PennLive Looks Inside the Wine School’s Accelerated Sommelier Program

Paul Vigna’s July 14, 2017 article, “Philly Summer Wine School: ‘Hard-core classes’ that are ‘really, really fun’,” published by PennLive.

What this article covers:

As the Wine School of Philadelphia prepared for its 10th annual Summer Wine School, PennLive wine writer Paul Vigna looked beyond the week-long program itself to ask what happened to its graduates — and why students kept signing up for such an intense experience.

The accelerated course compressed the school’s Core Wine program into six evenings, ending with a Level 3 sommelier certification examination. Director of Wine Education Alana Zerbe led the program, with classes intentionally limited to about 16 to 20 students.

Founder Keith Wallace told Vigna that the school’s standard was demanding: by the end, students were expected to identify major grape varieties and wine regions blind. The challenge was accomplishing that while keeping the experience intuitive and enjoyable.

“We have built up a reputation for having hard-core classes that are also really, really fun,” Wallace said.

The results were visible in the school’s alumni. Wallace pointed to graduates who had become winemakers, beverage directors, restaurateurs, importers and sommeliers, including Sean Comninos of Heritage Vineyards, Neil Ross of the Estia Restaurant Group and restaurateur Jill Weber. Other alumni were working in wine from Miami to New Zealand.

The student body itself was unusually broad, commonly ranging from people in their 20s to their 60s. About half were considering careers in wine or restaurants; others came because they wanted a serious intellectual challenge, camaraderie or simply a deeper understanding of something they loved.

Wallace also described a curriculum that had become increasingly international while simultaneously paying greater attention to emerging East Coast wine regions.

After a decade of Summer Wine School, the formula remained remarkably consistent: serious standards, small classes, blind tasting — and an insistence that rigorous wine education should still be fun.