Vine Lab Wine & Spirits Academy of Minnesota

Vine Lab Wine & Spirits Academy provides global wine and spirit certification classes from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust and the Wine Scholar Guild, as well as custom-built classes. Class levels from beginner to intermediate levels are available. 

The wine school began in 2017, co-founded by Lisa Lehar and Nikki Erpelding. Along with running the school, Nikki is the instructor for St. Paul College’s wine professional certificate program. Lisa also works at a local wine shop.

Accreditation

The Minnesota Higher Education Services Council has licensing authority over all private-degree granting, vocational-technical, and for-profit/proprietary schools. As of this writing, Vine Labe is not registered.

A lack of accreditation is not uncommon for WSET affiliate schools. Many use language (qualification instead of certification; award instead of diploma) that intentionally skirts the law. However, Vine Lab claims to offer “Professional Wine Certification” and the “WSET Diploma,” which they may want to change in case they are investigated by the Minnesota Higher Education Services Council.