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 A
prominent Swiss university has invited 12 Fresno State viticulture and
enology students to participate in a new international grape and
wine-related educational program to be held in Europe this summer.
Dr. Robert Wample, director of Fresno State’s Viticulture and Enology
Research Center (VERC), said the partnership was initiated by leaders of
the Engineering School of Enology at Changins, part of the larger
Universities of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland.
Like Fresno State, the Swiss school oversees viticulture and enology
research and has a winemaking facility. Officials there contacted Wample
because of Fresno State’s international reputation for high-quality
research and educational programs.
The program will feature an annual four-week course held in the summer.
The first course will include a week of classes at the Changins campus
focusing on Swiss grape-growing techniques and winemaking. Activities
will include both classroom lectures and practical work in labs and in
the experimental winery.
Following that will be a one-week study tour of wine grape growing
regions in Italy at the Universitá Cattolica Del Sacro Cuore in Piacenza,
a one-week study-tour of the Burgundy region of France and a one-week
series of seminars at the Changins campus in Switzerland.
The students selected are: Kristine Austin of Fresno; Joe Castañeda Jr.
of Lodi; Nick Finarelli III of Alamogordo, N.M.; John Harley and Kaleb
Vanderham of Visalia; Kathe Kaigas and Mark Kaigas of San Diego; Jorge
Ramirez Perez of St. Helena; Dan Rotlisberger of Healdsburg; Alex
Stewart of Seattle; Jeremiah Timm of Sauk City/Prairie du Sac, Wisc; and
Lauren Thorpe of Houston, Texas.
A delegation from the Swiss school visited VERC in December to fine-tune
the partnership agreement with Fresno State officials.
According to the Swiss school leaders, the purpose of the course is “to
bridge the gap between North America and Europe and facilitate students
from the New and Old winemaking worlds to come and work together, share
their ideas and learn from each other.”
Wample agreed. “This is a key opportunity for participating North
American universities to discover Swiss and European wine culture and
winemaking techniques,” he said. Students from other European countries
also will be invited, the Swiss officials said.
Two other North American universities – Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and
Brock University in Ontario, Canada – also were invited to send
students. They have viticulture and enology or winemaking programs.
The Swiss also want to learn more about California wine-growing and
wine-making traditions, Wample noted. Part of the partnership agreement
is to have the month-long summer seminar hosted by different
participating universities each year. Fresno State will host the program
in the summer of 2011. Faculty from represented schools will share in
the teaching and demonstrations.
(Copy by Steve Olson of the
California Agricultural Technology Institute at Fresno State.)
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