"The Wine School is a great place to build knowledge and pursue your passion." Jonathan Newman, Former Chairman of the PLCB
"We would never be where we are today without your class." Richard Smock of Outpost Winery, Napa Valley
Founded in 2001, the Wine School of Philadelphia is the largest independent Wine School in the United States. Since then, we have become the gold standard for wine education.
Outside of a university, we are the only wine school in America that offers professional certification coupled with an independently developed curriculum. In fact, our programs have been utilized in whole and in part by numerous universities, including Drexel and UPenn.
Our professional certifications include semester-long programs that culminate in a full two-year Diploma. These programs are the core of the Wine School: our professional graduates number in the thousands, and have gone on to become sommeliers, winemakers, suppliers, executives, and restaurateurs.
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"The Wine School is a great place to build knowledge and pursue your passion."
Jonathan Newman, Former Chairmain of the PLCB
Earn your Wine Diploma
The first step is our critically acclaimed cours a dégustation, the Wine Foundation Program. This course gives the students the techniques and knowledge to become extraordinary wine tasters. Learn to unravel the hidden flavors of wine, and to develop the coveted skill of blind tasting.
The next leap is to take your palate on a world tour of wine. In the Global Course in Wine/Intermediate Certificate, the student is exposed to all the major wines and wine regions of the world. A highly detailed program, Global offers our students everything needed to master the global vineyard.
Most of our students take both programs, and they graduate with a level of skill & knowledge that could make Robert Parker blush. For the most ardent of wine students, we also proudly offer the Core Wine Certificate Program, which combines both programs in a single semester and saves the student hundreds of dollars.
Finally, we offer the Advanced Wine Program. The last step toward the coveted Diploma Oenotropae, the Advanced Program consists of four semesters of study. This semester, we are offering the Burgundy & Rhone section.
For questions regarding our academic programs, please contact Keith Wallace at 1-800-817-7351, extension 55.
At the Wine School, we field many questions about what we do. Here are a few answers:
- Do you run a viticulture school?
No, for a masters degree you will want to enroll in the programs at the University of California at Davis, Cornell, or Oregon State.
- Do you teach wine making and oenology?
Only at the consumer level. For professional training, please see above.
- Do you offer Wine Scholarships?
That would be really cool, eh? We offer very competitive pricing, but no scholarships.
- Do you offer sommelier certification?
Sorry, we do not. Sommelier certification does not lead to a viable career. We understand the myth and glamour of the idea, but the reality of the marketplace is that sommelier positions are scarce and relatively poorly remunerated. Sorry about that, folks.
- Do you offer WSET classes?
We offer National Wine School classes, not WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) classes. The difference is largely a British vs American style of teaching. We opt for a participatory experience rather than a read-and-recite method.
- Do you offer a wine degree?
No! A degree must be issued by a regionally-accredited university or college, such as Drexel or University of Pennsylvania.
We are a small private school, and are proud to offer the Diploma Oenotropae.
- Do you offer professional bartending certificates?
Nope. You really don't need a certificate to become a bartender. Many restaurants will not hire someone who went to bartending school because it is seen as quite silly and irrelevant.
- What the *&% do you do, then?
We run wine education programs and issue certifications. And guess what? That's all we want to do.
Online Wine?
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