By Alison DeLory

Autour du vin’s Genevieve (Nicholson) Loughlin and Tracey Dobbin.

Two Dalhousie alumnae have poured their passion for wine into a business that’s bringing a world-renowned wine education program to Atlantic Canada. Autour du Vin’s Tracey Dobbin (BSc’99), and Genevieve (Nicholson) Loughlin (BComm’98), offered the first-ever Wine Spirits and Education Trust (WSET) level one course in St. John’s and Halifax to capacity crowds this past fall. “Level one is about major varieties and the principal styles of wine and the art of tasting. You leave with increased knowledge and confidence to be able to communicate about wine,” says Dobbin, the company’s teacher and owner.

Autour du Vin is the first WSET-approved program provider to offer courses in Canada east of Montreal. Industry professionals and consumers wanting an in-depth education into the many facets of wine seem eager to enroll. “Wine is history, taste, geology, agriculture. There are so many levels of knowledge as you get into it,” says Loughlin, Autour du Vin’s chief administrator. She became WSET-certified in Boston.

A growing passion for wine

The friends met 20 years ago at Shirreff Hall. As their earlier careers as an occupational therapist (Dobbin) and in book publishing (Loughlin) moved them around Canada, their shared interest in wine began to grow. Dobbin was the first to transition to a career in the wine industry after working as an occupational therapist in Vancouver. She completed WSET, then worked for a Vancouver company as an instructor before relocating to Bordeaux, France where she now lives. Dobbin holds an MBA in Wine Management and Marketing from the Bordeaux International Wine Institute and is enrolled in a Master of Wines program—currently held by only four people in Canada and about 310 worldwide.

Loughlin’s previous job in book publishing took her to Vancouver where she attended wine tastings with Dobbin. The two also have a long history of buying bottles of wine to share with one another as they catch up. Though an ocean now separates them—Loughlin lives in Wood Islands, P.E.I., these days, where she is also a yoga instructor—they decided to open Autour du Vin (meaning “about wine”) when they saw an opportunity to bring high-level wine education to Atlantic Canada.

Educating the wine boom

There has been double-digit growth in the wine industry in Canada in recent years and the pair surmises the boom in wine sales is fueled by multiculturalism and education. Growth in Atlantic Canada even exceeds that of the rest of Canada. Dobbin will travel here several times a year as they continue to offer more WSET courses and master classes in the region.

“You walk into a wine shop and there are so many choices. People buy by the label or buy the same wine over and over. Life’s too short for that,” says Dobbin. “Wine is alive in a bottle. It’s grouped by country. People may think to themselves, ‘I want to bring home a piece of Argentina tonight.'”

The pair will repeat level one and offer more advanced WSET levels to meet demand. Autour du Vin also offers two-hour master classes on specific aspects of wine. While in Halifax this past September, Dobbin taught a master class on the wines of Bordeaux, where she managed to elevate the lesson to an almost philosophical level to the rapt crowd. “Wine is about communication,” Dobbin said, “the beautiful mystery of grapes.” Cheers to that.

Visit Autour du Vin on Facebook

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2015 issue of Dal Magazine.