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Plumpton Wine Division expands online learning

The college said that with people staying at home it has been able to widen the net and encourage new people to engage in wine training. 

It has also meant that it has been able to broaden the education on offer enabling winemakers and institutes across the globe to host informative presentations on fundamental topics and issues concerning the wine industry. 

Guest lecturers over coming weeks will include: Adrian Pike of Westwell Wine Estates, Cloi Chatzivariti winemaker of Chatzivaritis Estate and Aikaterini-Evangelia Mylona, winemaker of Pentelitharia Plantations in Cyprus. 

 Fine wine and biodynamic winemaker Josef Umathum will take students through the importance of soils and sparkling wine while producer Ferrari’s agronomist and oenologist, Marcello Lunelli, will give a talk on the sustainable production in sparkling wine. 

Other talks include “Beyond the cow horn” and biodynamic farming in Napa Valley with David Bos, Nicolas Poumeyrau from Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte while Dr Alastair Nesbitt will be discussing climate change and the UK wine industry. 

Greg Dunn, head of Plumpton Wine Division, said that the lockdown has had a severe impact on education in the UK. 

“We know we cannot recreate our unique offering online but it’s important to continue to try and enrich student experience during these testing times, so our program managers, have set about hosting a whole series of guest lecturers from around the world to try and bring real life experience to online learning. This is something we have always offered but it has given us the opportunity to widen the net and discussion topics,” he said. 

Dunn added that due to the contemporary element of the degrees it offers, upon graduation, students should be in a good position to exploit global business and production opportunities in the wine trade, as the industry opens up post-Covid. 

At the end of last year Plumpton College revealed it was set to build on the success of its pilot Viticultural Apprenticeship Scheme with a second programme planned.