Picking the perfect vintage can be a frustrating venture — the employees at PLCB stores are often unhelpful; labels on the bottles can be harder to decode than the exemptions for Philadelphia’s smoking ban; and experimenting with different wines gets expensive.
Much like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods to give to man, Keith Wallace (pictured) has made it his mission to demystify wine and make it more accessible to the masses. “It’s an art form that’s to be enjoyed, not to be rarefied,” says Wallace. “The more you know about it, the more you’ll love it.”
Frustrated by the quality of wine education, Wallace founded The Wine School of Philadelphia in 2001. “Everything everyone was learning was bullshit. Every major wine book is underwritten by a distributor or an importer,” explains Wallace. “This really bugged me, so I started the school.”
Wallace didn’t know whether it was going to be successful; he just knew he liked doing it. But in the last six years, The Wine School has sold out every class it’s ever hosted. His teaching staff has grown to include writer Brian Freedman, local wine distributor Pete Mitchell, and Frank Cipparone, a retired teacher who spent the last decade studying Italian wine.
The first wine bar to exclusively feature wine from Pennsylvania is about to open in a few days. This is a significant moment for local …
One of the better known food and beverage bloggers in Philadelphia is now the newest member of the Wine School team. “Collin Flatt is going …
A new study bolsters the science behind our Wine Foundation Program.
The January Issue of the peer-reviewed science journal Nature Neuroscience has published an article entitled “Mechanisms of scent-tracking in humans.”
Until now, the common belief within the scientific community was that humans had a poor sense of smell. The article submits evidence that people can track scents through an open field like a bloodhound.
Technorati Tags: wine, neuroscience, nose
Mastroberardino 2005 Greco di Tufa “Nova Serra” Campania Attems 2004 Tocai Friulano Collio Friuli Massolino 2006 Barbera d’Alba Piemonte Allegrini 2004 “Palazzo delle Torre” Veronese …
The wine education course in Philadelphia. In a month, we transform our students into superior wine tasters, usually scoring higher than top sommeliers. It is due to The Wine School of Philadelphia that I am attending graduate school for Oenology and Viticulture at the University of California at Davis. -Jenny Schultz, Philadelphia This popular wine course was developed by Keith Wallace for the Wine School of Philadelphia and the American Wine Foundation. The emphasis on sensory evaluation and plain talk is invaluable to anyone with a passion for wine. The Foundation program is truly a unique and enjoyable learning experience. -Bob Pigeon, Executive Editor of De Capo Press. This unique and intensive wine course is based on cutting-edge research undertaken at the Monell Institute in Philadelphia and at the University of California, Davis. "The only chemistry class you will leave laughing" is how our students describe our smart-but-fun approach to wine education. The Wine School is a great place to build knowledge and pursue your passion. -Jonathan Newman, Former Chairman of the PLCB For an intensive wine experience, you can attend the Intermediate Certificate Wine Course in tandem with the Foundation Certificate. After the successful completion of this certification course, graduates will be given full membership into the Wine School. Subjects included in this class include the following: The Pleasure of Wine, the Science of Wine Understanding White Wines. Understanding Red Wines The Wine Components Understanding Winemaking Learning to Blind Taste Food and Wine Pairing The course offers eight individual classes, and one online class. Questions? You can contact Keith Wallace directly at 1-800-817-7351 x55
If you jumped back in time to 1998, you’d find me pounding back espressos in my glass-enclosed office at a National Public Radio station. If it was 6am in the morning, I’d already be shoulder-deep in the morning’s newspapers while the AP wire streamed across on a monitor. On the wall across from my desk, a bank of televisions would be tuned to all the major news shows; to my left a circle of desks would be filling up with my young and sleepy-eyed staff. In less than seven minutes, we would be live and on the air.
If you were to suddenly pop in and say “Hi”, I’d have growled and given you a “what the &%*$ are you doing here?” look. If that didn’t deter you, and you managed to tell me that in just about three years that I would be starting the Wine School of Philadelphia, I would have laughed…. and then have you escorted out of the building.
Sella & Mosca 2004 Cannonau di Sardegna Riserva, DOC, Sardegna Located in the northwesteren part of the island, Sella & Mosca has become Sardinia’s signature …
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The Wine School of Philadelphia Coming in August The Wine School’s Summer Accelerated Core Program Start Your Wine Education Today! July 13, …
As a kid, I used to obsess over the night-before crawl of school names running across the bottom of the screen during the 11 o’clock …
Alice Feiring wants to save you from Robert Parker.
The “Parkerization” of the wine world is a hotly debated trend in said world. Interestingly, it is also a method of protecting a steel surface from corrosion and increasing its resistance to wear through electrochemical phosphate conversion coating. Parkerizing is commonly, and most notably, used on firearms.
Corrosion, conversion, guns?
In the case of The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization, Alice Feiring is the loaded gun; and like a modern day John Wayne, she sidles into many a saloon (well, in this case, many a winery) and lets loose on all those outlaw Parkerites, those over-manipulators of wines (boo, ssss); and, yes, ol’ Bob Parker himself. All while heroically standing up for the traditional winemaker: farmers and wine makers who work the land they love – some passed down over time, some newly acquired; and those who let the wines they cultivate stand on their own with little or no manipulating of any kind.
If you read any wine or food publications, you will hear one thing over-and-over “it’s impossible to pick the right wines for Thanksgiving”. This is …