Overview

The Chicago Wine & Sommelier School is accredited by the National Wine School and offers sommelier certification, wine courses, and wine education classes. Owners Michael & Eliza Lewis opened the school on July 2nd, 2022, satisfying their dream to open a wine school. Originally from Illinois, the couple worked together at a notable university in Oregon. Their innate love of wine took them back to Northern California to explore the possibilities of working in the wine trade. They spent several summers interning at wineries in Napa Valley. During the winter months, they worked towards their sommelier pins. When Micheal was offered a consulting job at a Fortune 500 company on the East Coast, they moved to Southern New Jersey. They continued their wine education by earning their advanced sommelier pins and teacher certifications from the highly regarded Wine School of Philadelphia. Their dream of founding their own Wine School took a major step forward when Eliza was offered a teaching fellowship in Chicago in 2019, which was postponed until 2021 due to the pandemic. During this time, Eliza and Michael developed programs with the National Wine School.