Welcome to the Rene Global in Conversation Podcast, where we talk about the future of FineWine. I'm Paul Indicare, Director of Rene Global, and in this series we bring your conversation with some of the most interesting and influential figures in and around the world of FineWine to talk about how the world is changing, how these changes impact the production, distribution and consumption of FineWine and how that creates risks to be managed and opportunity to be seized. So welcome everybody to this special episode of the Rene podcast. What we're going to discuss today is the role of education in turning the wine industry into a much more profitable place to be. So why are we talking about this now? Well, we just launched an entire white paper on that topic based on 80 months of research. And what we discovered was not just insights into wine education but also actionable points that we'd like to share. Pauline, can you explain why Rene decided to focus on education? Yes, of course, thanks Felicity. Actually we started this study because of an observation, because of four observations actually. The first one is the wine trade is an attractive place to work and still an attractive place to work. That's a good thing. We're still, you know, seen as sexy. You just have to tell people that you work in the wine industry and more often than not, you see, you know, the people's eyes sparkle with the interest in sometimes even a bit of envy. And the ranks of people, the second observation is that the ranks of people who want to learn about wine keep growing. So in September 2024, the Wine and Spirit Education Trust reported that it had experience of 15% increase in candidates for its diploma globally. So more students than ever are enrolling in its other courses as well. And that's a situation that, you know, you and I have been seeing and reporting across the wine education landscape. And as we've seen, there's a lot of options to study and learn about wine in a professional way. It may be through certification program or academics or internal programs as well. So, but the other side of those observation is that 45% of companies were affected by staff shortage. So that's sorry, that's a proven report on staff shortage that was published a couple of years ago. That said, that 45% of companies were affected by staff shortage and that led to missed opportunities and revenue lost. And that number of 42% is an interesting one to dissect because it rose up to 87% for the hospitality sector, which is not a surprise. We all know how the hospitality sector has been struggling since COVID. But the interesting part is retail and distribution was also impacted a bit less, but it was still a third of companies that were struggling in recruiting the people that they needed. So as a result, of course, people had to work overtime in 57% of the cases, but 36% of companies announced that they had to cut back on new business opportunities because of a staff shortage. And 22% reported losing revenue. So that's an important number and that's a meaningful thing to look at. And the last observation that goes into all of this is that the wine trade is still famously a financially difficult business. And I'm sure I'm not teaching anyone how difficult it is to make a profit in the wine world. And when you look at what's coming ahead to the next. It's easy to see that money and margins are not going to be the easiest thing to maintain. So when you put all those observations together, what you get is people like the idea of working in the wine trade. They are motivated by learning about wine, but yet despite that interest, companies can't find the talent they need to drive them towards profitability. So that was the reason of the research. We really wanted to understand if education, if professional wine education in that context had a role to play in bridging that gap. And after 18 months of research, it was quite a long process of research. We can confidently say that there is a discrepancy between what we like to learn or what we like to teach and what we need to know. And the good thing is that what our research shows is that if we were to rethink wine education, it could lead to greater profitability that in turn will allow higher salaries and increased attractivity of the whole trade. So do you want to start by talking about how the study was put together? So the methodology was quite classic for an Irene's study. So like everything at Irene, we start with a quite important qualitative face, which is usually we start usually based on what we call collective intelligence methods. So round tables, workshop groups, where we can bring a diverse group of experts together and ask them loads of questions. And then we did more than 12 interviews, 15 exactly I think, on a one to one basis. And we really wanted to talk to people across different countries, but also across different positions in the wine world. So we talked to retailers, some of these educators, head of certification programs, head of academia, and also recruitment agencies because we wanted to have both side of the picture. And once we've finished that qualitative face, we did the quantitative one when we surveyed 130 of our rene subscribers. So that's just where maybe the biases that we need to admit is that because of the nature of our subscribers and the majority of them are respondents from the UK, the US, from South Africa and Australia. They certainly advised towards the Western world. We have a few respondents that were based in Asia, but not enough, I'd say to make it very statistically relevant for that part of the world. Can we, before diving into the white paper, can you talk about what people perceive to be the current benefits of wine education? So what did you discover about why people enroll in wine education at the moment? And that's that's a fascinating question indeed. And it's always difficult to look to talk about numbers when you don't have any visuals in front of you, but really the standout answer when we ask people what are the major benefits of your wine education, what did you learn? Or why did you go there? The main answer given by 44% of the respondent was to acquire a core knowledge and understanding. And there was also 11% about being exposed to wine and taste a benchmark. And there was something that is quite not surprising at all. People are going to wine education, to learn about wine and to taste wine and to be exposed to wine and to be better at tasting. And after 18 months of interviews and research, I think you and I, we still very convinced that product knowledge is essential and we do not doubt about that. So it continues to be paramount now industry. We have to know about the product. And when we did the presentation in Paris, we had the representation of so many talented educators in the room. And we were so glad to have them because they have a very, very important role in our career. So we were pulling and talking about we launched it at wine Paris in February and was an absolutely packed room. The amount of interest for this topic was almost unexpected actually. Yeah, they had to keep us out. We're just going to leave the room at the end. We have so many questions. That's why we were actually quite firmly. Yes, I'm sorry, I interrupted you. So you're talking about, you know, why people do wine education? Yeah, so and I was saying, of course, they do it to learn about wine. And then I remember an anecdote from my days in the MW student journey. And I remember that slide that said, you know, the MW is the greatest license to indulge in the study of the subject you love. And I remember thinking at the time, well, with all the resources and time and I'm putting in this, I hope it's just not just about this. And I think that's also where we were a bit surprised with the other numbers that only 11% of people answering the question about the benefits of education said they had a career progression. So 11% of them remain they only had only 11% were doing it as a way of progressing their career. Yes, or all those so it as a way to progress their career as a benefit to that. And it's not just us that have seen that Evan Gaulstein and the quartermaster familiar in America, the crunched a bunch of numbers. And they found similar results to people are just here to learn about wine. And I remember that Evan and I we had the same reaction that it's both refreshing and quite scary, right? It's refreshing in the way that it's beautiful.
to see the quest for knowledge and seeking understanding as a deeply rooted human trait. So there's something beautiful about learning about something. But I couldn't help but wonder if that was also part of the problem, if the issue started here. Because from the very beginning, students going through professional wine education don't consider education as a way to increase their own profitability. So let alone, you know, they're companies. And as Eric Emma said, sorry for the age Eric, I'd never copped for an ounce of name correctly. So he's the head of education for thousands of glazes. I think he should just change his name. Let's just change his name for him. He'll appreciate it. Eric, thank you. The French way. But his quote is wonderful. So he says, you can't just have wine geeks that have no idea how to sell anything. Yeah. So in my many years as editor of Wine Magazine, it often happens that somebody would complete a ritzy qualification of some sort, MW. And they immediately ask for more money. But of course, although they were better qualified in wine, they hadn't become a better journalist, you know. But better anything, again, that's really what we wanted to measure in this white paper is the difference between knowledge and skills and maybe the discrepancy. Just on this, I've even seen some frustration with people who've done their diploma and their life doesn't change as a result of it. They often get cranky. That, you know, doors haven't suddenly swung open with this qualification. All right. But if we rethink wine education as not simply being about, I guess, what you could call product knowledge, but it was also about, you know, increasing their usefulness and desiobility in the wine world and on the job market and helping wine companies become more profitable in those circumstances, what would they need? So that's the question that we took on next. And that time we went to see recruiters and asked that there can be external recruiters, like talent hunters, but also internal recruiters in agency and everything. And we asked them, what skills and qualification are the most difficult to find? And what do you wish candidates had more of? And so that was a very interesting result. And for example, in their answer, there was something about like 12% of them said they wish the candidates had more wine related knowledge. That's a paradoxical answer. Well, yes or no, because if it's only 12%, first of all, you can say, well, we're doing a great job in teaching people about the product. And then when you look in depth in that answer, you actually see that what people were missing would not knowledge about wine, but it was what they were requiring was more tasting skills and more knowledge about the distribution system. It was wine related knowledge to how is the wine distributed? How does the market work really? And how does the wine comes from point A to the last point of consumption? So it was more like a still wine, but the trade side of it that was missing and again, the tasting skills. So we're doing a good thing about teaching about the product, no doubt about that. And we should continue. We just need maybe to expand the curriculum a bit. But what was really, really interesting and striking was the need for more business skills and everything. The counting and planning was, I think, more than the quarter of the respondent said that we needed more, what, counting and planning, financial acumen, sales and marketing were quoted, related skill work quoted by the quarter as well. Can I just jump in and ask you about this incredible wine knowledge that people are accumulating? Do you think in some ways that it's actually a disadvantage because people have a bias towards the artisanal expensive end of the market, whereas a lot of where you work is actually going to be with the commercial end? That's certainly something that we've heard quite a lot during the interviews. We've heard a couple of brush returns saying that they've seen a counter effect of having their staff going through the WST ladder because they higher up, they went the more snobby, they became with the wine that they wanted to sell and they refused to sell the wines that they didn't like anymore. And they just wanted to sell the hypey things or the burgundies of the world. So there's been a couple of this, there's been a couple. And that's actually a good segue because also one of the skills that is really missed by recruiters is all the soft skills. So that's the third family of skills that I'm missing. The first one is sales and marketing. The second one is business skill. And then with equal number, we've got the communication skills which is written, spoken and listening skills and all the soft skills that are about humility and resilience as well. Because the wine world is however changed, it's still going to be a new business. Interesting. Did you find there were any particular types of marketing skills missing because it seems to me there's a lot of marketers in wine. Yes, so what we had was data analysis, consumer analysis as well. And even some creativity, we had a great quote from Charles Marshall who's the head of communication and marketing for Berkman, Wine Cellar in the UK. And he said, if you go into the wine world and look for marketeers, it's more events, trips and dinners. But if you want to broaden your marketing skillset, then I think you often have to fish in a slightly different pool. So I guess what are you saying is people have a tendency to arrange trips and dinners rather than to do marketing? Yeah, it's a marketing. Well, it's also even when you look at events and things, it's more like a model in the framework that we tend to always reproduce, that it's always the same thing that we put forward to the consumer, that we offer to the consumer. So probably you bit of a. So if I could sum up where we are so far, what we need is a balance. Companies are really struggling to find people who have both things, wind knowledge and business knowledge, which to be fair is a really difficult thing to put together. Yes. And that's really what's crucial and what's the most complicated and that was the most complicated thing for recruiters is to find people that had both. Because it's easy, we had people that were highly critical of wind people in the sense that they're too romantic and all they care about is developing their knowledge of that. We love the romantic people. Yeah, we love them to go. But we've seen also people recruiting outside of the wine world and taking marketeers and salespeople that are not from the wine world and they had problems understanding, you know, our trade is still very special and our trade is still very unique and just copy and pasting what works in other industry usually doesn't work in the wine world. And I've seen very intelligent people who didn't come from the wine world at very high level positions that we've gone after 12 months because they couldn't fit. So the interesting things just as an anecdote is that the way wine companies solve this, the problem of not being able to find, you know, either wine people or business focused people depends on their size. So the big companies typically hire candidates with the technical skills, so people good at marketing, communication, business and then they shove them in wine education. The small companies do the reverse, they go for people who know wine and then they develop or not their skills in the technical part. Yes, I mean, you can see this is a real problem. I guess small companies don't have the ability to pay the salaries of fully qualified professionals or maybe they value wine knowledge more than professional skills. But what it does mean is that smaller companies have fewer of those skills to draw on, which means they're less competitive in the small and medium enterprise sector. Sometimes that's not true. Sometimes you'll find somebody who made money somewhere else who comes in and starts a business and it's really, really well run. Yeah, of course there's always these traditional businesses actually from my observation tend to do things because that's the way we've already done it. Sometimes they even realize they need these skills. And the problem is if you are one of these highly skilled people and you go into a small medium-sized company, it might hinder your own career progression because you don't get to use those big strategic skills and so on, which means that you won't be able to progress to those bigger, more professional companies. Pauline, it's a segue into something else. You and I discussed the topic of wine and health a lot in 2024. Did that topic show up in the study? Yes. So maybe not as much as I would have wanted it, but I'm a bit biased again on that topic and the importance of that topic. And thank you, by the way, for the astonishing research work you have done on this topic. I'll put the link to your podcast on the show notes. But yes, we had mentions of the need to include alcohol, health and moderation into the wine professional curriculum. And just as an example, so I did a workshop on that topic last in September 2024 at the ASI, so the association of my summary and termation then. In CV, in front of 50 sommariers, they are not junior sommariers. are some of these that are training for the best of many of you at the competition.
So, there have been here, you know, they have been in the circuit for quite a while in the like, almost at the top of their games. And I had that question in front of them about who ever had a workshop or seminar on Pinot Noir, so everyone raised their hands on that very obscure grade from, you know, I don't know, in Ireland, in the south of Spain, and then you still have ten people that raised their hands, then I asked them who ever had any kind of courses in class on wine, alcohol, moderation and health. And there was only two that had had alcohol training and they were Australian because, as you know, it's mandatory there. You know, it's mandatory for everybody. So even friends of mine who've worked as, for example, copywriters in big direct marketing companies dealing with wine, they have to do the responsible serving of alcohol training. And the responsible serving of alcohol isn't just about how alcohol affects you. It's also about recognising when, you know, other people have had too much and how you, you know, how you slow them down, how you refuse them service or those kinds of things. And it's a really big deal. I was talking to a wine, a winery owner from South America and she'd had junior staff who were confronted with, you know, wine trade visitors, sorry, sell your visitors, who were drunk and who caused problems. And they had no tools to deal with it whatsoever. So I think it's a really important topic. It's an important topic and in France, we do also, when you want to sell alcohol, you have to have a special license and you need to have a training in order to get that license. But it's quite summary and in France and for what I know, it's all about how to manage those types. Like what's your legal responsibility towards people that have had too much and etc. But there's actually nothing that. But what about your own style? What about your own, yeah. What about you and what about your own health when you were working on the floor, you know, the biggest part of your life and you were surrounded with alcohol, the biggest part of your life. And one of the. So there's really a need. And the anecdote is that at the end of that three day session, in CV one of the summary I clearly had too much and wasn't feeling well at all. And maybe it didn't have that much. It's just because there was so much stress, because they had exam and they had to prep so many things. So there's really a need for us to integrate scientifically accurate material for everyone working with wine and the impact of alcohol and the human body. And also, I mean, we all agree that I hope that moderation is a very interesting concept. It's just how we define it. It's quite a blurry definition for people. What is moderation? And also what it means for us working around our floor every day and what kind of strategy we can put in place for a long lasting career in drinks, I think that's a very, very important part to develop in their curriculum. Hmm, interesting. Yeah, no. And it's definitely an opportunity for somebody to develop those materials. Yeah. And can you. Just for people that are more interesting and again, because it's also even important collectively because we know there are a lot of things changing in the way governments are seeing alcohol. So if there's a time to do that, it's actually now. But for everyone who's interesting in understanding the context of this and regulation changing and how wine fits in the health picture, can you give us the reference of your. Well, thanks for the opportunity, Pauline. I have a podcast that's called "Drinks Insider" and it has a sub-channel called "Wine and Health." So you can find it on Amazon, Spotify and so on. But I also put articles up at drinksinsider.com. But let's come back to the study. Can you recap the main takeaways of the first part of the white paper? Yes. So, if the wine world is to maintain profitability in the turbulent times ahead, well, we need candidates with more than excellent tasting skills and good product knowledge. That's very crucial. And so those candidates, what they will need, they will need a practical understanding of how the value chain works from vineyards to logistics to the shelf. They need better sales, marketing and financial skills, particularly in small to medium companies. So the ability to understand data, AI and consumer research, for example, will be increasingly important. And of course, their world needs soft skills, right? Because however rapid the change is, the wine world will remain a people business. And being able to establish long term relationships requires professionalism. And I think sometimes people think that soft skills are just to give in. You have them or you don't have them, but actually you can teach them. You can teach professionalism and accident interpersonal skills as well as flexibility. And that's something that we need to reinforce in the curriculum as well. Hey listeners, just interrupting the conversation for a few seconds. First to let you know how grateful we are that you are listening to this episode. Thank you so much. And also to kindly ask you to subscribe to our podcast channel on whatever platform you are listening this episode on and to give us a cool rating. It's such an easy way to support us and it really makes all the difference. Thank you so much. Now back to our conversation. Yes, so if I could just sum up where we are. So it's very clear that we've got great product education at the moment, you know, learning about wine itself and how it's produced. But what we don't have is we don't have something that can bridge that wine knowledge with business knowledge. Yes. And so the second part of the study focuses on that and we talk about who in the wine world is best positioned to unlock those opportunities. So really what's probably required is it's probably required an extra year or an extra stream of something so that people can study some of these things. You know that can build wine knowledge and also the relevant business skills. There's some really exciting things out there going on. I went to the wine academy in the Netherlands and they have a fifth year after the diploma where they teach people about the way the world of wine works, which is a very interesting thing. They obviously by then they're already bringing all of their wine knowledge to it. I also spoke to Jonathan Stein from the University of Cape Town Business School which is very high in regard to business school. And they use the Harvard case method where they get students in and they basically turn them into entrepreneurs. They get them very excited about using case studies and they're built in sales negotiation and marketing into this sort of entrepreneurial mindset. So there's opportunities out there and there's people coming up with really great ideas. They just need to be more widespread and I think it probably offers a big opportunity for somebody to develop their own materials. Yeah, there's definitely opportunities as you said for academia, for the certification programme. We've also seen opportunities for the internal programme because internal programmes are very big because quite logically companies have been developing their own development programmes to bridge that gap between the missing knowledge and skills. But I will give you two examples that I thought were quite interesting in the research that we've done. One was in the UK where we talked to a gentleman who was in charge for all the wine education of a very big hospitality group that had 3,000 people and it was very proud that the group just gave the green light for everyone to receive WSET training at least a level two for everyone regardless of your position in your company. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. Do you think that at some point maybe not for everyone but for either more senior management of people that you've identified to be on the fast track programme because they have will and they've motivated and etc and they're good? Is there anywhere where you will have an education for them that is destined on to doing stock take, how to create a wine list that brings money, how to do stock rotation and everything and how to upsell to the clients? And he said to me, oh no, no, no, you can't teach that. This is just all in my head. And I was like, oh, that's interesting thinking that you can't teach stock take and upsell is that everything. And then the other example, the counter example was again at Southern Glazers which is of course not a small company and they have resources that probably small companies don't have. It's very important for them. Nothing is taught outside of the context of selling. So for example, when they teach you about the ridiculous, not just what it is and how it's made and where it's made but what's the position and the wine is, how you can make money with that type of wine. And I think that's really essential as well that it's a very big opportunity even for internal programmes to have that. Yeah, it's interesting. And I think going back to your example of the guy who said, oh, it's all in my head, I can't teach it. I think this raises another interesting question which is that people, because it is locked up in people's heads, people don't realise how many different opportunities there are in the wine world, that there are all these different jobs you can do. And I think, you know, of course, you can write things to how. I spoke to somebody who was a cadet green manager for a major supermarket chain and she said, you know, the amount of knowledge that you have to have, but you're basically relying on trial and error and other people coming and telling you what you've done wrong rather than somebody just saying, okay, this is how it works. Do this, like, you know, don't like this. Like you see the established process as well. Yeah, that's right.
And there's very clear ways of doing things. I mean, you might have to change it for your particular store or location, but they're very clear general principles. Speaking of general things, it could be that general regional bodies have a role to play in this. Of course. Of course. The interprofessions and collective bodies maybe don't just have to promote the wines, but also promote them internally to people, teach them how to sell them, how to make money from them. So in addition to all of these ideas that we're coming up with, Pauline, talk about some more opportunities that you saw. So one of the big opportunities that we saw as well, we called it from a certification angle to continue a process. And what it means, I think you've touched based on this, is that for many education is the angle. Like you've got your diploma, you've got your CMS acquisition, and now you've done. And what you want is being promoted, and that usually doesn't happen. Let's be clear. One more money. Yeah, you only have pay more. And that's what you want. And that usually doesn't happen because of course you know more about wine, but you don't know about how to make more money for the company you work for when you work with. So that's one of the issue. And one of our interviewer, he said, well, that's funny, right? You have to renew your driving license every 10 years, but you don't have to renew any of that certification in order. And you might have those letters at the end of your name, but if you don't continuously learn, they don't mean anything because the wine of the world of wine is changing so quickly. So there's an opportunity we've seen from educational providers offering maybe update your knowledge courses. So maybe you certified some of you, and you've been a certified some of you for 10 years, and you had that accreditation 10 years ago, maybe just come for a couple of days and like, we'll refresh your knowledge on wine and same thing, you know, regardless where you are in the wine journey. So that was the first thing. Then the second thing that is still part of that continuous development is that in the wine world, we don't really have a lot of vertical progression, right? Just because the company we have, you know, most of them are not big enough to offer a lot of levels to progress through when you enter a company. But what we have is we have horizontal movements like people move horizontally. So they go from the hospitality to retail or to fine wine merchants and being advisors. And they also move from countries to countries and market to market. And there's not really anything in place to help them navigate those horizontal changes. And as another hammer, but doesn't spell the same way, but Jenny Hammer that time. So she's the executive director at Guildsome in the US and she said, it shouldn't be assumed that because people understand one section of the wine trade, they will be able to jump into another without help. Yeah, this is actually something that Jonathan Stain brought up. He said a lot of students come in because they want to make a move. There might be a wine maker and they want to be management. Yes. And of course everyone just goes, well, you're the wine maker and they haven't developed those management skills. Or what's worse is in some companies, they do turn the wine maker into the manager without giving them any management training. So you need these bridges and ways for people to get from one place to another. While recognising that they have to learn lots of new skills when they do it. So I guess what we've concluded is that we need career professional development needs to be normalized. It needs to be ongoing and it needs to be product knowledge as well needs to be ongoing. I'm talking about product knowledge rather than wine education because I think what we're trying to get at is that's what wine education is. And there's obviously a clear commercial opportunity for an educational body or a publication to seize the initiative here and issue regular updates or offer many courses. What we've also seen is that would be great for wine providers or wine school providers to organise complimentary modules i.e. the extra year after diploma for graduates working in the business. So that everyone can get immersed in everything from the bot wine supply chain to how to build a profitable wine list. And how to work in that market. I mean, I would have loved again when I arrived in London 10 years ago and I knew a bit about the wine world. I had worked in 10 years in France, but like arriving in the UK and like, hello, this is a totally different market that when you are accustomed and here is how it works. And you know, here's what's a fine wine merchant because it took me a couple of years to understand what they were doing. We don't have anything similar in my origin, in my market for origin. So yeah, I could have used that. Yeah, I actually, sorry, I wait quite because they're actually surprised me. Do you think, do you think given the way the fine wine world is working that France is going to need fine wine merchants? Oh, that's all that's a totally different question. I don't think we can, I mean, I think fine wine merchants are really linked to the in bond system in the UK. Okay. I want to take you out of this conversation. Okay, so but going back to wine education, there is another opportunity and Pauline, you were very passionate about it when we spoke about it earlier. Can you talk more about this? Yeah, well, and if we were, you know, live in front of an audience, we we can do actually the test of who in the audience actually wanted to work in wine from the very beginning. Who was like for whom wine was a first choice and we've done that test in many occasions and it's always a very, very minority and actually within the people that we interviewed. None of them had planned a wine career unless they came from a wine family. So if you, you know, if you've got that link, but otherwise people, you know, either wanted to career in hospitality and then they fall in love with wine, working on the floor. Or, you know, they took a summer job, they delivered wine and they just started being curious about what they were delivering or they had a first career in anything else and they fall in love with wine during the first career and then they made a change because they were attracted by the lifestyle opportunity and the wine trade offers and again because the wine trade is a sexy industry to work on. So it really, really hit me like I remember being in wine Paris and saying this and then looking at the man city of the whole in which we were in which we were and was exactly imagine. Like, a minority of the people that are here today actually wanted to work in wine. That was quite, that was quite an interesting one. We don't see wine as a career and I think that's a big one. People seem to fall into wine. We wait for them to be interested in the product and then we, again, we shovel them with intensive wine training. And I think it's a, it's a key witness. It's a key. Sorry, yeah, weakness. And the other weakness that it brings is that many members of the wine industry currently, well, then you very little about the trade itself when they entered it. They came because they loved wines and not because they love the job that they were going to do, which is again a nuance that it's extremely interesting. And they were unaware of the types of laws and opportunities that are available. And some of them are doing amazingly. I mean, a lot of people are doing great even if they were not destined for wine from the beginning. That's not what I'm saying. But it took them quite a long time and it should be easier for them to grow into wine and also why needs to be regarded as a career this. So how do we, how do we, how do we get those people and make them know that there's a career in wine, do you think? Well, there's, there's loads of opportunity. I mean, the first one is career days, for example, and just being versus maybe career days. And I know that in front of scene, a couple in everything that is production related. If you want to be, if you want to work on the seller kind of role or in the vineyard, when it comes into trading and selling wine, then there's not that many that offers, you know, here's what an imported does. This is what a retailer does. This is, you know, what you do in wine, event, staging and et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. And there's already existing wine clubs at universities. So, so you know, they could have somebody go in and talk to people who are already clearly interested in wine and say, look, why don't you think about this as a career? But what came out very strongly out of the research is that we're at a crossroads now. After years of expansion, optimism, premiumisation, the wine sector is now facing falling consumption, extreme competition from other beverages and something that's talked about much less, which is recruitment talent. If we're going to sort of give the whole thing a bit of a boost, we need people who've got very, very high level skills that they can connect those skills with their wine knowledge. Yeah, we need people to know that there's a career path. So, I just have a quote for this, I think that's a good one to finish on, but that it was given to you by Alex Hunt, who's a master of wine here in the UK. And he said, as a recruiter, the one question to ask is, why do you want to work in wine? Because it's obvious wine is great. The right question is, what do you want to do? What is the activity for which you expect someone to give you money every day? And I think that's a very, very good question to ask in the wine world. And profitability. Yeah, we need, we need, we need all these skills to improve profit. Yeah, we need, we need to teach way more than wine, so we need to rebalance the education programme, whichever they are in academia and certification in wine.
internal program and we need a bigger focus on profitability. Like we've always been afraid for many different reasons or afraid to talk about money. Talk about money. Yes. Okay. On that rousing note, I think we should draw this to a close. Yes. Is that a sudden snapshot of what was in the report? Yes, of course. If you want to read the full study and get many, many more insights, visit Arrini.global and become a member and you are very welcome. We are at an inflection point and the more people we have contributing their ideas, the better. Yes. I'll put all the links in the show notes. Okay. So before we go, Pauline, what is happening next at Arrini Global? So we've started a new round of exploration which is called new consumers and narratives. You might have heard and listened to the first podcast episodes. So in that round of exploration, we aim to answer key questions in regards to the new generation of fine wine consumers. So where to find them and how to engage with them in a meaningful way. So the first part of the study is done and we are entering the second phase which is the bigger one of exploration. We've got a lot of ideas. There's a lot of things that we could be putting in place for that study but we need support and financial support. Let's not be afraid of talking about money as we've just said. So if you or your company are interested in finding these answers, please do contact us at
[email protected] and we can discuss that in more details. I can't wait to hear what you find out. Well, until next time, Felicity, cheers. Thank you for listening to this episode of Arrini Global in Conversation. Arrini Global is a think tank dedicated to the future of fine wine and when we're not podcasting, we are publishing reports, white papers, articles and marketing sites. So if you are interested in the global conversation around fine wine and what the future holds in terms of adoption, distribution and consumption, add over to our website www.rini.global.org that's arrini and subscribe to our newsletter, all the links are in the show notes. Because whether you are producing or selling fine wine, you need to know what's happening in the world so you can make informed decisions. Until next time, cheers. [BLANK_AUDIO]
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