Zoom in terms of, keeping the students engaged, making sure everybody keeps their video on. Mhmm. And and I I'm interested to feel would like to share any kind of insights as to, and the strategy of this kind of developed, in that sense. Yeah. So, first of all, the the first thing I'd like to highlight is that there is more to life than Zoom. So, I I would urge anybody out there who was in wine education who is thinking about adopting an online model to spend time heavily investing in in the right platform for you. The the correct platform that suits your needs. We don't actually use Zoom. We use something called click meetings, which has been exceptionally useful for us. And it's really just thinking about, what you want to add in what you want to create as a complete package. So it's, and enables us to add in, Google earth videos, short clips and videos, of course, loads of linking. I know Zoom and other things doing this as well, but we wanted to use something else. So the right platform is very important. In terms of, little things you have to do, and you have to think re remarkably outside the box, because it is a different environment. We can't we can't deny that, online is different. So with, my educators and and I, we, we would start the tastings, e even if it's professional or consumer, we would start in fifteen minutes early. And finish them fifteen minutes before, after as well. So in terms of having bookend the the actual tasting, so you can invite people to join early and have a chat just like you would have in person when people start to arrive at the tasting. So they would they would turn up, they would start to talk. Maybe they've got some of the lines open, certainly if it's a consumer event, not not so much a professional event, but we love the fact that that creates, a social aspect, which we all know that we miss or people really that's their first their first thought about online is that, then they don't really want line taping because they're going to miss the social aspect of it. Why is social? So we we can we can create something social about that. That's that's really what I really would aim for in in our classes, both professional consumer. And then, really, the other things about cameras and things like that, it's it's it's repetition in terms of urging people to, it is the same thing you have in class, really. You you'll notice that some students are quieter and you need to think outside the box in terms of breakaway sessions, group sessions that you could do within your platform to try and help them, come out their shell a bit more. So, in terms of camera, we're quite flexible with cameras. We do allow people to switch them off if they don't want them on, you know, you know, because some people are a little bit wary about where they are that, you know, they don't want to broadcast their living room or whatever it may be. So we do let people have their cameras off, but, we do always check-in with them at certain points, with little sessions. How about you, Mary? What do you do? Are you enjoying this podcast? There's so much more high quality wine content available for mama jumbo shrimp. Check out our new wine study maps. Our books on Italian wine including Italian wine unplugged, the jumbo shrimp guide to Italian wine, Sanjay Vazzy Lambrusco, and other stories, and much, much more. On our website, mama jumbo shrimp dot com. Now back to the show. Yeah. I mean, I think what you said is choosing that the platform is really important and also, varying, you know, what you're, you're using, like, accessing either through videos or you mentioned Google Earth. And one thing that we found really critical particularly ERC for level three and definitely for level four was, advanced homework. So we would, you know, give the students work to do that they would have to, submit in advance, and then that would be their part of the discussion. And and the beginning was a little old, but then, students really wanted it because it it meant for more of a conversation and a discussion as you would have in class. And it also enabled, which I felt primarily on is get rid of the PowerPoint because, well, then you can have more of a direct discussion engaging with the students. So to really be careful how you manage, PowerPoint that you're not presenting at students that you're you tried to create more of that interactive, disc discussion environment that you would have in the classroom. And but, you know, we we we learned as we went along, you know, from, from the first class thing, you gotta change this. To, little tweaks, but certainly we learned a lot and in terms of how to to better engage and, you know, keep the students part of the discussion for, you know, two and a half hours plus And so that that not they were they were really positive learning outcomes, and I think, there's certain there's there's certain intricacy when you've got a small group that you're working with on Zoom as well. And I think there are things that we can turn look towards for the future as well. So and What's what's our last little points now? So, so then in terms of, you know, now we're all, sort of coming out for one, one way or the other, and bringing students back into the the classroom. We actually brought students back in last January. We decided we would, offer we were allowed to. So, slowly slowly, we normally would have two classrooms going, one with, twenty eight thirty students, along with twenty students. So we just use one large classroom and max it out at at twelve. Everybody, you know, if eight father had a their own eight foot table, not a good revenue model. But just to see if people would come back. And, they they're they're coming back. So, that's but it's, you know, it's a big change to dealing with, teaching wearing masks. Keeping your students engaged and also being conscious as to what kind of things you can still do for them online in terms of either some theory sessions or or or homework sessions. How about you, Jimmy, as you're sort of coming back into that? Yeah. I mean, you've gotta learn to smile with your eyes, haven't you, these days. So it's it's it's definitely, very interesting because we we did some polls about, to our to our consumers and our professionals about, would you like to come back into classroom if you could, and we did have an overwhelming response to actually say that they would, and that ties in, of course, people really love the social aspect of, of wine. But we also, as a business, have to think financially and financially, you know, with smaller class sizes, it's it's a changed business model. So for us, online is is a really good model forward. But it's about communicating how online is very positive because there is a negativity around it because it's not really the social side of it. So we're we're trying to promote that our consumer events could be you could buy a couple of kits and you'd get friends around and share it, you know, at an online tasting. And we also are trying to one thing I really do want to mention is that you have at your fingertips, literally, you have at your fingertips a world of information. So often the education is at a higher level I find when it's being taught online because you do have everything there. I'm not sure about you, Mary, but when I'm in class, I I do like to go off peace quite a lot. And, you know, I'm, like, I'll be moving around the classroom, and and sometimes I might not cover a hundred percent of what I should be doing, but, you know, it would be, like, very, very good for the the student. But but online, it's absolutely there. And I have reminders, and there's loads of things, that really help. Plus, one thing I've been doing a lot more recently is bringing in winemakers or very important, you know, wine professionals, journalists or whoever it may be, but mainly winemakers for, my wine spanner guild courses, for example, because in the past, they're not available. You know, a winemaker visits New York City for three days, and they are, you know, packed to the rest of us. You know, they are doing breakfast lunch and dinner, and you trying to get them to your wine stores often a bit more of a challenge than it needs to be. But online, they can't hide from us anymore. They they will be at home. They they may be doing whatever they have to be doing, but they can spare an hour or half an hour. And I've been bringing a lot of winemakers, which for me, has been really enriching the experience for the students and the consumer. So, for example, on my auto Addigieg, part of my, wine speller Guild, we have the, representatives of Cantina Bolsanlo there, and they sample to wine scores, and we and we had a wonderful part presentation that really enriched the experience with students. So I would really, I I see myself as a bit of a flag flow, a bit of an ambassador for online because I think I don't want to lose in person because in person is wonderful, but online can be really exceptional if if we think about it in a clever way. I I I totally agree. And I think, the last year has shown us, how also I'm not online and level the playing fields for, for people. I'm heavily involved in the education side with the student masters of wine as well. And, obviously, you know, one is essentially a self study program students have to, do a week of seminars each year in in a certain place. You know, what you do there is always limited by, you know, who the professions you have access to as well as your your MW and sort of educator body. And and this year, instrumental students because, every week, there were, you know, multiple educational webinars with with winemakers and not just winemakers, but every sort of facet of the, visual, technical, you know, winemaking side of of the industry. And as we are going back into next year, resuming the in person. We're we're looking at we're definitely not looking at. We are maintaining a lot of that, online because these depth and breadth and and wealth of, of under the information, but exchange that was facilitated, through, online, various or, you know, we all intend to use the word Zoom, but but various platforms. And and that's something that's, basically, I think has been a I will awake me, during COVID, so that we can offer our students access conversation time, with people from, winemakers, one people from around the world just that the the click in the button. So that's something I think we we need to continue to to integrate into, our programs for you to add that, those levels of, of depth and, an interest. And it's, you know, you can work run run the wines. You don't necessarily have to have one all the time, but, you know, a lot of the wines are available, in various markets. But it's it's something that, you know, we're we're we're going to maintain as well. I think, you're exactly right. If you look, I mean, it's a little bit annoying to say this, but the the world there's convenience in the world, and and we need to think as wine educators, we need to fit into being convenient because it's not always easy for someone to drive the two hours to come to a specialist tasting, in in your wine school or wherever it may be. But if you can bring in the convenient factor of, you know, bringing a winemaker he or she to their door, you know, to their screen, and then you're able to organize the samples professionally securely. I think that is a huge benefit. And you gotta think about people that are, you know, very worried about the pandemic still, and they may be shielding their loved ones or their family, or they may be having a family like me and, you know, time might be a little bit less available. These online tastings certainly from my education has been what the before we've been able to access a huge wealth of online, tastings, which has been absolutely fantastic and it's done professionally and well. And I I think it really should be here to stay because I I'm very excited about what we can keep offering in the future. You'd never know, Mary, we might we might do a sort of a cross semantic tasting or something in the future. Absolutely. And and and I think also, you know, particularly when, you know, the fresh inside of students, you know, with more advanced levels, I It's really important that they understand different wine business environments and, you know, UK and the USB. So on, you know, they and and is two of them at the the top of the sort of food chain in terms of market size and and and dynamic, I think he would be really interesting to to do some, exchanges. I want to go back to a point you made, Jimmy, about, sort of dispelling the, any negative, perceptions that that people have that, you know, I'm not allowing, study. And and apart from you know, these are these are additional, flushing out and sort of meet the winemaker types of online learning. We also have, focus a lot more on the WSTT online, platform, where we would work with the, the students as well, so complement with some, you know, Zoom sessions or, ways to encrypt community and help them create community when they're, when they're learning because there is a perception that, it's dry that you are interacting with the with the machine. But I think, for for anyone out there who's not as familiar with the platform now that the WSCT uses for online. It's, it's very rich. And, I got involved in moderating a number of the, the courses. And I felt in some cases I'd opt to know my students Even even better than I than I would in a class, because I would offer weekly, Zulu sessions and when we do some sort of tastings and also discuss various assignments they had done to, more like tutorial type of things. So I kind of felt that that that sort of made us kind of like a little bit of a hybrid where you you were giving them a weekly, let's sort of meet together on Zoom. And what I found is that they were They were independently even in the heart of lockdown, having their own little tasting sessions and, and, and theory sessions. So the tools that are there now online, I think we, we absolutely need I think the personal interaction, but there's a a lot of richness and depth that can be added by integrating online too, I think, into your education, design. Yeah. I I think, obviously, many people around the world listening to this absolutely echo that. And and as an educator, we have we have to think about the social side of it because that is the main loss, for people online. So integrating that into everything we've mentioned about how to make the sessions more exciting I don't know how about you Mary, but I have to be on my a game more online, I think, than it does. Oh, yeah. There's no advice. You're gonna be, yeah, you're gonna be more buzzing, haven't you? And you've gotta you've gotta make it more enriching and, Yeah. That that's, that I find is is very important because because of the what could be the negativity around online education, but, but, yeah, if if the if the school or we we actually offer WSTT online, as if it were in class. So we would just offer your sessions. We go through the four sessions. We don't actually use the platform, but I have heard very positive things about it. And we really wanted to enable to our students that, you know, you would you would get a very similar experience online than you would in person. That was what we were aiming for, but what we found is that the level of education they get, we think is is just gone through the roof. We think it's wonderful. So hopefully, people around the world that are listening to this could be, maybe you know, their their mind is set at ease with, with online education, because I I think it is, it's quite wonderful. I think if going forward, it's really what we have to say more about, or maybe there's complacence in the past, you know, that we were there, therefore they came. And, at the next of the world has been sort of shaken up, quite fundamentally. And I think, you know, as we go forward, we really have to be more thoughtful about our our reach and, the various kind of formats that we develop in order to continue to to reach and engage with a an increasingly diverse, community of, customers from wine education, be they professionals or be they, you know, enthusiasts, who will remain enthusiasts or who, you know, wanting to be changed their their sort of career in in to wine as well. And and I think the, by having these different models, and certainly from our perspective, we allow you to say we we know, but we've got a little more insight into the the mindset of an online student because as we kind of came out of of COVID, when during COVID, there was nothing else. You know, you it was online or or or nothing. And as we're coming out of COVID, we're getting to sort of understand that there are certain students for whom online is will always be their preferred format. Circumstances is sometimes the case. But other times, people, that's just how I like to learn when, you know, they'll watch me in the classroom bothered by, by somebody around my case all the time. So I think it's helped us really on try to understand how you support the very different kinds of, of students. And and, you know, I think one of the other thing that has been really important throughout the whole COVID, it was obviously always there is a lot of the, the social unrest as well, and I think the realization that, you know, as as wine educators, we need to to reach to a broader and more diverse, community of potential students who may not necessarily have considers that, you know, wine could be part of their career or even livestock. And I think that's something that is is interesting, particularly as we sort of imagine COVID and to, extend outreach to more diverse, environments, schools, to engage with more different people. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Great. So Let us see, I'm just conscious of our time, and we have got some questions. Okay. More sort of comments, one associate. Yes. I agree with that. Okay. During we have a questionnaire, during the long term people, receiving bottles, sometimes. However, do we feel the appetite for these will remain amongst consumers under trade now that so many live tasting venues? Yeah. This is the question. I mean, I don't think we have I I certainly don't have any scats, and I I certainly, see, you know, see the person's posed question for your view that, yeah, I I mean, at the during COVID, that was all we did. We lived, for these online tastings day in there. I think going forward, we we want to consume we want to go back to live tastings, meet people in person. But I think they can co, cohabits, you know, that There's still occasions when it's nice to think that I've got my little bottles here, and I can I can tune in from home because I can go to that extra tasting that I may not be able to physically go to because I'm committed to three other things or I'm teaching in in in two hours? So, I can I agree? I think I think I think I'm just echoing, points that I made earlier, but, the for me, the sample kit takes things the virtual tastings are here to stay because the school that offers them should be they have more innovation and creativity behind them. Now they have possibilities of making more interesting tastings. You know, for example, I've got a tasting coming up with, you mentioned finger lakes. I've got a few New York finger lake winemakers doing a tasting, which I would never be able to do before because they wouldn't all three of them be in the London London at the same time. So I think, we're gonna keep online tastings. We're gonna keep our professional courses because we definitely have a call for them. We have seen the numbers decrease a little bit, when we have reopened, but consumer events, virtual tastings are here to stay because it gives us another an another tool that in in our toolkit and another another gun in our armory in terms of really being able to offer a broader spectrum. So, I think, care for us that they had to stay, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly agree. I think that, as you say, you know, that they the the the finger is still extending. I think we're always more time, you know, now there's be a bit of sort of as we sort of good go back into in person. There there will be in this extra period of of uncertainty, but I think when it just settles, the more diverse offerings, I think, that you can offer because there is no one you know, single type of, you know, wine, students, and, if you can offer, a lot of different. I think it's wine education is very competitive environment these days. In minds or a competitive environment, and certainly, the wine education people increasingly competitive, and I think, the the the richer the offering you have, just, you know, it will be enabled here too. To offer something different to your students, and and also to remain relevant and be on top of your game. And I I think travel as well. I mean, travel is getting easier, but, it's still tough work for, you know, key speakers and winemakers, etcetera, to move around the world. So it's, in in the short term. That means that we're definitely gonna have, more online online events. Okay. Great. Okay. Let me just check my new questions. So we have one more minute before, I guess, we'll be, Yeah. Question when they call about figuring out things we've answered. But, yeah, how may how may I need to make? I think if they if the topic is is interesting, people will still want to access you, talk to, meet you, taste your wines. And the one thing that we were always short on is time. Mhmm. And and I really think having, this combination of of in person, education, and complimented by ongoing, online. I think that makes very much happier place than we would all be dead for traveling, that we can kind of strive to the balance and yet kinda have it all in a way. Yeah. I and, I think you mentioned Mary about fifteen minutes ago, but getting into the the mind of an online student. It's, I mean, it's a quite difficult task to do. But if if we can try and figure out, I think, an online student will want that diversity. They will come to an in person because that's the kind of person they are. Most of them will. But time is is very precious, and they they would do online as well. It's the same as me. I go to both both now. And I'm I'm hopefully learning a lot more from it. I think it's a great, a great future ahead for it. I think so. And, I think we're going to start to have more and more sophisticated tools for for doing this. We'll always have to get around the the physicality of, re buckling wines, little buckling some, and and and moving it until we can search this. I guess virtually transported. But I, you know, I think the, you know, emergency management six seven Palmau and and various wineries here even though we do have more regulatory environments. I think people have done tremendous jobs in, in sort of stepping up to the place and enabling the, the small samples offering. Yeah. I I I echo that we we actually do hire another company now to do most about professional bottling. So, you know, we initially started how you did Mark Mary as well. Bottling your own kits. But, if you've got some volume, then please do also research, companies that specifically do this now. And, you know, they would really help you in terms of your, what you can offer. Okay. So, thank you everybody for tuning in. I I think we're at the top of the hour. It's been it's been a really pleasure, chatting with you because this is the first time that we've, we've actually Mattin has such a a good discussion. So I think we should do things together in in the future. But thank you everybody and for your comments and and and questions. And for those of you who are in, sit you in Verona. I'm jealous. Enjoy maybe next year, and, hope to see a lot of you either virtually or in person over the next few months. The same for me. Thank you, everybody who has joined us. This session, Mary. Delight to meet you. And thank you for, of course, joining at such an early time in the morning in New York. So because I'm just coming up now behind me. I'm putting in a big shift. But, yes, thank you so much. And, if anybody does make their way across to, to London, please come and see us. I've got Wideschool and wine bars, so you can come for a class, plus, or bottles. So, wonderful to meet you all. And, yes, I hope you see you either online or in person very soon. So thank you so much. Hi, everybody. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Italian wine podcast, brought to you by Vineetale Academy, home of the gold standard of Italian wine education. Do you want to be the next ambassador? Apply online at benetale international dot com. For courses in London, Austria, and Hong Kong, the twenty seventh to the twenty ninth of July. Remember to subscribe and like Italian wine podcast and catch us on SoundLab, Spotify, and wherever you get your pods. You can also find our entire back catalog of episodes at italian wine podcast dot com. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Livingston, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began. 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