Wines & Vines

34 WINES&VINES Collector's Edition COLLECTOR'S EDITION tion in the United States when, in 1875, he came to the University of California, Berkeley as dean of the College of Agriculture and served as founding director of the U.C.'s Agri- cultural Experiment Station. In 1880, under Hilgard's urging, the California Legislature appropriated $3,000 annually for viticultural research and formed the Board of State Viti- culture Commissioners. Hilgard led studies surrounding fermentation and phylloxera and created the first soil maps dictating which grape varieties thrived best in specific regions — an early step toward creating California's AVAs 100 years later. During Prohibition, the University of California system maintained its studies in California grapegrowing. In 1935, just two years after Prohibition was repealed, the agricultural school at Davis, Calif., — which would become the University of California, Davis — opened a Department of Viticulture and Enology that remains one of the largest and most respected wine-education programs in America. Now degrees in wine studies are available across North America, including at California State University, Fresno; Cornell University in New York; Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Washington State University; Oregon State University; and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, as well as community and junior colleges like Napa Valley College, Santa Rosa Junior College and Las Positas College in Cali- fornia, and many others in nearly every U.S. state and Canadian province. Jack and Jamie Davies Led the way in méthode champenoise production at Schramsberg Jack and Jamie Davies moved from Los Angeles to Napa Valley in 1965 to attempt making high- quality, high-priced, bottle-fermented sparkling wine in California that could be favorably com- pared to Champagne. They bought the Sch- ramsberg property near Calistoga, Calif., where winemaking had begun in 1862. The Davieses used primarily Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for their sparkling wines and soon learned to shift from their warm inland location for grape sup- ply to cooler sites in Napa Valley, Sonoma and Mendocino counties for the highest-quality raw materials for sparkling wine. Their efforts got high-profile validation in 1972 when President Richard Nixon served Schramsberg to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai at the White House. It was the first time any American wine had been served at a White House or State event. Soon French Champagne producers noted Schramsberg's success and began buying California vineyard land and building their own sparkling wine facilities in California. Jack Davies also contributed to the wine industry by being an outspoken propo- nent of Napa County's Agriculture Preserve law. Voters approved it in 1968 to stop urban sprawl and protect open land for growing wine grapes and other crops. Direct-to-Consumer Sales Long legal fight has led to fast-growing wine market Direct-to-consumer (DtC) sales, whether con- ducted on winery premises, via wine club memberships or online purchases, have grown to be a major advantage for wineries, espe- cially those too small to get the attention of increasingly large distributors. A DtC sale skips the middle tier and the retail tier and enables wineries to collect the whole retail price of the wine. Walter Clore Regarded as the "father" of Washington wine Research paired with vision has been funda- mental to Washington's wine industry, and the two met in Walter Clore (1911-2003), the Washington State University professor dubbed "father of the Washington wine industry" by the state legislature in 2001. A scholarship brought him to Pullman, Wash., in 1934, and in 1937 he became the fourth faculty member at WSU Prosser's Irrigated Agriculture Re- search Extension Center. Also hailed as "Mr. Asparagus," he contributed to the advancement of many crops, but remains best known for laying the foundation for vinifera grape produc- tion in the state. He received grape cuttings from pioneer William Bridgman early in his career, then in 1960 partnered with WSU mi- crobiologist Charles Nagel to determine which varieties would grow well and where they would thrive. He ultimately worked with more than 250 varieties, identifying which were suited to the state and where they would grow best. Generous with his learning, he consulted at Chateau Ste. Michelle and in 1984 led the petition that created the Columbia Valley AVA.

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