Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/450857
February 2015 Wines&Vines 39 winemaKer interview about 170 students, and of that number about two-thirds of the students want to become wine- makers and the remaining stu- dents plan to work as viticulturists. The program is growing by about 10% per year, and virtually all of our graduates are finding em- ployment after they complete their course of study. Fresno State also offers a certificate program for those students who would like to return to school for specialized training in wine production. These students generally come from a previous career, and they already possess an undergradu- ate degree. I have also been fortunate enough to work at Oregon State University, the Australian Wine Research Institute and the Univer- sity of Adelaide. From this collec- tive experience, I have come to believe that grape and wine indus- tries are healthiest when they are supported by dedicated viticulture and enology education and re- search centers. In California, we are fortunate in having viticulture and enology programs at all tiers of our higher education system, and this is a good thing. Our in- dustry is stronger and more sus- tainable because of this. Q You have a faculty member who is studying berry structure and extractability. What can you tell us about that research? Our most recent faculty addition is Dr. Hend Letaief. Hend grew up in Tunisia, was trained in France and Italy, and is very interested in the relationship between berry physical properties and wine com- position. This area of research has the potential to make the objective assessment of fruit more rapid. As winemakers make harvest- ing decisions, there are many characteristics that you need to evaluate. We all know that pH, TA and Brix are not sufficient when determining ideal ripeness. The challenge is that our understand- ing of the relationship between berry characteristics and wine characteristics is incomplete. So we chew on seeds and skins, look at stem color and do all of these other things to correlate berry physical properties with wine composition. The challenge here is that humans are subjective and not as reproducible as an instru- ment. This is where Dr. Letaief's line of research comes in. a resident of the Santa Cruz mountains, Laurie Daniel has been a journalist for more than 35 years. She has been writ- ing about wine for publications for more than 21 years and has been a Wines & Vines contributor since 2000. PRUNING FOR RIPENESS One area of research at California State University, Fresno, involves "forced cropping." Professor James Kennedy says his colleague, Dr. Sanliang Gu, is researching use of the Roseworthy double- pruning system to improve grape quality in warm to hot climates like those found in the San Joaquin Valley, where sugar ripeness often outpaces phenolic ripeness. The RDP technique was developed by Peter Dry and Richard Smart at Roseworthy Agricultural College in South Australia in the late 1970s (read Smart's column on page 54). The first crop is removed, which makes the vines push another crop. "Hence, the grapes ripen during a cooler portion of the growing season," Kennedy says. "The wines that have been produced from grapes using RDP are consistent with grapes grown in cooler climates." There is, however, the question of economics. Producers in the San Joaquin Valley operate on slim margins. "Every time you walk in a vineyard, it costs money," Kennedy says. "Any new operation you put on a vineyard is costing money." So getting rid of the first crop is an expense that could be hard to recoup. Kennedy says that smaller producers are interested in the tech- nique, but they're also looking at alternative varieties that are bet- ter suited to their hot climate.