California Colleges Feed Wine Industry

(Wines&Vines) - From planning, planting and nurturing vineyards to making professional-quality wine through packaging and profitable marketing of the product, the wine industry offers opportunity and challenges. New entrants to the field and veterans alike can benefit from education shared by experts, but not everyone can afford the time or financial commitments to attend degree programs.

Community colleges fill in the gaps, making wine education accessible to professional hopefuls as well as curious consumers. While the wine world is aware of the state’s powerhouse wine-education universities—notably UC Davis, California State University, Fresno, Sonoma State and California Polytechnic University—not everyone knows about the valuable (and lower cost) community college wine programs. These can prepare people to enter new careers or advance in existing ones within the industry, or to continue on to four-year programs in California or elsewhere.

Some of the state’s 112 community colleges maintain campus vineyards and wineries to provide students with a global experience of the wine industry.

Destination Napa

Not surprisingly, Napa Community College and its associated Napa Valley College Estate Winery, endowed by the Napa Valley Vintners, is known as a destination school, drawing enrollment not just from the huge local industry but from around the world.

Spokesperson Lissa Gibbs emphasized the partnerships and synergies between the college programs and the Napa vineyard/winery/hospitality business.

“We are focused on what you need to know,” Gibbs said. NCC and other community colleges cater to a “whole other dimension of the industry.” She cited examples such as a range of students who might be transferring to Cal Poly or UC Davis, but also to cellar workers who want to move up to the lab; farm workers who want to become vineyard managers; those who want to continue working while in school; or entrepreneurs seeking a career path change. “In one class, we might have a billionaire high-tech early retiree learning beside the child of a farmworker beside an enology student. We feed a whole different part of the industry.” Students from as far afield as Brazil and China contribute to the mix as well at this open-access destination campus. Gibbs also noted the increase in returning military veterans who are particularly interested in sustainable ag practices. Community colleges, she stressed, are “an essential part of a robust industry.”