About us

The International Vintage Master’s degree seeks to provide students with a comprehensive overview of the wine industry, from soil to consumer. The objective is to help students acquire scientific, cultural and economic knowledge as well as the technical and strategic skills of grape growing and ripening, wine production and marketing. Consistent with this overall objective, the programme particularly focuses on the concepts of terroir and typicality, providing students with the expertise to characterise, protect and promote wine diversity and identity.

Established in 2002, this 2-year study programme is a joint collaboration between higher education institutions, bringing together various competencies in the field of viticulture, oenology and wine marketing on an international scale. The partner institutions are:

Ecole Supérieure d’Agricultures (Coordinator, Angers – France), Universitat Politècnica de València (Valencia – Spain), Szent István Egyetem (Budapest – Hungary), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Piacenza – Italy), Universidade de Trás-Os-Montes e Alto Douro (Vila Real – Portugal), École d’Ingénieurs de Changins (Nyon – Switzerland), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Santiago – Chile) and Stellenbosch University (Stellenbosch – South Africa).

The International Vintage Master welcomes annually about 25 students from many different nationalities and various backgrounds.

Label of excellence

The study programme was twice awarded the Erasmus Mundus label of excellence in higher education in 2005 and 2009. Since 2003, the International Vintage Master is also accredited by the French Ministry of higher Education and Research as an official Master degree programme and give access to doctoral studies. For more information on degrees, see here.

Short history

The Master was initially constructed with 7 European universities, between 1998 and 2002. In 2007, new partnerships with South Africa, Switzerland and Chile were established, as well as in 2016 with England, allowing a stronger international collaboration, both in terms of research and education.