Cafe Society: We must sow the creative seeds early

Tasmania’s culture of food excellence must be instilled in students from an early age, says wine industry champion and educator Curly Haslam-Coates.

Wine industry champion and educator Curly Haslam-Coates. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

SHE may live and breathe it now, but Curly Haslam-Coates did not grow up in a “foodie” household.

Wine, one of her great loves now – in moderation, of course – was a complete mystery to her for many years.

The wine industry champion and educator, who hails from the UK and lives in Launceston, knows that much of Tassie’s future food and wine workforce will start out the same way.

“I didn’t learn any of this from my family,” she says.

Curly says she is eternally grateful to her home-economics teacher for introducing her to the gourmet universe.

“There is no way I would be sitting here without her. She got me on that path of loving food and flavour and being creative.”

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Curly is doing her bit to bring along the next generation of food, wine and spirits professionals, by teaching and mentoring through her Vintage Tasmania enterprise.

And not just young adults. She takes kids on the journey too, sometimes with the help of AFL mascot Hawka, who visits the Harvest Launceston market, which Curly ran until recently, for the What’s On Hawka’s Fork cookery program.

“We need to work on kids from a much younger age to help them understand that we are part of an agricultural community producing extraordinary quality,” says Curly.

“It is such a huge part of the island and who we are.

“If we don’t educate our children we can’t expect them to be an economically viable contributor to the industry and community.”

We meet at Hobart’s MACq01 Hotel, where Curly is running a training program for young hospitality staff one day a week. The group has just returned from an educational visit to winemaker Nick Glaetzer, who makes the Glaetzer Dixon range at his Glebe cellar.

Curly says that as well as learning about Tasmanian wines, our incoming professionals need to know about wines beyond the state.

“Our wines are nothing like the mainland’s, so there’s a huge benefit in going further afield to understand our wines in a comparative sense and to really recognise we have some of the best wines in the world.”

The Tasmanian wine industry contributes more than $115 million annually to the state economy. Figures from peak body Wine Tasmania show the state’s relatively young sector provides about 2063 full-time equivalent jobs. But Curly is worried we are not preparing our future workforce at a standard that complements the quality of the booze.

She says TAFE’s national learning framework is not providing all of what young would-be wine professionals need in a marketplace that is increasingly high-end.

“Of course it still has to tick the course requirement boxes, but we need to make sure our students are more ready for the sort of jobs that are actually out there in the industry.

“At the moment there’s quite a big gap between TAFE [courses] and anything that Sommeliers Australia or the Wine and Spirit Education Trust [whose syllabus she teaches] recognise.

“The students coming out of TAFE are often not up to speed to deal with the incredible quality of Tasmanian produce. We do not deal in basic. What we have is exceptional wine, spirits and food.”

She says Tasmanians working in wine – whether they are on the vineyard, in the winery, at the cellar door, behind the bar, or in sales and marketing – need more access to professional development throughout their careers, too. While bigger businesses, of which this state has few, can often carry this cost, it’s harder for Tassie’s typical small wine businesses to do so to the same tune.

“But there’s more than one way to skin a cat – and perhaps a small business helping an employee to salary sacrifice to pay for a course over time could work sometimes,” Curly suggests.

“If we don’t support grassroots talent in all our industries, our talented people go elsewhere or to bigger corporations.”

In 10 years’ time, Curly wants our emerging wine workforce and other hospitality and tourism professionals to have abundant year-round career jobs that are not subject to seasonality.

“Oh, people need to grow a pair and get out all year round,” she says with a laugh.

“Tasmania is incredible in winter. We have seasons, it’s amazing.

“I am obsessed with hygge [the Danish concept of cosiness]. Really, middle of winter in Tasmania, real fire going, lovely cut of meat on the stove slowly cooking down to make stew, spuds, roast veg, big glass of pinot or cabernet, how good’s that, seriously?”

Most of all, perhaps, Curly would love to see the food and hospitality workforce credited for its huge contribution to the state’s prosperity and lifestyle.

“Take out our non-traditional or less respected employment paths and our community, our culture and our lives here look very different. We need all the pieces of the puzzle.”