Wines & Vines

32 WINES&VINES Collector's Edition COLLECTOR'S EDITION American Society for Enology and Viticulture Played a key role in making winemaking a respected profession Founded in Stockton, Calif., in 1950, the American Society for Enology and Viticul- ture (ASEV) was a catalyst for turning the gritty job of winemaker into a respected profession. Its meetings, scientific journal — the American Journal of Enology and Vi- ticulture – and scholarships were instrumen- tal in the sharing of information among academics and working winemakers, which subsequently improved the quality of Ameri- can wines. The ASEV credits Charles Holden as its instigator. He convinced winemakers around California, who at the time were low-paid and sometimes laid off for eight months a year, that they deserved more recognition for their key role in wine production. The early founders and members included pro- fessors like Maynard Amerine and James Guymon as well as winemakers like Louis P. Martini and André Tchelistcheff. The annual ASEV National Conference, now in its 69th year, became the leading event in North America for the presentation of new research on grapes and wine from around the world and for lectures that serve as continuing education for hundreds of winemakers and viticulturists. The ASEV joined with the California Association of Winegrape Growers to create another an- nual event, the Unified Wine & Grape Sym- posium, which is by far the biggest and most important conference and trade show for the North American wine industry. Dr. Linda Bisson Professor and researcher made breakthroughs in yeast genetics A professor and geneticist, Linda Bisson is now an emeritus faculty member at the University of California, Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology and former department chair as well as past chair of the Academic Senate at U.C. Davis. Her work in yeast genetics has aided the wine industry in tackling multiple challenges from stuck fermentations to unwanted hydro- gen sulfide production. Bisson has taught two generations of enologists since she joined the faculty in 1985 and still teaches classes ranging from wine production to advanced genetic analysis. She is also the science editor for the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture. Calona Vineyards Oldest licensed winery in B.C. helped create an industry Originally established in 1932 to give Okana- gan fruit growers an outlet for their fruit, Calona Vineyards made apple wine for three years before shifting to grape wines in 1935. It built a reputation with consumers and sold sacramental wine (echoing the purpose of the first vines planted in the Okanagan under Fa- ther Charles Pandosy in 1860 – who, in another connection, previously served in the Walla Walla and Yakima valleys of Washington). Calona's founder was Giuseppe Ghezzi, who attracted the financial backing of Kelowna's Italian community and British Columbia's fu- ture premier W.A.C. Bennett. Calona remains the oldest licensed winery in B.C., although the name disappeared following its 2005 ac- quisition by Andrew Peller Ltd. Peller has since consolidated its Western Canada operations at the Kelowna facility. Originally established at Port Moody in 1961 when it wasn't able to secure a license in Ontario, Peller is now the largest family-run winery in Canada and the second largest vintner after the Ontario Teach- ers Pension Plan, which owns Arterra Wines Canada Inc., the company that vaulted to in- ternational prominence under Donald Triggs as Vincor International prior to being acquired by Constellation Brands in 2006. Columbia Winery Washington's oldest operating winery The itch to start Washington's oldest continu- ously operating winery came in the summer of 1951 when University of Washington psychol- ogy professor Lloyd Woodburne (1906-1992) ran into a patch of poison ivy in Oregon. He read a book on winemaking while recovering, and that fall made wine with grapes from Cali- fornia. A shortage of white grapes from Cali- fornia in 1954 led him to Eastern Washington, where he met William Bridgman and bought grapes. Woodburne and 10 of his academic colleagues signed a contract to buy grapes from Bridgman in 1961, and the venture formally incorporated the following year. California winemaker André Tchelistcheff approved of the partners' first vintage, and in 1963 Associ- ated Vintners bought a Yakima Valley vineyard. The company hired winemaker David Lake in 1979 and was renamed Columbia Winery in 1983. It broke ground with Washington's first vintage-dated varietal wines as well as the state's first commercial plantings of Pinot Gris and Syrah. E. & J. Gallo Winery acquired the winery in 2012. Colleges and universities Formal winemaking education began in 1875 for California German-born soil scientist Eugene Hilgard paved the way for formal winemaking educa- Alternative Packaging Boxes, kegs and cans ballooned into big business Attuned to a healthy appetite among wine consumers and sellers alike for popularly priced wine that is more environmentally friendly, wineries and the packaging manufacturers who supply them began in the 2000s to push the envelope on alternative formats. As a result, they have realized significant gains in consumer accep- tance, recyclability and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Premium 3-liter bag-in-box wines became a consistently fast-growing category in food and liquor stores in the 2010s, and most recently canned wines and kegged wines heated up in terms of sales growth. Free Flow Wines expects to ship more than 250,000 stainless steel kegs of wine in 2019, and Nielsen data show that wine-in-a-can has grown from a $1 million business in the U.S. to a $50 million business in five years.

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