Spirited Grape

About the Founder

The brainchild of Brenda Audino, Spirited Grape is a WSET-affiliated wine school that has moved across country and back again: from Napa Valley to Rhode Island and finally to Washington State.

Brenda has nearly two decades in the wine trade. Originally from Seattle, Brenda would go on tours to local wineries with friends. After getting married, she moved to Oregon, just a few miles from the wineries in the Willamette Valley. She worked crush a few times and dabbled in the wine trade. She left Willamette with her husband, who moved around the US before landing in Texas, where she completed her sommelier certification.

The story of this wine school and its founder is very much one that crisscrosses the whole United States. She worked her way up to become the lead wine manager of a regional chain of wine and spirits stores, Twin Liquors. At this time, she became a wine judge for the Edible Texas Wine and Food Pairing Competition. She moved to California and started teaching at the Napa Valley Wine Academy in 2015. She also started Spirited Grape as a consulting business.

Wine Programs Offered

The school offers Wine & Spirit Education Trust programs in-person from Level One to Level Three. They also offer wine-tasting classes open to the public.

Rhode Island

Ms. Audino moved to Providence, RI, where she transformed Spirited Grape into a wine school (this was in 2018). Classes were held at the city’s Marriott hotel.

In Rhode Island, a proprietary school is any entity that provides instruction or training for a business, trade, technical, industrial, or other occupation. This includes wine schools, which the Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner regulates. However, Spirited Grape was not listed as a registered school.

Washington State

By 2019, she moved the school back to the west coast. At that time, she opened up Capri Cellars. It resembles Vino Venue in Atlanta: a wine store, tasting room, bistro, and wine school. With many great ratings and local love, Spirited Grape has found its permanent home.

However, private vocational schools in this state are registered by the Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board. Spirited Grape is not registered as a vocational school. This is typical for most WSET schools.