Lindsay Holas Wine Business Lecturer Plumpton College
Lindsay is a true international wine business expert. Born & raised in New York she then moved to Montreal, Canada at McGill University for Bachelor of Commerce Concentration in Global Strategy. During her time at McGill Lindsay discovered wine and during evenings attended a wine course at Institut de Tourisme et d’Hotellerie de Quebec.
As her interest and love for wine grew Lindsay moved to Dijon, France for MSc Wine Business at ESC Dijon Bourgogne.
After graduating from Dijon she moved to London work with Wine Intelligence.
Then back home to NYC working for Domaine Select Wine & Spirits as a brand manager for artisanal wine and spirits brands incl Rum Diplomatico where she ran the US national cocktail competition.
An opportunity too good to miss then arose in London working for Jascots Wine Merchants. Among other things, over the last 2 years at Jascots, Lindsay conducted market research analysing over 300 wine lists from independent restaurants, amounting to over 15k wines, to identify key opportunities for new product development and sales. Inspiring the launch of 47 new products in September 2016 and 30 in 2017.
Late in 2017 Lindsay saw the position for Wine Business Lecturer advertised - something piqued her interest and late in 2017 she began a new journey working at Plumpton College Wine Division, deep in the Sussex countryside - a major departure for a city dweller.
Since joining Plumpton College Wine Division Lindsay has taken a group of wine business students to Georgia, one of the oldest wine regions in the world. Georgia has many native grape varieties, different styles of wines, many are fermented in traditional qvevri earthenware jars.
Students at Plumpton College are experimenting with fermenting wines in their own purpose built Marani winery using qvevri. As part of the exercise and following the visit students will look at how Georgian wines can be marketed to the rest of the world and introduced to broader markets.
Lindsay doesn't believe that all lectures should take place in a classroom – this year third year business students have visited several major merchants and retailers to gain a fuller understanding of the industry. Among those met were a business development manager from LVMH and members of staff from Majestic and Marks & Spencer.
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| Photo: Lindsay Holas |
The group also visited wine & spirit merchant Berry Bros & Rudd where Creative Director Geordie Willis led a tour and gave an insight to the business along with members of the buying and marketing teams.
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| Photo: Lindsay Holas |
Stephen Finch owner of Vagabond wine bars & urban winery welcomed a group of students and talked about the business and their new urban winery at the site of Battersea Power Station beside the River Thames where they produce their own sparkling wine, Bacchus, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir rosé wines.
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| Photo: Lindsay Holas |
Garvin Brown, chairman of Brown Forman talked with a group at their Fitzrovia office, giving insight to the global spirits trade and their brand portfolio. This was quite a contrast to the visit to Chapel Down in Kent during the “Beast from the East” snow weather event!
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| Photo: Lindsay Holas |
Lindsay and an intrepid group managed to get to Chapel Down winery in Kent where the Josh Donaghay-Spire Head Winemaker opened especially despite the weather. The weather was so bad the restaurant was closed to they sought refuge from the cold for lunch in a local pub (the only one open for miles) with limited supplies as there hadn’t been any deliveries for a few days!
Going forward Lindsay is creating case studies to develop student’s critical eye and continue to develop the curriculum with new courses relevant to changing market needs.
Wow - what a year! I can't wait to see the new courses Lindsay. Thank you for your time and for being part of Heart of UK Wine.
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