Wine and Spirits Education Trust Course up and running!

When I first returned to Eriska I investigated the opportunities for furthering my wine and spirits knowledge and apart from a generous offer from my Father, which involved him passing on his well gathered knowledge the closest training was in Glasgow and given the road conditions in the winter after late night tastings I passed it by.

However as the old adage mentions if you wait patiently then it might happen, so last year when we started working with Nick Adams, a renowned Master of Wine, to develop our wine list and offering we grasped the opportunity and added the opportunity for the team here to learn from the WSET and take exams to reward them for their hard work. This week the course started with a mix of staff members form all departments in the hotel , leisure club members and other local hoteliers. The opportunity to take a course on their doorstep and run during civilized daylight hours has been quite a magnet and hopefully if the enthusiasm keeps pace we will have a 100% pass rate.

So far they have covered the basics of tasting and with help from Robert in the kitchen have worked on food and wine matching and this not only highlighted the best combinations but also forced them to try some particularly bad matches. This will not only help in their knowledge but will help them passing on knowledge to our guests and will I hope grow the guest experience. Now they have 4 weeks to up on homework before Nick returns in March for phase two of the course.