Exercice for my Instituto de Empresa's application form. According to the subjects given by the IE, I present an activity I enjoy doing: wine tasting.

1. Application for
the Master in
Management
(MIM)
François Ricouard

3. Sciences Po Bordeaux Wine
Society
 Name: Vins/20
 The most popular independent student
society at Sciences Po Bordeaux
 More than 200 members each year
 Every year, our association organizes more
40 events a year:
 2 gala receptions
 Visits of wine domains
 Wine tasting at the University and in specialized
bars
 Wine tasting competitions

4. My passion for wine
 As a French citizen, wine has always been in
my culture.
 At the age of 16, I discovered the extensive
wine-producing region of the Ribera del
Duero.
 Choosing Bordeaux for my studies was not an
innocent choice, I wanted to live the in the
global capital of wine.

5. Management of the wine society,
Vins/20
 Living in Bordeaux, I further developed my
passion for wine.
 As a member of the wine society, I was able to
take part in tastings and discover some of the
most prestigious wines from Bordeaux and the
surrounding area.
 In 2015, after 4 years of membership I was
elected Vice-President of the wine society.
 As a consequence, from September 2015 to April
2016, I had the pleasure of representing this
association at my university but also at inter-
university wine competitions.

6. Personal development
 My passion for wine enabled me to rediscover a family
tradition based in the production of wine in the Ribera
del Duero.
 Secondly, as mentioned earlier, being the Vice-
President of this society meant that I had the pleasure
of taking part in wine tasting competitions.
 On top of representing one of the most prestigious
universities in France, I discovered the joy of competing
in a field outside of sport, which was a very constructive
experience.

7. Professional development
 My knowledge of wine has been a key element in my
professional development for a number of reasons.
 I experienced the notion of competitiveness in a new context.
My society had to compete against more than 20
associations worldwide to win the global wine tasting
competitions. A competition won consistently for the past 3
years. These victories were the fruit of competitive team
building.
 Throughout my time at Vins/20 I was involved in the
management of the society’s board. After some adjustments,
I was able to create a system with no significate conflicts
 Finally, this experience in Bordeaux has given me an
extraordinary training in telephone solicitation and sales
prospection, which will be useful in my professional career.

8. Leadership
 During my experience in this society I was expected to
lead a team. II’ll share some examples with you:
 1)When I was nominated vice-president, I had more than 3
years of experience as member of this association. As a
consequence, I knew that, for many of the members(me
included) it was very frustrating to receive constantly
prestigious wines that we will hardly be able to buy after
the tasting. Therefore, I decided to reduce the proportion of
the prestigious “chateaux” in our events in benefit of more
“accessible” ones. The results were excellent: we get a
“win-win situation” where the students where able to buy
some of the wine that they tasted and the domains were
able to increase their sales revenues.

9.  When I was a member, I also identified one serious
problem in the association. Its activity was too much
based in French wines, mostly from Bordeaux, as though
France was the only wine producer in the world. As a
consequence, I promoted the internationalization of our
tastings, inviting wine properties from all across Europe.
To be honest, we meet a mitigated success but, thanks to
this decision, we were able to receive one of the best
domains in the world, the Spanish Vega Sicilia.
 During my mandate, I was also confronted to the elevated
cost of renting a property able to host our gala reception.
Consequently, I decided to ask a public emplacement
where we could celebrate this event.

10. Conclusion
 Currently working for a French company
which has recently set up in Madrid, I was
asked by the CEO to organize wine tastings
for our clients in order to strengthen our
networking in Madrid.
 Seeing how successful this initiative has
proven to be, I am thinking of creating my own
wine society in Madrid, maybe at the Instituto
de Empresa.