Farrell Distributing Celebrates Continued Learning Efforts
Staff excels with in-house training, earning scores of certifications

South Burlington, VT: Farrell Distributing prides itself on employing the Vermont’s most knowledgeable beverage sales professionals and is very excited to announce the results of their 2020 continuing education campaign. This has proven to be a difficult year for leading in-house trainings, but our dedicated Training Team rose to the challenge and guided dozens of our sales staff to internationally recognized certifications.

Our Training Team is led by Taylor Cameron, a Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET) Certified Educator, and Jeff S. Baker II, a Certified Cicerone® and Certified Cider Professional. Taylor and Jeff employed both virtual trainings online and socially distanced in-person seminars for both our Rutland and South Burlington branches.

Taylor Cameron, who has earned the WSET Level 4 Diploma, lead an eight-week WSET Level 2 course for fifteen of our staff. The course covered the world of wine grapes, classic wine regions and food pairing techniques. Guided wine tastings armed the attendees with advanced analytic skills to assess wines for soundness and sensory qualities. Seven passed the exam with Merit and two passed with Distinction. Farrell Distributing now has eighteen WSET Level 2 and seven WSET Level 3 certified staff members.

This year we were excited to add cider training to our repertoire. As members of the American Cider Association we engaged in their Certified Cider Professional program. Jeff Baker developed a three-hour seminar for twenty of our staff, complete with cider tasting and evaluation. The course covered the basics of apple growing & propagation, cider making techniques, cider classifications and food pairing. Farrell Distributing now has fifteen Certified Cider Professionals with twelve passing with a score of 90% or higher. More staff members are working toward completing the certificate in 2021.

One of our wine professionals, Dori Baker, buckled down and worked her way through a rigorous self-study of Italian wine. After completely two exams in 2020, Dori achieved one of the highest marks in the country for the Italian Wine Scholar program from the Wine Scholar Guild. Dori adds this to her résumé along with the French Wine Scholar certificate that she completed in 2019.
Other staff certifications include eighty-three Cicerone Certified Beer Servers, five Certified Specialists of Wine (Society of Wine Educators), one Certified Sommelier (Court of Master Sommeliers), one Southern Italian Wine Scholar and one Advance Wine Certificate from the International Sommelier Guild.

We employ full time beer, cider and wine trainers on staff. In addition to our monthly internal staff trainings, we offer training services to our on-premise and off-premise accounts including:

  • Beverage Menu Training & Service Standards
  • Wine Seminars (varietals, regions, food pairing)
  • Beer Seminars (how beer is made, style family tree, food pairing)
  • Staff Knowledge Assessments
  • Food Pairing Workshops
  • Wine and Spirit Education Trust Level 2 and 3
  • Cicerone Education

 

 

 

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