San Francisco Wine School Announces Six New California Wine Appellation Specialists

San Francisco Wine School has awarded six individuals with their credential, California Wine Appellation Specialist. This designation entitles each of them to put the initials "CWAS" after their name, in recognition of their specialized knowledge of the wines and appellations of California. The successful students were Emily Aschbrenner, Kavon Banejad, Bruce Josephson, Kristin Namimoto, Fred Swan and Lily Thang. Special recognition was given to Fred Swan, owner of NorCalWine.com, for high score on the challenging written exam.

San Francisco Wine School's Founder & CEO David Glancy, launched the California Wine Appellation Specialist program in September 2011 and this is the first graduating class. "There is a need in the market for the kind of in-depth training on California wines that the wines of France, Italy and other countries receive", said Glancy. The program encompasses 20 hours of lecture and tasting spread out over 8 weekly sessions, followed by the CWAS credential exam. Students learned USA and California labeling laws, the history of wine in California and studied American Viticultural Areas large and small. Glancy added, "We try to give depth and richness to each of the regions covered, as though we are actually traveling through them. There has been a great deal of interest in the program locally, nationally and even internationally."

Student Fred Swan joined the program as a complement to the Wine & Spirit Education Trust's (WSET) Diploma and Certified Sommelier programs he has completed. It also made sense for him to delve into the subject of winegrowing in California, since that is the focus of his website, http://norcalwine.com. "CWAS is by far the richest course I've seen on California wine regions," says Swan. "The breadth of coverage, attention to detail, and quality of wine samples are excellent. It's a unique and essential program."

About San Francisco Wine School
Master Sommelier, David Glancy launched the San Francisco Wine School in May 2011. He is one of twelve people in the world to hold both the Master Sommelier (MS) and Certified Wine Educator (CWE) credentials. Over the last 5 years he guided roughly 400 students through success on the Certified Sommelier (CS) credential. In addition to the California Wine Appellation Specialist� program, the school is also the exclusive Bay Area provider of the French Wine Scholar (FWS) program and approved provider of the Society of Wine Educators' exams. Our vision is to bring all relevant wine credentials under one roof. Online registration is available now for our January 2012 FWS and CWAS classes and gift certificates are also available for purchase.