Chinese wine students are boon for Bordeaux
Chinese wine students are boon for Bordeaux
Oct 16, 2011 6
(AFP) -- One of France's oldest oenology schools, La Tour Blanche, is fighting falling enrolment through a tie-up with a Beijing wine school, the latest in a string of Bordeaux institutes to look East for their future.
The wine school, which just turned 100, today teaches the ropes of the trade to 150 students in the Tour Blanche estate in Sauternes, near the southwestern French wine capital of Bordeaux.
The China scheme will bring 25 extra students into the classrooms in 2013, and 50 in 2014, offering them twin training in wine and food pairing.
At a time of falling enrolment, the numbers are "significant," said Alex Barrau, director of La Tour Blanche School of Viticulture and Oenology.
"We've seen a diminishing number of students in France who sign up in viticulture schools," he said.
"If you look beyond the classified growth estates, a lot of wine growers are suffering. The recovery from the crisis has not been quick. Students don't see a future" in the profession, he said.
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