Learn about wine

The wine courses at the Wine School & the American Wine Foundation are designed to give a complete wine education.

Wine Foundation

The Wine Foundation Program focuses on sensory evaluation and blind tasting, giving our students a skill set that most sommeliers and wine professionals do not possess: the ability to be able to identify wine varietals and styles by smell and taste.

This lauded program is a full semester long and culminates in certification by the American Wine Foundation.

Intermediate Certificate

The Intermediate Wine Course is a study of wine regions and varietals. For the student who is looking to push their wine education into overdrive, we recommend taking both programs in the same semester.

Both the Foundation and Intermediate programs also have a online wine course component for our students, free of charge.

Advanced Wine Program

The Advanced Wine Certificate Program is organized into six semesters of classes. To earn your Advanced Certificate, the student must complete only four sections.

Topics include the following: Classic Terroir, Modern Winemaking, Italian Wine Regions, Traditions in French Wine, The New Spanish Wine, and The Concept of Cult Wines.

The Diploma Oenotropae

Our wine diploma program, the Oenotropae is named after the granddaughters of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. While they could turn water into wine, this diploma program transforms wine into knowledge.

To earn the diploma, the student must complete all three certificates (Foundation, Intermediate, and Advanced) along with a a senior project and a four month internship.

The entire diploma will take the typical student two years to complete.

Continue through this site for more detailed information regarding each program. You can also contact Keith Wallace directly at 1-800-817-7351 x55 or email him at learn@vinology.com

 

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 American Wine Foundation classes, not WSET (Wine & Spirits 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 AWF wine certifications. And guess what? That's all we want to do.