Club teaches students the business of wine By CHRIS MARTELL September 29, 2006 It's not unusual to see a group of UW-Madison M.B.A. students listening intently to a teacher and taking notes. But on a recent Friday, it was in the wine cellar of Porta Bella rather than Grainger Hall. The subject of today's lecture was wine, and their instructor was Patrick Fegan, director of the Chicago Wine School. It was the first event of the Wisconsin M.B.A. Wine Club, the first club of its type in campus history, and it drew more than 40 people, about a quarter of those enrolled in the university's program. Some of the students plan to go into the burgeoning wine industry, which has been actively courting M.B.A. graduates nationwide. One of the club's organizers, Jane Bills, 32, plans to open a food and wine import-export business in Napa Valley after she gets her degree, in partnership with a friend who will work in Bologna, Italy. "There are a lot of employment possibilities in the wine industry. There's a huge interest in food and wine and that is a trend that is growing," she said. Other founders of the Wisconsin M.B.A. Wine Club are not planning on going into the wine industry. Sean Hart, 34, plans to go into investment banking, and says, "I've always been interested in wine, it's a hobby of mine, but it will be something I will have to know a lot about because I will be entertaining clients all the time when I'm working." Patrick Hammes, 29, a student who has already landed a job as an investment banker after he graduates added that, "We have to enhance our skills in this area because we'll constantly be taking people out to dinner in order to get clients." Founders of the club, who decided to proceed over wine at Barriques last May, took a survey of their classmates to gauge interest and see how much their peers currently know about wine. "We planned the club as if everyone is an amateur," he said. "We are starting with the basics and go on from there." Another goal of the club is fun, to get the hard-charging students to relax in an informal setting. "The only bad manners we can have now is when we're eating gyros late at night," Hart said. Basic dining etiquette is taught in the M.B.A program, but many of the students surveyed felt they should know a lot more about wine before they enter the business world. Fegan presented a crash course version of the basics classes he teaches in Chicago. He started with a basic jug wines, which he called the "Velveeta" wines that make up about 80 to 90 percent of the wines sold worldwide, and worked his way up to complex, elegant "Roquefort" wines. He doctored the cheap wine with additives, so they'd know what to sniff and taste for, and what to look for when they hold up a glass to the light and swirl it in their glass. The future business leaders learned about terroir, climate grapes, winemaking equipment, harvesting techniques, growing regions, yeast enzymes, fermentation and corks. They learned that Luxenbourgers are the world's biggest wine drinkers, putting back 16.8 gallons per person, followed by a tie between France at 14.8 gallons, while in the U.S. it's just 2 gallons per capita." Plans for the wine club, which will have about a dozen events a year, include field trips to the Wollersheim Winery and Cakebread Cellars in Napa Valley in spring, a wine and cheese pairing in collaboration with Slow Food Wisconsin. Only M.B.A. students and faculty, and their significant others, can join the club. Annual dues are $80 or $120 per couple, people can join for a single semester for $50, or pay $15 for a single event.

Melissa Wychocki takes notes during a lecture from Patrick Fegan, director of the Chicago Wine School, during a seminar for the Wisconsin MBA Wine Club Friday, September 15 at Porta Bella restaurant in Madison.