Don’t get Keith Wallace started about pretentious sommeliers who expound on the balance and complexity of a wine while ignoring the finish on the casual drinker’s wallet.

“The wine trade doesn’t need snobs,” says Wallace, a West Mt. Airy resident and founder of the Wine School of Philadelphia, which is celebrating 25th anniversary. “It is just obnoxious when [sommeliers] do that. Everyone just hates it. It’s just another way to make people feel inferior.”

Given his uncorked criticism of the profession, it’s a bit surprising that beginning Aug. 17, Wallace and Alana Zerbe, the school’s director of education, will teach a week-long Accelerated Sommelier Program at the school’s Center City location.

“People have pointed out to me the irony of me running a school for sommeliers because I hate sommeliers,” says Wallace. “One thing we do is, we really try to enforce the no-snobbery rule.”

Traditionally, sommeliers worked in white tablecloth restaurants curating the wine list, running the wine program, and suggesting pairings to guests.

To be clear, Wallace’s disdain isn’t aimed at them. It’s reserved for the haughty wine steward who collects a decanter full of certifications, makes grand pronouncements about wine, but rarely works with the public.

Thankfully, he says, that part of the business is fading away. Today’s sommelier candidates are more likely to be wine makers or work for wine distributors or importers.

“That is where the money is,” says Wallace. “We always want to get our students into a really good career.”

Getting ahead in the wine industry is easier with sommelier certification, the field’s de facto trade credentials. The Wine School’s core and accelerated programs are certified through the National Wine School of Vermont, an independent United States certification and accrediting body for wine professionals.

NWS awards five levels of sommelier certification: Introductory, Wine Certificate, Sommelier Certificate and Pin, Advanced Certificate, and Master. The Wine School’s core and accelerated programs are level three, Sommelier Certificate and Pin.

“The real professional level is three and that is what you get with this class,” Wallace says.

The condensed August course plows the same vineyard topics as the semester-long core program. Earning certification in a week, however, is nothing if not intense for both teachers and students.

For Wallace, it requires a laser focus on making a diverse group of people sommeliers capable of identifying wine by country, region, grape and style in a blind taste test.

“If I fail that, it will be really obvious to everybody,” he says.

So why does he do it? Because, he says, the results are so good. In fact, some of his best students have emerged from the accelerated program, like people “owning big chunks of Napa wineries. Like really famous ones.”

For students, the challenge is equally daunting. They must absorb and implement a semester’s worth of information in five nights, just 22.5 hours. They will, however, taste and drink a lot of wine.

“You will not want to drink more wine after this for a couple of weeks,” he says. “By the end of the week you’re like, ‘I’m good.’”

Class begins with Wallace dismantling any illusions students have about their wine expertise. That usually is followed by a generous pour of student anxiety and self-doubt. Wallace quickly pumps things back up with his “really bad sense of humor.”

“Once they realize that the big, goofy guy in front of them is the guy who is going to bring them over the finish line and that I don’t care about anything except for them and their outcomes, they’re okay,” he says.

From there, the step-by-step journey to sommelier begins. Lessons cover the major wine regions of France, Italy and Spain. Students will learn about and taste the important grapes from each region.

Next are sections on acidity and how tannins, a naturally occurring compound found in grape skins and seeds that change the flavor or wine.

“We are going to do a lot of different levels” of tannins, he says. “We are going to introduce the idea of varietal fingerprints. Each grape has an identifiable flavor and you learn how to do that.”

Once students can identify the smell and taste of the different grapes, Wallace introduces a module on wine making. It is, he says, an “aha” moment for students.

“This is where people go, ‘wait a minute. This is why some wines just taste like jam or just like spices,’” he says.

Students learn about each region’s wine culture and how to distinguish variations of Old World and New World style of wine making. At this point, they should be able to identify the variety and identify it as New World (fruitier, oaky, fuller-body, higher in alcohol) or Old World (earthy, higher acidity, lower alcohol).

“Layer by layer, I add one thing back, one thing back,” he says. “By the end of the week the student will be able to blind taste any major varietal from any major region and be able to tell me if it is New World or Old World and what varietal it is.”

The blind taste test is the last night of class. Everything they have learned is on the line for students and teachers.

“I prove myself every single semester,” Wallace says. “I love it. It is my way of proving how good we are every semester.”

Sommelier certification in hand, many students leave with an unexpected perk: new friends.

“One of the nicest things about it is that often lifelong friendships are formed at the school,” Wallace says. “That is something no one expects and it happens all the time.”

For more information about the school and its courses, visit vinology.com . It’s located at 109 S. 22nd St.