Tourism academy professionals to get sommelier training in South Africa |04 September 2015

Four professionals from the Seychelles Tourism Academy (STA) leave Seychelles tomorrow for a sommelier course at the Cape Wine Academy in South Africa. They are Peter Moncherry (general manager), Michel Athanase (operations manager), Jill Emile and Sylvianne Bonnelame (food and beverage lecturers).

The STA firmly believes the course will give its trained professionals a firm ground to deliver wine courses to its students and more importantly to be fully fledged to take on new challenges of its future purpose built wine cellar and business entity at the academy.

It was about two years ago that the STA on a fact finding mission at the Cape Wine Academy in South Africa came out with this brilliant idea of using the academy’s professional expertise for the betterment of its professionals. According to the STA the sommelier training will open up doors of opportunities for its staff to progress and later on become professional sommeliers.  
During ten days the four professionals will have to follow seven modules in sommelier. The modules will only be validated after an exam and the successful candidates will earn a certificate in sommelier.

The STA’s interest to introduce sommelier course on its curriculum started two years ago. The course gained support of the French government who assisted the academy with a full-time sommelier from Reunion island, Virginie Julenon.

The STA said the course proved to be a success story with the graduation in 2014, of its first batch of trained sommeliers.

The departure of Ms Julenon after completion of her two-year contract left an empty hole in the sommelier course. With the lack of professionals in sommelier, the academy said the course “died a natural death as students have been denied the opportunity to follow the course with a trained professional”.

Now, with the professional training offered by the Cape Wine Academy in South Africa, there is a good chance the course will get back on track at the STA and more Seychellois will graduate in this field.