Certified Wine Professional™ (CWP)

In today's competitive market, the more diverse your skills, the more successful you and your operation will be. So why not supercharge your career by mastering wine and getting a Certified Wine Professional credential to prove it? Earning level I wine certification at the CIA is your surest route to career success.

Successful candidates will receive a "Certified Wine Professional—Foundation Level I Certificate of Accomplishment" from The Culinary Institute of America.

About the exam >

Certified Wine Professional—Foundation Level I Competencies
Students enrolling in the exam should have competencies in the following areas:

Wine Knowledge

• World's major grape varieties, including where they grow
  
• World's major varietals, including major characteristics of those varietals
  
• Most widely planted premium grape varietals in California and in the United States
  
• Process of fermentation
  
• Meaning of alcohol by volume and average range of alcohol by volume for standard table wines
  
• Meaning of fortify, residual sugar, filtration, and fining
  
• Role of barrels in winemaking (what effect oak has on a wine; the difference between barrel fermentation and stainless steel fermentation)
  
• Main compounds that act as preservatives in wine, allowing it to age
  
• Key physical requirements for growing vines
  
• Concept of terroir, clones, scion, and rootstock
  
• Factors that must be considered in planting a new vineyard
  
• Why and how harvest decisions are critical to the final style and flavor of the wines
  
• World production trends, including the top wine-producing countries in the world
  
• Europe's major wine regions, the wines produced in them, and the grape varieties from which those wines are made
  
• Major New World wine regions, the wines produced in them, and the grape varieties from which those wines are made

Wine Sensory Ability

• A basic ability to describe and evaluate wine professionally, including assessing a wine's color, aroma, flavor, body, finish, and overall quality
  
• Describe the range of colors that exist in white and red wines
  
• Tell apart, with a good degree of accuracy, the major varietals/types of wine, in a blind tasting
  
• Assess, in a blind tasting, whether a wine is from the Old World or the New World and give reasons to support your decision
  
• Differentiate, in blind tastings, between a barrel-fermented wine from one that is fermented in a tank and between young and older wines
  
• Identify TCA

Business and Practical Expertise

• Ability to read and decipher wine labels from all the major wine-producing countries
  
• Basic understanding of correct wine service
  
• Importance of good wine glasses, including the features of a good wine glass
  
• General markup for wine in a restaurant and in a retail store

Wine and Food Comprehension and Pairing Skills

• General principles behind successful and unsuccessful wine and food matches
  
• Concepts of complementary pairings and contrasting pairings
  
• Names of and principles behind several classic wine and food matches
  
• Ability to pair an appropriate single bottle of wine when different entrées are ordered from a restaurant menu