Dijon, May 2018 – Founded in 2013, the School of Wine & Spirits Business (SWSB) centralises all wine and spirits management training and research activities carried out by Burgundy School of Business (BSB). In April 2018, the School unveiled a new building of over 1,000m2 at the heart of the BSB campus. These truly unique premises are the only ones of their kind in the world dedicated entirely to teaching of and research into wine and spirits management. Launched in conjunction is the Wine & Spirits Business Lab, an unprecedented research laboratory concentrating on behavioural studies within the wine and spirits sector.
A unique location for a unique institution
The School of Wine & Spirits Business is currently an international benchmark in the field. Every year it provides training to over 180 students of around 20 nationalities from 5 continents, via its range of programmes: the Specialised Master in International Wine & Spirits Business (taught in French), the MBA in Wine & Spirits Business (launched this year along the lines of the MSc in Wine Business), the MSc in Wine Management and the Wine Tourism specialist option as part of the Bachelor in Marketing & Business (all three taught in English).
The new, entirely dedicated building was constructed during BSB campus works in 2017. Covering a surface area of over 1,000m2, the premises comprise a range of work spaces available for students, researchers and guests, all of whom can take full advantage of the best possible reception and working conditions:
The Wine & Spirits Business Lab, the behavioural research laboratory
The Tasting Room, a 32-seat, fully-equipped classroom for tasting courses and research activity
The Cellar, a 12-degree storage cellar that is home to the School’s entire bottle collection; a prime location for more informal tasting sessions
The Spirits World, an area entirely dedicated to spirits
The Business Lounge, a stylish and sophisticated reception area
The Wine & Spirits Business Lab: where behavioural sciences serve the wine and spirits sector
This research laboratory is the only one of its kind in the world dedicated entirely to behavioural studies into the wine and spirits sector – from production through to consumption via assessment. Under the leadership of Prof. Nikos Georgantzis, the set-up employs experimental economics techniques in order to unearth the emotions, cognitive procedures and decision-making factors that influence the actions and opinions of consumers, producers and experts.
To achieve this, the team can call upon the expertise of the BSB Behavioural Economics academic department and use the top-quality facilities made available by the SWSB. In addition to the experiments conducted, the Lab also provides a forum for combining expert knowledge of and interest in the world of wines and spirits in order to provide new responses to long-running issues and also with a view to generating new knowledge and pushing back the boundaries of research into the area.
The Wine & Spirits Business Lab team works in close collaboration with partners from the wine-producing industry, and students and universities from all over the world, an open set-up that enables them to produce academic research that is both intellectually stimulating and of genuine use to Society.