Have You Ever Considered a Masters, in Wine?

So, Steve, you originally qualified as a lawyer, if I'm right?

Yes, a long time ago!

And what was it that prompted your decision to start working in wine?

It's a long story, but, broadly: I got bored of being a lawyer, I couldn't see myself still being a lawyer when I was 40. But it wasn't that I then said "ooh, I've got to do wine" - it involved a life change, actually, going to Australia. When I got there, I needed to find a job. And I walked into a wine shop.

Now, I'd already done a course on wine at a reasonably high level. I liked it, so I started working in it. I went on and did the Master of Wine programme and then I became an academic.

So it was your professional background and experience that helped you move into academic work?

Yes, it was fortunate. I was living in Sydney, my wife and I were expecting our first daughter and I was looking for work. Then, someone rang me up and said "Listen, I'm at a university. I've heard about you. I run wine courses and I need someone to teach them and set up an MSc in Wine Business." So we thought about it and said "yes".

We moved to Perth and that's how I moved into being an academic, with a wine background. I was in a department of marketeers – I see myself as a Marketing academic – but entirely focussed on wine.

That's interesting, in the context of the MBA you teach on, as you yourself started out with a professional background and went on to apply that academically. Thinking about postgraduate study, you said you'd already completed a course in wine at a fairly high level – was that a postgraduate qualification too?

What I'd done in the UK was the Wine and Spirit Education Trust Diploma. I really enjoyed it and then I worked in France, before we moved to Australia, in the Autumn and Winter vintage near Bordeaux. I'd been bitten by the bug already, but I learned a lot there. And it was these kinds of experiences that really made me think, when I got to Australia, "OK, I need some work, let's go and work in a bottle shop."

And you later went on to do your PhD – so, you had your professional work, then the academic experience and then you moved into research?

Well, in Sydney, I'd done the Master of Wine programme, which is a step above the WSET Diploma – it's a pretty tough course and I'm glad I don't have to do it again. I'd heard about the Institute of Masters of Wine in the UK but just thought "no, I could never do that!". . .but I drifted into it in Sydney and did it and passed it.

Then I went to Western Australia, I started to set up the MSc in Wine Business, but I said "well, can I do a PhD here as well?" And they said "Yes! we want PhD students, that's great." So, while I was teaching, I did my PhD there on consumer behaviour and came out the other end as a fully-fledged academic. I had nine happy years there in Perth, but then, a job came up in France and we decided to move.

Well, thinking about your involvement with the MBA Wine & Spirits Business at BSB, how has your own journey informed the work you do with that programme?

I work quite closely with the programme director, Jacques Thébault, and feed in ideas. What does that mean? Well, I teach on it. I teach about wine.

There's a product knowledge course that I coordinate. I also teach – and this relates much more to my PhD – a unit on the MBA called Wine, Spirits and Society, which is about the social and cultural context of wine and spirits: It's, if you like, a 'pre- consumer behaviour', but also a producer behaviour, unit. The idea is really to get the students thinking about wine. It's not telling them how to do a business plan, or consumer analysis, or anything like that. It's trying to get them to understand how wine functions in different societies and different cultures.

That means thinking about how different cultures shape meaning for wine, how they think about wine in different ways and how that feeds into the politics of wine in different cultures: the attitudes to wine and public health in different cultures, how different cultures control wine, from cultures that say "no alcohol" through to cultures that are very pro-alcohol and pro-wine – like France, historically and classically (although that's changing a little bit). It's trying to get the MBA Wine & Spirits Business students to think about wine and how people in general think about wine, so my consumer behaviour background really comes through a lot there.

I'm guessing your wider connections and professional network are also a great asset for the programme?

Yes, I also use the fact that I know the world of wine really well. I'm very experienced in champagne, in burgundy, in Australian wine and, to a lesser extent, in Canada, in New Zealand and the UK too – I do quite a lot of consultancy work in the UK, on wine tourism and things like that.

So, these connections, and the connections I have as a Master of Wine, help develop the course. We can bring in specialised speakers. Or, when we take the students to New York, or to London, I've got contacts that can set up various visits, meetings and presentations.

It sounds like the MBA Wine & Spirits Business would be an ideal course for someone who wanted to follow a similar career pathway – someone who's perhaps always had an interest in wine and wants to get that broad base of knowledge so that they can then go on to actually work in and around that industry?

That's a good call. But we actually get two kinds of student:

We get students who've worked in wine, or in spirits, who say "I want to restart or accelerate my career by doing the MBA". They don't necessarily always need so much of the product knowledge side, but they need to think about what it actually means to do marketing; they need to know how to read a balance sheet. Actually, in the case of the unit I do, they need to take a step back and think about how wine or spirits function in a particular context. So they don't just think "how do I sell more of this?" but "how is this working in this country, in this place, in this region?" So there's that group.

And then, almost equal in number, there are – exactly as you say – the students who might follow what I've done. We've had lawyers. We've had financial managers. We've had human resource managers. We've had university administrators. We've even had professional athletes (rugby players). These kind of people who say "look, I've done something else, now I want to apply it to wine. I want to learn about wine: that's where my future's going to be."

In fact, on the course, it's often the interaction between the two different types of students which are so good. One group brings business experience of some kind, financial, legal – it could be Rugby team management and leadership experience! – they know how to make things work in that way. The other group knows about wine, but they need to learn how to manage a team, how to be an entrepreneur, how to think about marketing.

It sounds like you've got the cohort element of the MBA working really well there. What sort of things do people tend to go on to do after the course, then?

Well, there's a real range here. Let's start with the rugby players. One of them came originally from the Pacific Islands and New Zealand, and they're going to go back there to work on importing wine and, particularly, looking at distribution there. The other rugby player is South African, and their plan is to go back and probably set up a wine bar, or wine tourism outfit there. So, these graduates will ultimately be entrepreneurs. We have others who are brand managers now, or export managers. Others go back to family businesses – one alumni from last year has gone back to a family business in California. Some others move into fields like journalism, retail, occasionally. One of them had moved from a digital transformation consultancy career to a high level marketing and business development job for a major wine multinational corporation in the US. There's a complete range.

That's a really global alumni network.

Yes, we've had other students go and spend some time in Hong Kong and get some experience there. Probably, in due course, they'll work in the Chinese market. Hong Kong itself is becoming a very big market and an Asian hub for wine.

So, really, we've got a complete range of things that people do. But, broadly, they're going to move into middle and upper-management, family-business management, entrepreneurship – and the ones who go into middle-management will probably move up very quickly to gain quite senior positions.

Well, thanks very much for sharing your time and your story with us Steve. As a final question, do you have any tips for someone thinking of moving into a career in wine right now?

Working in wine is a lovely thing, because those of us who go into it have passion. We're dealing with something we love. You know, it's like being an artist: you're doing something that really excites you. That is a great thing.

So never lose your passion. But remember that you have to ally your passion to a business acumen and business role. Because, sadly, passion in itself doesn't pay. Passion can kickstart what you do, but it's what you do that's going to pay.

So, my tip is, ally your passion to an ability to create a role for yourself in business.

Interested in mastering wine yourself?