Bottom Up or Top Down?

I note with some interest and,it has to be said, some bias that another major wine distributor has announced a new scheme to train on-trade staff. Although we understand the worth of quality training for the on-trade, it seems to me that many organisations get it all wrong.

We've all heard the stories about school pupils being given power to decide on which teacher is recruited, what lessons they want to learn and when they want to learn them - and we've all cringed and tutted about falling standards, and over burdening pupil power. When we learn, we want to do so in a supportive environment where the teachers and culture of the organisation are knowledgeable and inspirational. So why do we continue to concentrate our efforts on on-trade staff when what we should be trying to influence are the business leaders and the cultures they encourage?

We've recently been doing staff training tastings for a major new client and it was an absolute joy to present to large groups of enthusiastic, professional people who craved more knowledge not just for their own sake but also for the benefit of the business that they worked for. However, this is not the norm in the industry and we've all been there at 10am, conducting a wine tasting to staff who either did not want to be there or who were barely awake having been working in the same outlet til 3 the same morning - and who could blame them?!

To my mind, what we need to concentrate on is a holistic approach to wine education in the on-trade, covering all tiers of staff but where the correct culture doesn't already exist, this has to begin at the top.

That's why our Masterclasses are so important in raising the bar for wine education in Scotland. Though they are run by not one but 2 Master of Wine, these are not pompous, irrelevant lectures of the finer points of Burgundy but informative, interactive, commercial sessions that aim to give business leaders the low down on the wine trade in order to give them the confidence to instil an open, engaging wine culture in their businesses. Such a culture is far more likely to successfully nurture education, enthusiasm and total staff engagement with the end result being lower staff turnover and higher profits - and who could argue with that?

So, join Alliance is adopting a holistic approach to wine education and say Bottom's Up to the Top Down approach......