Becoming an Italian Wine Expert – These Are The Courses You Need to Try

Imagine that you’re sat in a restaurant right now.

You’re perusing the wine list and seeing all of these Italian wines that you know little to nothing about. Unsure of what to pick and whether it will suit your tastes, you hem and haw until it happens.

The restaurant’s wine expert comes over and explains the qualities of each wine to you. By the end, you’ve made your selection and have a wine that you’re truly in love with.

It’s a wonderful feeling.

But what may be even more wonderful is if you could achieve that result on your own. Instead of relying on others to guide you towards wines that you may like, you could develop your own understanding of Italian wine and what each variety has to offer.

There’s just one question…

How?

What do you need to do to develop your expertise in wine?

Just do what you’ve done for most of the other things that you’ve learned in your life – take a course!

There are so many courses that teach you the ins and outs of wine that it’s hard to choose the one that’s right for you. But in this article, we’re going to highlight a few that will leave you feeling like a master sommelier by the time that you’re done.

Course #1 – Jancis Robinson’s Udemy Course

For those who don’t know, Jancis Robinson is a British wine critic and expert who’s achieved a high level of renown in her home country. In fact, she’s the creator of the Purple Book wine manuals, which many look to as key books for the global wine industry.

And she’s created a course on Udemy for anybody who wants to get inside the mind of a true wine professional.

You can find the course on Udemy and it costs about €150. In return, you get insight from one of the most talented and educated wine aficionados in the entire world. The course teaches you what to look for in a wine menu and helps you to understand how to read a wine label to ensure you always get a wine that suits your tastes. The course even covers the basics of pairing wines with different types of food.

Best of all, this is one of the most accessible courses on the list. Though she’s a distinguished expert, Jancis does everything that she can to make the course as accessible as possible to people of all levels. By the end, you’ll have a strong foundation of wine knowledge that you can build on with some of the other courses in this list.

Course #2 – WSET Awards and Diploma in Wines

Available at various levels of knowledge and expertise, this collection of courses can take you from complete wine novice through to experienced and knowledgeable connoisseur in no time at all.

Created by the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET), which was founded in 1969 to help people like you develop a greater understanding of their favourite beverages, the courses offer a respected accreditation that most within the wine industry recognise. They’re also available in 72 languages, with many of them also being available online. 

WSET currently features about 800 courses on its website, which are split into 4 levels.

Level 1 courses cover the beginner’s end of the spectrum. Once you advance past those, the Level 2 courses provide more detailed introductions into various aspects of wine, with the Level 3 courses taking a much sharper focus that veers more into the professional side of things.

At Level 4, the courses start preparing you for WSET’s Master of Wine Program. And if you’re able to earn that, you have everything that you need to become a professional in the Italian wine industry!

WSET doesn’t just stop at wine either. If you really want to get into the weeds when it comes to alcohol, it offers a host of courses for various spirits, as well as courses dedicated to the Japanese rice wine sake.

Course #3 – Wine: Everything You Want to Know, Taught by a Winemaker

We’re back to Udemy for another great course that can teach you an awful lot. And unlike the other courses on this list, this one’s completely free. On top of that, it’s created by a man who’s worked in the industry his entire life as a winemaker.

The course focuses as much on the history of wine as it does on helping you to pick out specific vintages. You’ll learn about the growth of the global industry, what winemakers need to do to get their wines to you, and the various ways that they prepare their wines. 

Of course, you’ll also learn some more practical stuff. The course covers how to pair wines with food as well as how to buy wines that suit specific tastes. It even offers some advice on where you can buy those wines and the differences between each country’s production methods.

You won’t face any time limit as the course is entirely self-managed. Better yet, signing up gives you lifetime access to all of the materials, in addition to the ability to access them via your computer or mobile device.

This is the ideal course if you’re looking for something that you can do online, at your own pace, and within a tight budget.

The growth of the world wide web has opened up educational opportunities that people didn’t have access to just a few short decades ago.

Maybe now is the time to take advantage of that fact!

Any of the courses that we’ve listed here can serve as a great starting point for the budding wine expert. You’ll learn everything that you need to know when it comes to the basics. And in many cases, you can move up the levels until you become a true expert.

And what should you do once you’ve developed your expertise?

Head to our online Italian wine catalogue to find a new wine that’s perfect for your tastes.