How to Become a Wine Educator

If you want to teach wine classes, there are three requirements to become a wine educator. The first is to complete your sommelier certification (L1-L3). The second is to complete your wine educator certification program at our National Wine Educator Testing Site in Philadelphia. You will also have to be a member of a participating wine school.

Many jobs in the wine trade are actually wine educator jobs. Communicating and educating is a core skill of working for wineries, wine distribution, and wine import companies. Teacher training is optional if you are a professor at an accredited college or university seeking to teach the National Wine School curriculum.

National Wine Educator Testing Site

Wine School of Philadelphia (WSoP)

109 S. 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103

A vanguard of the wine education sector, the Wine School of Philadelphia, is optimally located for our national testing site. The school is located in the Rittenhouse District, across from the University City District, with innumerable options for lodging and fine dining. It is located minutes away from Amtrak’s 30th Street Station and 30 minutes from Philadelphia International Airport. By car, it is easily accessed by both I-95 and I-76.

The school is the home base for Keith Wallace, one of the National Wine School’s board of directors. The testing site is managed by Alana Zerbe, our L3 Online Sommelier Course instructor and the Director of Wine Education at WSoP.

Our teacher training and wine educator certification program is hosted annually in August. The program lasts for a full week and includes an accelerated program of training and testing.

Running a Wine School

Being a certified wine instructor is the first step toward running your wine education program. We recommend earning your Advanced Sommelier certification and teaching wine classes for a minimum of three years before starting your project. Once you feel you are ready to take the leap, you can contact us for more information.

Most students first discover the National Wine School through a University or College course. However, our programs are also offered in select wine schools across the United States, as well. Unlike other wine education programs, we are not a franchise business. We do not allow our affiliated schools to poach students from each other or offer to allow multiple schools to compete in the same region.

We also demand a higher level of sophistication from our members, and they are treated with the same level of care as our University clients. To run a NWS facility, you must have the following: a brick-and-mortar facility with a long-term lease or contract, all instructors must have their wine educator credentials, and the head wine educator must have earned their Advanced Sommelier pin.