PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia’s oldest wine school says a competitor is attempting to erase its existence from the internet through a “cyberbullying” campaign and trademark infringement, according to a federal lawsuit.

In the suit, PhillyWine LLC alleges that Keith Wallace and Alana Zerbe, the husband-and-wife duo behind the Wine School of Philadelphia, took extraordinary steps to confuse customers and piggyback on PhillyWine’s prestige, causing PhillyWine economic and reputational damage. The suit, filed Feb. 26 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, also accuses Wallace, the founder of the Wine School of Philadelphia, of fabricating his credentials and using aliases to open businesses that promote his school.

Wallace and Zerbe “have made it their mission to destroy” PhillyWine “by attempting to erase its existence and take over its name,” the suit says. The two schools have coexisted since the early 2000s — “although not always peacefully,” the suit notes — but tensions escalated at the end of 2025, when Wallace secured what the suit calls a “fraudulently obtained trademark” for the name “Philly Wine School.”

Armed with the trademark, Wallace convinced Instagram to suspend PhillyWine’s account in December, according to the complaint, and he has since attempted to take over the school’s Google business listing and shut down its website. Meanwhile, he was propping up his own business through a “self-legitimizing web of deception,” the suit says.

PhillyWine’s enrollment and attendance have been down since December, co-owner Matt Kirkland said in an interview, declining to share specific figures.

“The name confusion has disrupted student registration and appears to be redirecting traffic” to Wallace’s sites, said Kirkland. “I think there needs to be clarity in naming and clarity for students so they sign up for the classes they think they’re signing up for.”

PhillyWine is asking a federal judge to issue an injunction that would prohibit Wallace from using Philly Wine School, or any other confusingly similar name, and from attempting to disable PhillyWine’s online accounts. Without an injunction, the request said, PhillyWine would face an “existential threat.”

“These attacks must end now, and PhillyWine must be allowed to resume its business under normal conditions without further harassment,” the LLC said in court filings.

The lawsuit seeks profits the Wine School of Philadelphia earned from misappropriating PhillyWine’s name through trademark infringement, unfair competition practices, and false advertising. It also asks a judge to nullify the trademark.

Wallace denied the allegations and characterized the complaint as a way for PhillyWine to “bully” him out of the business he spent decades building.

A wine war ferments

Created by former owner Neal Ewing in 1999, PhillyWine is the city’s only wine educator fully accredited by the Wine & Spirits Education Trust, a nonprofit organization which sets international standards for alcoholic beverage education. PhillyWine is one of 47 programs globally — and the only in the tri-state area — approved to teach the trust’s full wine diploma, which PhillyWine has leveraged to host classes with Drexel and James Madison universities.

The Wine School of Philadelphia, founded in 2001 by Wallace, is not accredited by the Wine & Spirits Education Trust. It hosts wine tastings as well as semester-long sommelier courses using curricula from the National Wine School, which Wallace also founded .About 3,000 people attend Wine School of Philadelphia classes annually, according to Wallace.

In 2019, the education trust sent Wallace a letter asking him to cease comparing his school with PhillyWine on his site, the suit says. Wallace said he had “no idea” if he ever received such a letter.

When Ewing retired in 2022, he sold the business to current co-owners Kirkland, a Penn surgeon, and Noelle Allen, a former banking executive and certified wine educator. Then, a digital wine war began to ferment.

That August, the school learned that Wallace had claimed the Instagram handle @PhillyWine to “antagonize” Ewing, the suit said, and it had to compromise for the now-defunct @PhillyWineSchool. The account @PhillyWine currently has a photo of Wallace as its profile picture and features videos of Wallace and Zerbe filming their wine podcast.

Wallace denied obtaining the Instagram handle to grind an axe, but acknowledged a rift between the two wine schools. “Everyone knows — including my wife and therapist — that I have a sharp tongue, and I have always been critical of certain ways of [teaching] … but I have never said anything nasty or even a little mean” about PhillyWine, he said. “They just do not like me.”

In late 2024, Wallace filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to trademark “Philly Wine School” for use alongside food and wine classes. He obtained the name in December; it had no prior trademarks.

The move blindsided PhillyWine’s owners. “We frankly saw no reason and anticipated no need for a reason to try to trademark something,” Kirkland said.

The lawsuit alleges Wallace lied in his trademark application by attesting that the Philly Wine School name “has acquired distinctiveness in the marketplace through nearly two decades of continuous use.” But there is no evidence he used that name on his school’s website before filing the application in November 2024, according to the suit.

Wallace chalked the sudden use of “Philly Wine School” on his website up to pride in having the trademark. “When you get something, you show it off,” he said.

Bringing a ‘bazooka’ to a ‘wine fight’

Once the trademark was issued, Wallace “immediately used the document to inflict cyberbullying on PhillyWine,” the suit said.

Wallace successfully asked Instagram to suspend PhillyWine’s account, according to the complaint, and has attempted to claim the school’s Google Business profile. He also filed a takedown request with SquareSpace, the host of PhillyWine’s website, and created a Google Maps listing for a “Philly Wine School” at 109 S. 22nd St., the Wine School of Philadelphia’s address. Kirkland said the latter action has led to PhillyWine, which teaches three blocks away at the Fitler Club, receiving negative reviews for classes taken at Wallace’s Wine School of Philadelphia.

“A review like that — where someone posts about us and they’re not our student and have never taken our classes — is direct reputational damage,” said Kirkland. Lawyers representing PhillyWine sent a cease and desist on Dec. 31, asking Wallace to abandon his trademark and “discontinue his efforts to take over” or remove the school’s online accounts, according to documents reviewed by The Inquirer.

Wallace confirmed receiving the cease and desist, but rejected allegations of using the trademark to bully PhillyWine or its owners. Instead, Wallace said, he’s the true victim.

“If they wanted these things, they could’ve done them too,” Wallace said. “We’re nothing but peace, love, and happiness. They just have this tiny little lawsuit, and they filled it with all this nastiness.”

The lawsuit also alleges that Wallace has been untruthful about his credentials and used aliases to start businesses such as the National Wine School and the website somm.us in order to promote his school. (Wallace said he founded somm.us in 2015 and maintains a relationship with the website, but doesn’t control its ratings or content.)

Wallace’s biography on the Wine School of Philadelphia website previously stated he graduated from University of California Davis and was a professional winemaker in Napa Valley. Neither are true, according to the suit.

Wallace declined to say when he matriculated at or graduated from UC Davis or elaborate on his stint in Napa Valley. UC Davis has no record of a person with Wallace’s name or date of birth ever attending, a representative for the university said via email.

The lawsuit’s allegations, he said, have him fearful for the future of his school.

“They brought a bazooka to a knife fight,” Wallace said. “This isn’t even a knife fight, it’s a wine fight.”

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