Sommelier Certification

Online Wine Courses

The National Wine School offers online wine courses for beginners to advanced sommeliers. Students can either start with Level One Sommelier or enroll in the Core Sommelier Wine Course, which includes all credentials up to Level Three.

Our online wine courses are self-paced professional wine certifications. These programs are designed for people seeking serious wine education without the need to travel to take exams. All our programs are fully self-paced and virtual.

Core Sommelier Program

Start with Level One

Core Sommelier

The Complete Sommelier Program

The Core Sommelier program combines all three certification levels:

Level One: 45 clock hours
Level Two: 90 clock hours
Level Three: 90 clock hours

225 clock hours • $1,100

Complete all three levels, and you earn Core Sommelier certification.

If your goal is to become a sommelier from the beginning, the Core program is the most direct path.

Enroll in Core Sommelier

Level One Sommelier

The Starting Point

Level One is where most students begin.

This course establishes the fundamentals you need before moving into professional wine study: how wine is made, how to taste it, the major grape varieties, wine service, and the principles of food and wine pairing.

45 clock hours • $300

Successful completion earns Level One Sommelier certification.

If you have never completed a formal sommelier or wine-certification program, start here. Former WSET Student? Transfer your credits.

Explore Level One SOMMELIER

Level Two Sommelier

Professional Wine Tasting

Level Two develops the sensory skills of a sommelier.

You move beyond identifying basic flavors and begin learning why a wine tastes the way it does. The course connects grape growing, winemaking, and sensory analysis, with an emphasis on blind tasting.

90 clock hours • $499

Level One is required before starting Level Two.

Successful completion earns Level Two Sommelier certification.

Explore Level Two Sommelier

Level Three Sommelier

The World of Wine

Level Three takes the tasting skills developed in Level Two and applies them to the world’s major wine regions.

You study the grapes, geography, climate, terroir, and wine styles of the world’s important producing regions while developing deductive tasting skills.

90 clock hours • $550

Level One and Level Two must be completed before Level Three. Successful completion earns the Core Sommelier certification.

Explore Level Three Sommelier

Not Sure Where to Start?

New to formal wine study? Start with Level One.

Know you want to become a sommelier? Enroll in Core Sommelier.

Already completed Level One? Continue to Level Two.

Already completed Level Two? Continue to Level Three.

Have equivalent WSET or CMS Level One study? Request a credential transfer.

Already a Sommelier?

Advanced Sommelier Certification

Advanced study begins after Core Sommelier certification. Students choose four approved 135-hour Advanced courses to earn Advanced Sommelier certification.

Core Sommelier + Four Advanced Courses = Advanced Sommelier Certification

Explore Advanced Sommelier Courses

Why Study Wine Online?

At the National Wine School, we run both online and in-person wine courses. One of the benefits of an online program is the ability to distill complex ideas in ways that are difficult to replicate in a classroom. We can pair an instructor’s best lecture on a subject with professionally produced graphics, text, and audio that reinforce what they are teaching.

For our Level One course, for instance, we put instructor Alana Zerbe in front of a camera at our New England studio for a week. This was material she had taught for a decade, semester after semester, in front of hundreds of sommelier students. We then asked her to distill that experience into written lectures, which she and our team honed for another two weeks.

We took that footage and gave it to our editor, himself an Advanced Sommelier, who designed the graphics and audio to complement Alana’s lectures.

The result is a distillation of an enormous amount of knowledge, intelligence, experience, and charm. Unless you happen to be one of the 20 people in a semester who get to sit in her classroom, this is a remarkable way to learn about wine. It isn’t simply a recorded class. It is the distillation of a decade of teaching experience.

That is how we develop our online wine courses: take an expert in their field and distill their experience so you can learn from them at home. Then we layer on ways to keep you invested and involved in the process.

Because wine cannot be learned by watching videos alone. You have to taste. You have to participate. The technology can deliver the knowledge, but the student still has to engage with the wine. That combination is what makes online wine education work.