"...but every reason to know wine sales. It’s about creating a better dining experience for guests, and being more profitable for management and servers.” ~Kirsten Fox, Founder, Culinary Wine Institute
ABOUT CULINARY WINE INSTITUTE
Although our program is nationwide, Culinary Wine Institute's home base is in world-famous Park City, Utah. Home to Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival, the 2002 Winter Olympics and home to two the nation’s top ski resorts. Park City has rapidly become a world-class, year-round tourist destination—which means an ever-evolving landscape of world-class dining.
The reason for CWI is simple: Both Kirsten Fox, Founder of CWI and Pamela Wood, CEO & Director of Education, have years of experience in the restaurant and hospitality industries and in wine sales and wine education. Kirsten realized there was a gaping void. There was no consistent, easy-to-understand wine sales education available to servers at most restaurants. And she remembered being a server herself in Nashville, so terrified when guests would order a bottle of wine that she would make up stories about a famous country singer's favorite mixed drink to try to entice the guests to change their order.
Industry statistics show that servers stand to increase their wine sales 20-25% by learning some simple wine information. Obviously, a basic, accessible, low-friction wine training resource would be welcoming to both servers and their employer. Culinary Wine Institute was born.
There’s no need to get all the staff together for a formal, onsite training session.
CWI training lets the wait staff learn wine sales on their own time at their own pace. The curriculum is broken down into engaging, easily digestible, professionally produced videos. Each server watches the lessons, takes quizzes, goes through testing and receives CWI certification. CWI offers two levels of certification: Silver Level and Gold Level
What it means to pour it like you mean it?
It’s about using every tool in the drawer to increase bottom lines. Don’t do anything half way. When all involved understand and practice the best methods to deliver wine to guests, profits go up. Why waste that opportunity? The result is a server who is now confiident and knows how to pour it like you means it!
ABOUT PAMELA WOOD, CEO & Director of Education
A love of travel, different cultures, world history and wine, is what led Pamela to pursue her passion of all things wine. Moving from California's Monterey & San Francisco Bay area to Utah in 1998, Pamela began working first at Snowbird Ski Resort, then at the world class resort of Deer Valley, in Park City, Utah. This led to many travel opportunities, where she always found herself near wine regions Upon exploring this fascination for what goes into the bottle a new passion was ignited, and Pamela has never looked back. Sharing her love of wine with others has led her to pursue more education, more travel and more in depth love of the vine and wine.
In 2011Pamela became a Certified Sommelier through the International Wine Guild, followed by Certified Specialist of Wine in 2015 with the Society of Wine Educators, and in late 2018, she became one of only 443 people in the world to pass the rigorious, Certified Wine Educator exams, which allows her to teach wine anywhere in the world.
In the spring of 2020, Pamela used her time in lockdown to learn about USA wine culture and became a Certified American Wine Expert, passing with honors. Also in 2020, Pamela became the onwer and CEO of Culinary Wine Institute.
Currently Pamela is also the state educator for the employees of Utah Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control, a professor of wine with Fox School of Wine, founder and owner of Park City Wine Club. When not dreaming, traveling, studying or teaching wine, you can still find Pamela working at Deer Valley Resort a couple days a week in the winter season or basking in the Maui sun every spring.
It’s about using every tool in the drawer to increase bottom lines. Don’t do anything half way. When all involved understand and practice the best methods to deliver wine to guests, profits go up. Why waste that opportunity? The result is a server who is now confiident and knows how to pour it like you means it!
ABOUT PAMELA WOOD, CEO & Director of Education
A love of travel, different cultures, world history and wine, is what led Pamela to pursue her passion of all things wine. Moving from California's Monterey & San Francisco Bay area to Utah in 1998, Pamela began working first at Snowbird Ski Resort, then at the world class resort of Deer Valley, in Park City, Utah. This led to many travel opportunities, where she always found herself near wine regions Upon exploring this fascination for what goes into the bottle a new passion was ignited, and Pamela has never looked back. Sharing her love of wine with others has led her to pursue more education, more travel and more in depth love of the vine and wine.
In 2011Pamela became a Certified Sommelier through the International Wine Guild, followed by Certified Specialist of Wine in 2015 with the Society of Wine Educators, and in late 2018, she became one of only 443 people in the world to pass the rigorious, Certified Wine Educator exams, which allows her to teach wine anywhere in the world.
In the spring of 2020, Pamela used her time in lockdown to learn about USA wine culture and became a Certified American Wine Expert, passing with honors. Also in 2020, Pamela became the onwer and CEO of Culinary Wine Institute.
Currently Pamela is also the state educator for the employees of Utah Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control, a professor of wine with Fox School of Wine, founder and owner of Park City Wine Club. When not dreaming, traveling, studying or teaching wine, you can still find Pamela working at Deer Valley Resort a couple days a week in the winter season or basking in the Maui sun every spring.
ABOUT KIRSTEN FOX, Founder
A graduate of Vanderbilt University, Kirsten Fox is a Certified as both an Executive Sommelier by the International Wine Guild and a Specialist of Wine by the Society of Wine Educators. Kirsten spent a decade in sales at the nation’s #1 ski area, Deer Valley® Resort (which happens to be home to some Zagat top-rated dining destinations). In 2008, after witnessing the growing trend of wine appreciation and the lack of easily accessible, practical wine education, she opened Fox School of Wine. The goal: bring wine education to consumer groups in a fun and accessible fashion. Subsequently, she kept hearing stories from restaurant owners and wait staff about the lack of appropriate wine training for restaurants, and harkening back to her own days as a young server and the fear she had of someone ordering wine, Kirsten opened Culinary Wine Institute in 2012. In short order, CWI has received glowing reviews and enthusiastic feedback. Especially in the state of Utah, where about half the population doesn’t consume alcohol, yet many work in restaurants that serve wine, such enthusiasm stands as testimony to the validity of the course material. She also owns Fox School of Wine. Her book, The Profitable Wine List: Three Steps to Quickly & Easily Increase Wine Sales is available on Amazon. She is co-host of Twisted Cork Radio, podcasts available on iTunes. And back in the day, she wrote a column for the Huffington Post called "Wines to Pair with Life."
A graduate of Vanderbilt University, Kirsten Fox is a Certified as both an Executive Sommelier by the International Wine Guild and a Specialist of Wine by the Society of Wine Educators. Kirsten spent a decade in sales at the nation’s #1 ski area, Deer Valley® Resort (which happens to be home to some Zagat top-rated dining destinations). In 2008, after witnessing the growing trend of wine appreciation and the lack of easily accessible, practical wine education, she opened Fox School of Wine. The goal: bring wine education to consumer groups in a fun and accessible fashion. Subsequently, she kept hearing stories from restaurant owners and wait staff about the lack of appropriate wine training for restaurants, and harkening back to her own days as a young server and the fear she had of someone ordering wine, Kirsten opened Culinary Wine Institute in 2012. In short order, CWI has received glowing reviews and enthusiastic feedback. Especially in the state of Utah, where about half the population doesn’t consume alcohol, yet many work in restaurants that serve wine, such enthusiasm stands as testimony to the validity of the course material. She also owns Fox School of Wine. Her book, The Profitable Wine List: Three Steps to Quickly & Easily Increase Wine Sales is available on Amazon. She is co-host of Twisted Cork Radio, podcasts available on iTunes. And back in the day, she wrote a column for the Huffington Post called "Wines to Pair with Life."