Enjoy learning more about wine with us

Build Knowledge - Motivate Staff - Improve Profits

WSET courses are a proven success in terms of increasing wine sales and profits. Staff with greater product knowledge have the confidence to sell wines and up sell to customers, by encouraging them to try different wines. This investment in training in turn leads to a more motivated and enthusiastic team with higher staff retention rates.

Improve Profits

Up selling is about customer confidence. Knowledgeable and engaged staff are happy to help customer find the perfect wine or spirit.

• Hotel du Vin saw an 11.9% increase in average beverage spend after training hotel staff with the WSET. “The guest experience has undoubtedly benefited as a result of the staff's knowledge and enthusiasm for wine.” Simon Maguire, General Manager
• Chef & Brewer trained 100 managers in the Level 1 Award and saw a 58% increase in bottle sales at their wine festival.
• Fullers trained 200 managed house staff in the Level 1 Award leading to a 3.4% increase in wine sales across the estate.

Improve Staff Motivation and Retention

The WSET courses provide UK and internationally recognised qualifications that are highly valued by staff looking to excel and further their career in the wine trade. ThirtyFifty's WSET courses provide a quality staff training program that can help you attract the top talent and retain your best people.

Arranging your staff training before or after a busy period can help enormously. If it is run before a busy period your staff will be ready to go but it's recommended that employees are contracted to work for you for an agreed minimum period of time after gaining their qualification so that you get the benefits of having invested in training. Arranging dates before or after a busy period can help ensure a stable workforce when you need them most.

By working with ThirtyFifty we can help you put in place a simple, effective and cost-efficient training plan that can help you recruit the best people. The best people always want to move forward. Staff training is a great way of attracting and retaining them. "A one off course is easily to implement but to gain the full benefits of staff retention it is best to do it as part of a program." WSET

Who's this for?

The courses are essential for staff working in frontline wine service roles in hotels, restaurants and for those in wine retail sales and customer facing roles. They provide a solid grounding in wine leading to better product knowledge and customer service.

For all Front of House Staff

The WSET Level 1 is perfect for all front of house staff and the best place to begin the training, with a strong focus on food and wine matching and basic wine service ensuring staff have the essential basic knowledge about wine.

For Beverage Managers and Waiting Staff

WSET Level 2 Ideal for all waiting staff and beverage managers who feel they need to know more. This is the basic minimum for any restaurant sommelier or wine manager. The course has a greater depth of different wine styles and covers an introduction to spirits.

Level 1 is not required to be eligible for Level 2 as much of the essential service is reinforced at the start of the course before moving on into wine and spirits in more depth.

For Specialist Staff

The WSET Level 3 is usually for drinks staff whether they be specialist wine waiters (sommeliers), top tier bar staff and those in charge of selecting wines and spirits for the business.

Level 2, or an equivalent qualification, is required, before taking the Level 3.

 

Pricing and Locations

We are highly flexible about how we can help you with courses and the structure. Bigger groups can receive discounts on our normal pricing below.

• Level 1 Award in Wines £195
• Level 2 Award in Wines £540
• Level 3 Award in Wines £920

WSET courses are internationally recognised qualifications and provide a real bonus to your staff. Many restaurants and hotels ask their staff to contribute towards the costs or commit to stay with the employer for a period of time after the course. Students tend to get better results the more of a commitment they make to attend.

Groups over 10+

For bigger groups we are very flexible about the location, venue and timing of the course. Some restaurants and hotels prefer to run courses at their location using as many of their own wines as possible. Others prefer us to manage the whole process. Please let us know your requirements and we can quote a price.

Groups 5-9

Prices vary depending upon the numbers attending, some clients are happy for staff to attend dates that we already have open, in other cases they want specific dates, which we are happy to do.

Groups up to 4

We recommend booking your staff onto one of our regular dates in West London, to join other students in-person or online via Zoom.

Booking WSET Courses

For further information on how to book a bespoke course please call Chris or Jane on 0208 288 0314.

 

WSET Level 1 Course Dates

We offer the WSET Level 1 course in London and online via Zoom in a virtual classroom.

• 8 wines to taste
• 7 hours tuition, from 9.30am-5.00pm
• Multi-choice exam with 30 questions
• Exam at the end of the day (the online course has an online exam, remotely invigilated)

The start time is 9:15am for a prompt 9:30am start.

 

Why ThirtyFifty

ThirtyFifty has been running wine tastings and training courses since 2002, with an experienced team of certified WSET tutors. As well as being a WSET Approved Programme Provider (APP) we believe that the best way of understanding wine is from those who are not only great presenters of wine, but also have a deep understanding of wine.

We are proud to have won the prestigious International Wine Challenge Educator of the Year in 2024, 2022, 2015 and 2008.

Extra Help

We have created a large number of online study tools and exam style questions to help you prepare, as well as additional audio interviews and crib sheets which are available to all our students.