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 Enginering 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.)