Wine Industry Report

The WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust), based in London, UK announced today the appointment of Michael Pleitgen as its Co-ordinator for the German market.

David Wrigley, International Development Director of the WSET explained: “the WSET¹ is facing an unprecedented growth in international demand for its range of accessible qualifications in wine and spirit product knowledge and tasting skills. Rather than attempt to carry out all aspects of the development of this business ourselves, it makes great sense to work with suitably qualified and experienced partners when the opportunity presents itself.”

“We have worked with Michael over many years, and not only does he have a successful track record of running our programmes, he has also been central to the development of our qualifications in the German language. He brings strong industry contacts and local knowledge to the partnership, and we are looking forward to working with him to expand the network of WSET training providers in Germany. For anyone wanting to obtain the career benefits of WSET qualifications here in Germany, his appointment is great news”, concluded Wrigley.

Speaking after his appointment was announced, Michael Pleitgen said: “I’m looking forward to a strong and successful collaboration with WSET, which already has a established international reputation. It has become clear recently that it is not just large corporations that need their employees to have international knowledge and globally-known qualifications. Today, more and more German producers and merchants need this awareness for their businesses. The aim is to select centres in all regions of Germany who can deliver programmes locally, and give them full training support, so we can build a consistent training programme, nationwide.”

“In 2008 we have already begun to appoint new centres who will be offering WSET programmes in the second half of the year. They are the Fachhochschule in Heilbronn, the Hotelfachschule in Hamburg and the newly-founded Weinakademie Berlin. We will then look to appoint further centres from among either existing educational institutions, or the 300-plus individuals who already hold the WSET Diploma, and indeed some initial discussions are already underway.”

1. WSET is the largest global provider of education in wines and spirits and is approved by the UK Government. WSET has been developing trade professionals for over 39 years, and in the academic year 2006/2007 over 21,000 candidates sat a WSET examination in one of 41 countries and 11 languages.

   The WSET has recently changed its website address to www.wsetglobal.com in recognition of its considerable international growth and as a statement of its future intentions. [↩]