Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the role of training demand in the organisational changes. Design/methodology/approach: The paper describes the demand of training courses in the Rioja wine sector in Spain and its relation with the changes in the sector carried out in recent years. Through a questionnaire, wineries' managers asked about the training demand in the sector and change processes. It is proposed, first, the relationship between the demand for training and changes made by companies of Rioja wine in entering new markets and innovation in products and, second, that these changes explain the demand of training in marketing and oenology topics. To confirm the hypotheses, a binary logistic regression analysis was performed. Findings: It was found that the relationship between the demand for training and the processes of change, and that the change processes in companies of Rioja wine sector originate a specific demand for training. Practical implications: The paper provides a review of the importance of training in changes processes of companies. A critical factor in the change process is the development of workers competencies to cope with the changes in the organisation, but it is also important to develop a culture of change in the organisation. Originality/value: This paper provides empirical evidence of the relationship between organisational changes and training demands in a key sector from the Rioja Community in Spain.