How Wine Education Could Make the Wine Trade More Profitable

Uncovering the skills shortages

What skills are the most difficult to find in the wine trade? What do recruiters wish candidates had more of?

In late 2023, Areni Global began research into the state of wine education. We ran round tables, workshops and focus groups, and interviewed prominent members of the trade from the USA to the Netherlands to China. We also spoke to recruiters.

It was clear right from the start that people love working in the wine trade. They value the deep relationships, the wonderful products and the great food and hospitality that’s part and parcel of the job. 

That’s why there is no shortage of engaged, enthusiastic and creative people who want to participate in the wine world. In September 2024, the Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET) reported a 15% increase in candidates for its Diploma. Wine educators from other institutions also report that their courses are full. 

Yet we also heard about numerous skills shortages, particularly in finance and sales. 

What’s missing

Wine is a complex, specialised area and wine professionals need a high degree of product knowledge. Convincing people to study wine is not, it turns out, a problem — indeed, what we heard, over and over, is that wine people are too focused on wine, to the exclusion of everything else.

Numerous business leaders told us that they struggled to find people who know about wine, but who also have business skills. 

Altogether, Areni identified 10 missing skill sets:

1. Financial acumen
2. Project management, planning and organisational ability
3. Sales strategies and techniques
4. Consumer and market research
5. Content creation
6. Data analysis
7. Resilience, flexibility and humility
8. Negotiation and problem solving
9. Strategic thinking, vision and initiative
10. Editing and writing

At first glance it might seem strange that such a personable sector struggles to find people with traits like resilience, flexibility and humility. What respondents meant was that too many employees speak down to customers, or refuse to promote wines they dislike.

It might also seem unbelievable that skills like content creation, editing and writing are missing, when wine communication is so highly valued. Again, what our respondents meant was there is an acute lack of people who understand how to create a content strategy and execute it like a professional marketer.

The lack of sales knowledge is also a serious problem.

“If you’re bringing wine people in as salespeople,” said one UK merchant, “what you don’t get is necessarily the sales management approach: people being able to understand the commercials, do the accurate forecasting, account planning, annual plans, etc.” 

On the other hand, he says, “they can talk through a portfolio of 1200 SKUs and how one tiny patch of dirt in Burgundy is different from one that’s 100 metres down the road.” 

Conversely some businesses don’t even recognise that some skills can be taught; some believe that sales acumen relies solely on personality and personal relationships, instead of recognising that it’s a business skill like any other.

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The wine paradox

Of course it’s easy to recruit professionals with the missing skills — for those with the ability to pay top salaries. Which small and medium enterprises generally don’t. 

This is the paradox of wine: while it’s a highly desirable sector, it’s failing to attract professionals who are adept in data analysis, digital marketing, sales, and finance and strategy, mostly because it can’t offer the salaries that such people can command in the marketplace.

The overall lack of profitability in the wine sector is leading to a vicious circle, where it can’t pay the salaries required to attract the professionals it needs, which means it can’t generate the profitability it needs.

Yet if the gap between the passion for wine and the need for hard business skills could be closed, the wine trade would become more profitable, which in turn would make it more attractive to skilled professionals.

Closing the gap

Big companies have already found a way to solve this problem. They recruit the people they need and then give them in-house wine training, or send them off to the WSET.

Small and medium sized businesses, on the other hand, need external providers who can offer relevant training.

Wine-specific degrees and postgraduate courses are one solution, but are often too time intensive for people in full time work. Or they are offered by universities that are adjacent to wine regions, which means they are physically out of reach for many.

So what other institutions could provide business training in the context of wine?

The Rethinking Wine Education whitepaper has several examples of wine education bodies that offer innovative and short wine business programmes.

But there need to be many more.

As Areni’s research makes clear, there is a major business opportunity on the table for those who can bring these programmes to a wider audience.

Better business skills will help the wine trade make more money, which will help it attract the right people. As the managing director of one château said: “Wine tastes better with margins”.

And as many of the audience at Wine Paris told us — there are lots of people willing to learn. They just need to find the right teachers.

For more information, read the full research here and listen to the podcast below.