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WINEMAKING or import their membrane filters and their enzymes. Here again, a look at the international competition is instruc- While Foundation Plant Services (above) is self-supporting, other research at UC Davis is funded through grants and endowments. ket (except the ultra-high-end market, where they retain a certain cachet.) Wineries are blossoming in 50 states; every style, sector and price point is booming; wine sailed through the Great Reces- sion with increased consumption. What, exactly, is the problem that all this unfunded research would allegedly solve? Viticulture, pest and disease research? Fine, that makes sense and deserves funding. But apparently we know how to make wine and how to make money from making wine. If we're missing something, all those scientific worker bees in Australia and South Africa and France and Italy will figure it out, and we'll just download their results tive. The AWRI was created and has steadily expanded for 50 years because of a realization that landlocked Australia had a lim- ited audience of wine drinkers—eager, but limited—and therefore needed to gear up for large-scale international export if it was to become a significant factor in the world of wine. France and Italy ramped up their wine research programs, with both industry and government funding, when they confronted the full enormity of competition from the New World and the glut of second-class wine they were swimming in at home. In other words, it may take a looming crisis of some kind to get the industry off its collective bung. Some people I talked to pointed to the threat posed by global competition, including the coming wave of Chinese wine. Others pointed to the fact that the wine industry cannot go on forever consuming the amount of water it currently does. Could be that global warming fries all those geneti- cally superior Napa Cabernet vines, and folks start scrambling to understand how to make great Nero d'Avolo. But sooner or later, the industry will run up against a problem it can't solve with slicker labels or a pinch more residual sugar, and some sector of the industry will step forward and marshal the resources for a massive research buildup. There's gotta be a better way. Tim Patterson is the author of "Home Winemaking for Dummies." He writes about wine and makes his own in Berkeley, Calif. Years of experience as a journalist, combined with a contrarian streak, make him interested in getting to the bottom of wine stories, casting a critical eye on conventional wisdom in the process. WINES & VINES SEPTEMBER 2012 71