A Quest for knowledge

Tim Hanni is a one. The American Master of Wine first made waves with his radical approach to food and wine matching back in the mid-nineties while working at Napa wine giant Beringer, blowing common wisdom out of the water. Now he's managed to persuade a US catering college to take his wine training programme and incorporate it straight into its Bachelor of Culinary Arts curriculum.

Called Wine Quest, it's being piloted to a group of 20 student chefs at Johnson & Wales University, with five campuses from Charleston in South Carolina to North Miami in Florida. It aims to give students a grounding in wine, showing them ways to increase revenues, get better profit margins and cope with inventory levels.

And uniquely, each customer receives access to online training, though Hanni can also conduct on-site training. In fact, he has 30,000 Outback Steakhouse staff to train up in just 90 days during the first three months of next year.

"Wine Quest sees a huge overlooked wine market. Our customer base now makes us the largest supplier of wine list management and training tools in the world in one short year since launching our products," Hanni boasts. The interactive, internet-accessed wine training programme is offered at four different levels, with level one promising to give staff the basics in just 15 minutes.

How on earth does he expect trainees to grasp the complex issue of food and wine matching in just 15 minutes? "If a customer asks what they recommend with a particular dish, they can reply, ‘our food is delicious with any wine you would enjoy'."

"Wine language, and the inherently arrogant position that consumers need to be more educated, are alienating millions of wine consumers from more frequent consumption," Hanni declares, with typical bluntness.

All students are introduced to his progressive wine list, which simply places mildest flavours at the top to stronger flavours at the bottom of the list.

Wine Quest is already being used to train staff at companies such as Ritz-Carlton, Marriott and Mondavi, where it teaches students how to design and manage wine programmes and create balanced wine lists that appeal to a wide range of diners' tastes, budgets and occasions.

Chefs will also learn how to develop wine training programmes designed to give front-of-house staff the knowledge and confidence to sell wine to diners. "It will keep our students on the cutting-edge of industry trends," declares Associate Professor Edward Korry, chairman of the Beverage and Dining Service Department at Johnson & Wales. "Our graduates' ability to manage the important but complex category of wine will give them a competitive advantage."

For more information about Wine Quest, visit www.winequest.com.