An education in Wine

From Dictionary.com - "A Sommelier is a restaurant employee who orders and maintains the wines sold in the restaurant and usually has extensive knowledge about wine and food pairings."

And from Wikipedia . . .

"Though sommelier is a a job title potentially anyone may claim, becoming a certified sommelier requires classes and an examination. The certification is offered by a wide range of educators, and a basic education may be attained for $800-900 over the course of six months.
In North America, two of the largest bodies are the Sommelier Society of America (SSA), established as a union in 1954, and the American Sommelier Association (ASA) founded in 1999. In the U.S., organizations such as the Wine & Spirit Education Trust and educational bodies such as the Wine School of Philadelphia and Wine Spectator train sommeliers but do not issue a sommelier-specific certification."

I shared these two entries because I just saw an interesting question posed to the wine writer for The Times Union about where to pursue a professional wine education. If you're interested in really learning your stuff, these are all great places to start your research.