International Wine Guild - Denver, CO

International Wine Guild - Denver, CO

Floor in Lobby Area of Barteldes Building

There are times in your life where you just have those, "Ah ha," moments. Mine came when I was met by Claude Robbins, GWM, MWE, President & Director of Education of the International Wine Guild. Claude was placing signage on the entrance of the building so that the other (potential) students would be able to locate them at their new facility. During our short elevator ride up to the wine open house, he explained some of the history of the Barteldes building, which has been in existence since early 1906. There are thick, trunk sized pillars throughout the entire building; Claude explained that these pillars helped to support the significant weight of the seeds that used to be housed at this location. Now, the Barteldes building is a snazzy office building, and the new home of the International Wine Guild.

The open house was being held in order to showcase the curriculum that is offered by the International Wine Guild. Let me be clear here, this is real work. While the idea of sampling wine sounds fantastic, their accredited program is one of the most aggressive and highly noted Wine Education programs in the US. They were praised in 2009's Food & Wine magazine, as one of the Top Five Wine Schools in the US for Professional Wine Education - not too shabby.

They have various programs available, so I won't go in to great depth about them since you can check them out directly at: http://www.internationalwineguild.com/. Needless to say, this Chick will be taking their level 1 Certification next Spring/Summer of 2012, and hopefully advancing to level 2 later in the year or the beginning of 2013. I appreciate that they have a multitude of programs and classes available for any level of student. Regardless if you've been in the wine industry or not, you'd be hard pressed not to find a program level that would suit your individual needs. 

Claude's wife, Sherrie Robbins, ECW, is the Vice President & Corporate Executive Chef at the school. She supplied our group with a delightful spread of cheeses, crackers, meatballs, and other tidbits that tantalized my taste buds.*Sherrie will be a featured Chef in a new blog I'll be launching in early 2012 called Chasing Women Chefs, so stay tuned for more information.

We were taken on a tour of their new facilities, and then were given a short slide presentation by Claude regarding all of their available programs. The space they are in is incredible. I felt warm and cozy as I noshed on some appetizers and sipped on wine. Claude explained that they had been housed at the Metropolitan State College of Denver, and had recently moved to their new space less than six weeks before my class, which was held on November 5, 2011. And while they loved being at the Metropolitan State College of Denver for many years, they were definitely enjoying their new space and making it their own.

 If you are a wine enthusiast, or a person who wants to possibly enter the world of wine, I would highly recommend checking out the International Wine Guild, you won't be disappointed.

*photos taken by That Chick Té

www.chicksthattrip.com