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DECEMBER NEWS Wine Sensory Lab Gets Funding Facility at Okanagan College intended for professional tasting education P enticton, B.C.—A new sensory tasting lab at Okanagan College is expected to bolster research in British Columbia's premier wine region and offer wine industry workers opportunities to hone their tasting skills. The B.C. Wine Information Society in October donated $300,000 to back the new 15,000-square-foot facility set to open in January 2014. The amount is the single-largest donation to the college's wine studies program and follows a $150,000 donation the society made to the college in 2010. The gift is the result of proceeds from sales at the Penticton-based BC VQA Wine Information Centre, which the society operates. The site provides information about the industry and sells wine, which in turn generates cash for donations such as the new lab. This latest gift will cover approximately two-thirds of the cost of the new lab, priced at $480,000. 18 W in e s & V i ne s D EC E M B E R 20 13 The Okanagan College campus in Penticton, B.C., will be the home of a new sensory lab. Winemaker Sara Harker of Cawston, B.C.'s Rustic Roots Winery hopes to send her six staff members to the lab for training. "Right now there isn't a lot of training out there on a sensory analysis perspective that teaches people where the smells and flavors come from and how to fix them," she said. "From a wine industry perspective it's very important, because the more that winemakers and sommeliers and serv- ers and wine shop staff know about sensory analysis, the better they can represent the B.C. wine industry to its full potential." Harker, who graduated from Okanagan College with an enology certificate in 2008, said her own training in sensory analysis has been invaluable. The new lab also includes a kitchen for analytical food and wine pairings. Harker's plans for winesandvines.com her staff are in line Learn more: Search keywords with the vision Jona"Okanagan lab." than Rouse (Okanagan College's director of wine, food and tourism) has for the new facility. "We want to make sure we have the right kind of facilities, the right kind of labs and the right kinds of opportunities for that next generation to acquire the skills (and) the knowledge to take this industry to grow it and make it strong, and this lab is part of that equation." —Peter Mitham