Wine & Spirit Education Trust in Philadelphia Phillywine is the place to find world-recognized, quality wine classes in the Philadelphia area. We also offer wine tastings and referral to wine experts who host private events. We've been providing high quality wine tastings & wine classes in the Delaware Valley since 1988 (as Neal Ewing Wine Services). Twice rated "Best of Philly"("Best Wine Tastings" and "Best Wine Events") by Philadelphia Magazine. Rated "Best Wine School in the Country" by Wine Notes Magazine
World's Best Wine Classes: WSET and Beyond We are a Registered Centre and Approved Programme Provider for the world-renowned wine courses of England's Wine & Spirit Education Trust. Our instructors have nationally and internationally recognized wine credentials. Our students' high passing rate on the difficult WSET exams is a testament to our instructors' teaching skills. We provide instructors and curriculum for the wine courses offered at several local colleges. We also offer our own wine classes and wine tastings at a variety of restaurants and educational institutions in the Philadelphia area. We don't scrimp on either the wines we pour or the people we have brought in as guest speakers. Our wine classes and wine tastings have included some of the world's rarest and most expensive wines, and our guest speakers have included many of the world's top winemakers and wine masters.
Private Wine Tastings If you are looking for someone to lead an in-home wine tasting or other private event, we will be glad to refer you to a thoroughly knowledgeable wine expert. You and he or she can make your own arrangements, without having to pay anything additional to our organization. There is no arbitrary minimum number of guests and no arbitrary per-person fee, so your savings can be substantial.
Learn More about our Wine Classes and Wine Events We encourage you to learn more about our wine courses and other wine services we offer: •
Wine Classes in the Philadelphia Area
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WSET Wine Classes from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (Philadelphia area, online, and home study) Private Events
Awards Replace Certificates In the UK a new certification Authority for WSET led to a change in titles for the documents you receive when you successfully pass a WSET exam. From now on “Certificate” has been replaced by “Award.”
WSET Certified Educators Every WSET center must have at least one WSET Certified Educator, who has gone through extensive training on teaching techniques. We have far exceeded that minimum, having sent ten of our instructors to this training.
Diploma via Video Only six cities in the U.S. offer the WSET Diploma. If you’re not near one of them your options had been just home study or WSET’s Online Diploma Course. Now we have a third option: video participation in our Diploma classes via a Skype-like connection. There is no additional charge when you enroll in the home study course. Our recent students continued our excellent performances on the WSET Diploma Unit 3 (Light Wines) exam. Fifteen of 21 students passed the theory portion and 19 of 21 passed the tasting portion. This is far above the international pass rate (approximately 50%) for this difficult, daylong exam.
WSET Classes in Philadelphia World's Best Wine Classes from the WSET. The WSET is England's Wine & Spirit Education Trust. Since 1969 it has been affiliated with the Institute of Masters of Wine in educating the wine trade as well as consumers seeking a very thorough wine education. In the U.K., completion of WSET's Advanced and Diploma classes are pre-requisites for Master of Wine candidates. We feel quite confident saying the WSET Courses are the world's greatest wine classes: • • • • •
They have been offered for nearly 40 years They're offered in 47 countries, from Australia to Zanzibar, in 13 languages Approximately 24,000 people per year take the courses Detailed objectives are listed and covered each week Classes are student-centered and discussion-focused; we don't just talk at you
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Evocative multi-media presentations: 80% of adults are "visual modality" learners, so we don't just tell you, we show you Great wines are poured They're poured into Vinea INAO/ISO stemware, which you keep -- six free glasses per student In many countries the classes are MW pre-requisites-- if you have ever dreamed of becoming a Master of Wine, these are the classes for you.
So You Say You've Taken a Wine Class? Is WSET So Different? Why do people take wine classes? Sometimes, just to meet other people. Otherwise, to learn to buy and to taste wine. To learn why what they like tastes that way (geography, chemistry, whatever). And to find other wines, maybe cheaper, they will like as much. No more aimless wandering through wine aisles, they think. No more what-am-I-tasting confusion. Oh, sure, most of the wines in the shop have numerical scores. Is that enough help? Will that 90point wine taste better than that other 90-point wine? And how will either taste with your 85point dinner? (Ever notice that the foods we buy don’t come with scores attached?) So, you’ve already taken a wine class? Let me guess. The instructor told some good jokes. He or she talked, you listened. You got a pile of handouts, maybe some maps. You tasted a bunch of wines. The wine made everyone get friendlier. More good jokes about the wines. End of class. Next time in the wine shop, were you any less confused? Did the handouts help? WSET Classes are different.
WSET Professional Wine Expertise: Wine Buyers, International England is too far north to grow good wine grapes. But for centuries they have had royalty and nobility who wanted good wine and had the money to pay for it. Europe was very nearby and had lots of good wines. And England had colonies, ranging from America to Australia, some of which were beginning to make wine. The market responded and a profession was created. Wine professionals visited cellars in little towns throughout Europe and the empire. Was this wine good, and a good value? Did it taste like wines from this-little-town usually taste, so customer expectations would be met? The skills they learned and used were written down and passed along to their apprentices. Beginning 1969, this knowledge, acquired over centuries, was all formalized with the creation of the WSET. Once you have read the course descriptions in this section of the website, we're sure that you will agree with us about the quality of these courses. In a culture such as ours, in which wine knowledge is equated with memorizing Wine Advocate or Wine Spectator scores, it's not surprising that American Master of Wine candidates did so badly when they first began taking
the M.W. exams in 1988, or that they have had more success now that these WSET courses -mandatory for U.K. candidates -- are more widely available in the U.S.