Wine Education for Your Employees: My Review of Wine Spectator's Online Program

This past year, Robert Parker and Wine Spectator Magazine launched online courses for wine lovers. Their goal? To provide wine education to people from the comfort of their own homes at a cost which is much more affordable than the professional wine/sommelier courses offered throughout the country.

With such a large part of wine knowledge being sensory evaluation of the wine, I was left wondering, "How effective are these courses?" Can they truly educate an individual about the wine industry and the characteristics of varietals? How comprehensive are these classes? And, as a wine retailer, would my employees benefit from them?"

There was only one way to find out. I took one! I am now a proud graduate of the "ABCs of Wine Tasting" course through Wine Spectator School.

I chose Wine Spectator's school over Parker's simply because Parker's class is more expensive, especially when you are not a subscriber to Parker Online. (Just for the record, I think all wine retailers should be subscribers to both Parker and Spectator's websites: they provide excellent resources for wine vendors.)  But to ensure that I took the course which is most accessible to my readers, I chose the less expensive course: I enrolled in "The ABC's of Wine Tasting", which was just $39.

Overall, I found the course to be well designed. Students can log into the Wine Spectator School website and download the course content, which includes many pictures and videos, interviews with popular winemakers, and fun wine facts. After each "module" students take a quiz, and there is a test at the end as well.

The course itself is the most basic of all the courses offered: later courses include "Understanding Wine", which offers a more in-depth analysis of wine varietals and regions, and then there are the region-specific courses, like "Burgundy", which focus on the wines from a select part of the globe.

I would highly recommend the course for anyone who is interested in wine or interested in working in the industry. The "ABCs of Wine" course encapsulates all the basics: reds vs. whites, enology, and sensory evaluation. It provides a lot of solid, pragmatic information on the world's major varietals, and will certain encourage you to put words like "malolactic" in your vernacular. You also leave the course with comprehensive notes on the major varietals, which proved to be a nice reference for me in the future.

I would only disparage one thing about the course: the ease of cheating. I didn't cheat, of course, but it would be very simple to open another browser window during your quiz and then take the test while your "notes" were open next to you. The old adage "cheaters never prosper" certainly applies here, but it's a good thing to keep in mind if you are requiring your employees to pass this course.

Is this course right for your store? If you sell wine, then chances are each of your new employees would benefit from this class. Due to my relatively extensive background in the industry, I didn't learn too much from the course, and I doubt that my former employees at the wine store would learn much either, but keep in mind that we have worked with wine day in and day out for years. Our newer employees, on the other hand, would certainly benefit from it: it will provide them with viable information about wine and create a solid foundation of understanding the major varietals, and simultaneously put the employer at ease because they are ensured of their staff's knowledge and competence with customers. If nothing else, the class could be the driving force that inspires them to learn even more about the industry, which could increase sales and customer satisfaction over a long period of time.

Plus, you get a really cool certificate! :)