Why you should hire a fine wine intern
Flint Wines is set to officially roll out an internship programme, ‘Jeunes Vignes’, teaching the next gen of winemakers the ropes of the English wine trade. But don’t get it twisted: Interns don’t just make coffee, they’re granted an “all-access” magic ticket to the inner-workings of the business.
In 2025, for the second year running, Flint Wines has welcomed a fine wine intern, with managing director Katy Keating believing, “to access the next generation, you need to understand the next generation”. The best way to do that? “Spending really high quality time with younger people.”
And internships are the perfect chance to build this connection. 22-year-old Alexandra Defaix took up the six-month position at the fine wine merchant on 1 July 2025. She is the daughter of Hélène Jaeger-Defaix and Didier Defaix, whose family have been making wine in Chablis for three generations. Last year, Louis Devauges, son of Jacques Devauges of Domaine des Lambrays, held the intern position.
While both interns actually reached out to Flint directly, both underwent formal interview processes before acceptance. “We place enormous value on this cultural exchange. We learn from our interns and we give them complete access to the business in hopes they learn something from us,” says Keating. Now, the intern process is becoming formalised in a programme called ‘Jeunes Vignes’, “because we’ve been learning so much and enjoying it, and it’s such an important thing.”
Flint will hire one intern per year, and wants to specifically scout budding talent from the 180 growers it works with – helping the children of winemakers get to grips with the trade. But Keating is open to offering work experience to those who haven’t grown up on a vineyard: “Outside of the formal internship programme, we love mixing the generations. Whether you’re 21, or in your 70s, we’re age blind.” And the knowledge flows both ways; a melting pot of ages brings “the best blend of knowledge and awareness,” continues Keating. “We’re nothing without bringing the next generation along in the world of wine, but the older generations have so much to offer in experience.
“Wine, in particular, is a world where there are many family businesses, so there’s a lot of generational handovers that take place inherently. So embracing that is key to continuing these relationships for the future.”
And she’s already scoping out talented teens: “Jonathan Pabiot, a producer we just started working with in Loire, he came for our portfolio, he brought his children and his wife. His children are in their early teenage years, and they would be potentially perfect candidates to spend a summer with us in the future.”
Forget spreadsheets; people, and what they think of one another, are the bedrock to any stellar business. That’s not lost on Keating. Cultivating connections across families, much like tending to vines, plays the long game in “cementing very deep relationships”. This means Flint can support its producers through those pivotal life moments, like marriage, or having a baby for the first time. “Our founder, Jason Haynes, has been to many weddings. One of the producers we work with actually got married in Burgundy a couple of weeks ago, and another one of our winemakers is the godfather to one of his children,” she explains. “Relationships are at the heart of everything we do.”
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So far, the internships have been tailored to suit the applicants’ interests. Defaix, who holds an Economics degree from the University of Paris, Pantheon-Sorbonne, is now completing a Masters in Business Management at EDHEC Business School in Lille. She’s granted a year-long gap between studies to seek out work experience. And at Flint Wine, she’s keen to use this time learning about the critical export market, works specifically in the marketing department, taking on projects like email list marketing, website content and even wine tastings, while also working in the Chardonnay vines at Missing Gate Vineyard in Essex for a day.
On the other hand, last year’s intern, Devauges, who was 21 at the time, spent two months working in the finance side of the business. This included manning a presentation of a competitor analysis to the board. Vitally, he also showed sportsmanship – joining the Flint rugby team in a not-last-place showing at the August Pol Roger Rugby Tournament.
Interns, says Keating, are granted an “all-access-pass” to the company. “They’re in, and they can see whatever interests them,” she promises. “We’re an open book for them”.
Going forward, Flint is on the lookout for interns who can appreciate the value of the experience and bring it back to their own business. “That type of person is going to have both the will and the skill to make the experience a success across the border,” Keating clarifies. “We always say, ‘hiring is a two way street’. We want to hire people who want to join our team as much as we want them to join our team, and that applies to this internship program as well.”
Flint isn’t the first merchant to hire interns. Hong Kong business Altaya Wines has previously run a Bordeaux internship programme, for instance, with interns bring a fresh pair of eyes to the business: “Anytime someone asks a question about anything, whether it’s, ‘why do we use MailChimp to send out our emails?’ to ‘why do we use certain types of language?’ it makes us think, ‘is that the right, or best, way to do it?’ That curiosity and inquisitiveness that comes with having someone who hasn’t seen these things before, that we really value.”
Asking interns questions, as well as being asked them, is also invaluable. “What wines do you drink with your parents? What was it like to work harvest at DRC? What are the tastes of the next generation? What’s up with the increased importance of Instagram?” are all queries that have piqued Keating’s curiosity. “They have this access to experiences, and they have this slightly different perspective, which is so helpful,” she says.
The internship programme is a real full circle moment for the former Lay & Wheeler MD, who joined Flint in 2023. At Harvard business school, she’d spent one summer as an Amazon intern. “Their approach is to give interns a really significant project so they can then be able to speak to anyone in the business about that project,” she looks back. “We’ve taken some of the best parts of that outlook and applied them here, which is why our interns have a lot of responsibility – they can ask anything they want, we’ll tell them anything that we can, and so it’s a very adult and elevated experience. It’s not just going to make coffee every morning and organising the books.”
She adds: “In any given team, making sure you’ve got diversity among generations is really important, and in being open-minded to different things, you can achieve the same outcome in different ways.”
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