The Seychelles Tourism Academy and the Cape Wine Academy in South Africa have crystalized their first working partnership. Four professionals from the Seychelles Tourism Academy, Peter Moncherry the General Manager; Michel Athanase, Operations Manager; Jill Emile and Sylvianne Bonnelame, Food and Beverage lecturers, will leave Seychelles September 6, 2015 for a sommelier course at the Cape Wine Academy.
The Seychelles Tourism Academy 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 Seychelles Tourism Academy for excellence. It was about two years ago that the Seychelles Tourism Academy 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 Seychelles Tourism Academy, the trained professionals in the sommelier course opens up doors of opportunities for them 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 Seychelles Tourism Academy’s interest to introduce a sommelier course on its curriculum started two years ago. The aim was to enable the institution to teach a sommelier course. The course gained support from the French government who assisted the academy with a full-time sommelier from Reunion Island, Virginie Julenon. The Seychelles Tourism Academy said the course proved to be a success story with the graduation in 2014 of its first batch of trained sommeliers. The departure of Virginie 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 trainings offered by the Cape Wine Academy in South Africa, there is a good chance the course will get back on track at the Seychelles Tourism Academy and more Seychellois will graduate in the field of sommelier.
