Homework You Can Wine About

zollar
Fri, 02 Dec 2016 14:23:59 +0000
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Archaeologists discovered the earliest-known winemaking facility in the world tucked away in the southeastern mountains of Armenia in 2011. It is estimated to be 6,000 years old.

Along with remains of ancient grape-stomping systems, the discovery team found the remains of vines, pressed grapes and seeds from the Vitis vinifera vinifera variety, a type of grape still used in wine production today, six millennia later.

Winemaking in and of itself is nothing new. From the harvesting and destemming of the fruit to the fermentation and aging of the wine, elements of winemaking have certainly advanced, but much of the underlying process remains the same. Throughout history, it has been a process and product with deeply ingrained social, cultural, religious and ceremonial value. It is an ever-evolving practice spanning civilizations, rooted in a unique mixture of passion, craft and tradition.

Recognizing the limitations of resting solely on this tradition, winemakers are instead investing in knowledge and techniques to carry their treasured practice far into the future. For the past few years, UW-Madison’s Fermentation Sciences Program has partnered with the wine industry here in Wisconsin to fill what they identified as a gap in this process — the industry-advancing potential of academic research.

Teaming up with Wollersheim Winery of Prairie du Sac, students in this newly developed lab course help to produce their own distinct brand of wine for sale and execute experiments that develop clarity in understanding of the winemaking process. Combining the deep history and resources of Wisconsin wine with the curiosity of UW-Madison students, the goal of the partnership is to bring awareness to the quality and diversity of the wine produced in the state.

These wines, to be sold at Wollersheim and the Wisconsin Union, are emblems of a labor of love rooted in long family tradition of winemaking combined with the enthusiasm of UW-Madison students and researchers, working together to advance their craft.

According to Kate VandenBosch, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) at UW-Madison, there is still great knowledge to be discovered about the processes of fermentation specifically in Wisconsin, and that this program is perfectly situated to carry out that research. “What is it that we don’t know about the components in the materials that are fermented and the action of bacteria in yeast, which are fungi, in creating flavor profiles? What do we not know about the science of it?” she asks. “When you talk to people in CALS, we are the science geeks, we are going to get excited about finding out about those new things.”

It is the drive to find answers to questions like these that propel the research being done by the students, professors and researchers of the Fermentation Sciences Program, and, for the winemakers at Wollersheim, it is the devotion to sustaining and showcasing a generations-old family craft and surrounding industry.

Last year, students led by professor Jim Steele and newly hired oenologist (the official name for a wine scientist) Nick Smith took part in the first formative stage of this wine production prior to its becoming a formal course. Working directly with Wollersheim’s winemaker Philippe Coquard, students were able to assist in portions of the harvesting process as well as various other parts of production. Once the wine was barrelled, the handful of food science and horticulture students put their heads and hands together to focus on marketing the wine and designing the bottle label.

Photo courtesy of Melissa Behling

“I really felt so overwhelmed, but in a positive way, when we actually got to see the wine bottle itself,” says UW-Madison senior Emma Lopez, one of the students closely involved in the process.

And inside that bottle was Red Fusion — a dry red wine made from Wisconsin grapes and the passion and dedication of some of Wisconsin’s most respected winemakers, the proceeds of which would go to supporting the Fermentation Sciences Program in the future.

And for Lopez, this was the “ideal opportunity to work on both the food science side and also the marketing side of wine,” and therefore was “a perfect way to pursue [her] interest in winemaking.” So perfect, in fact, it took her out of classes for a semester and out to a vineyard in Sonoma Valley, California, where she is completing an internship in winemaking.

This year, the course has taken on a more traditional structure, in which students complete a semester-long lecture course in fermentation sciences and an accompanying wine lab. Students are invited out to Wollersheim during various parts of the process to learn and understand how the procedures and techniques they learn about in a classroom setting play out in large-scale production. While in the lab, they conduct a wide range of experiments exploring different technical elements of the process, from fermentation temperature’s influence on flavor to sugar content’s impact on final alcohol content. Along the way, they gain an appreciation for the highly complicated craft rooted in principles of chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology and beyond.

“A big part of both these classes is how do we provide an opportunity for students to take all these random bits of science that they’ve learned and put them into one coherent process,” Smith says. “[Students] have a lot of the basic building blocks to do the analysis and production of these things, but they haven’t integrated it like we have in this particular product.”

The goal, Smith says, is to provide students the necessary understanding of both the analytical and the production side of winemaking, and to make them constructive contributions to the industry in the future. “It’s about getting students to stop, pause, think and be active and generate a true passion and understanding for the process,” Smith says.

From dairy to brewing, CALS has a long history of partnering with industries in the state, a history, they say, that is deeply rooted in and contingent upon the Wisconsin Idea. So, when this opportunity arose to form a partnership with Wisconsin’s wineries, they saw it as yet another chance for students to have a hand in learning and improving a rapidly growing area and for UW-Madison to expand the boundaries of research potential to a critical area of Wisconsin industry.

The Wisconsin Idea, one of the most deeply ingrained traditions of UW-Madison, is the guiding notion that education on campus must extend beyond the boundaries of the classroom and benefit Wisconsinites in every corner of the state and, according to Steele, is “absolutely central to [this] program.”

Those involved in the creation of Red Fusion commonly reiterate the idea that this partnership ought to be holistically beneficial to the groups involved, and that, in large part, it is. Students have the opportunity to tap into the knowledge, resources and passion of the multi-generational winery at Wollersheim and other industry partners, which makes them more equipped to enter the industry ready to take on unique challenges.

More immediately, the industry benefits from research happening on campus through outreach, non-degree-based educational opportunities, as well as the future promise of research to address common questions that still leave vintners in Wisconsin with uncertainty, such as the best process for growing and harvesting the types of grapes that grow in Wisconsin. Consumers, in turn, benefit from a greater awareness of the widely respected products coming from the state, as well as the quality improvement that can evolve from these new developments.

“[This program] is the Wisconsin Idea,” says fermentation sciences program coordinator Monica Theis. “From grass to glass” — a phrase she says is borrowed from Wollersheim’s Phillipe Couquard — “ … here we are really making a concerted effort to serve the citizens and the industries of Wisconsin … To me, there is no more perfect example of celebrating the Wisconsin Idea.”

Moving forward, these principles of partnership and scholarship will continue to drive the Fermentation Sciences Program forward, which Steele sees as necessarily having three strong components as it develops in the future. First, “working directly with the different beer makers and wine makers in the state, providing them with continuing education, analytical support and helping them troubleshoot any problems with their operations.”

Second, Steele says, is the research. “The grapes that we have in the state of Wisconsin differ from those obviously in California or even New York, and we need to have a much better understanding of how different yeasts impact the flavor of our products.”

Photo courtesy of Melissa Behling

The final piece involves expanding the undergraduate education component through formalized relationships with other campus partners, giving more than just food science students the opportunity to leave their mark on the production of Red Fusion and other products. Already this year, Steele says, the program has reached across campus, involving design students in the production of the new labels and business and communication arts students in the marketing of the product, an element of the program everyone saw as critical to the continued success of the partnership.

All of these future endeavors will continue to be supported by the funds coming from the production of Red Fusion and new products currently in the development stage and, of course, the support and expertise that comes from Wollersheim’s winemakers and others.

Wollersheim, with its own deep connections to the state and UW-Madison, is also dedicated to seeing the benefits of this partnership extend the landlines of its own vineyard.

Started in 1972 by then-UW-Madison professor Bill Wollersheim and his wife, JoAnn, Wollersheim’s legacy of commitment to supporting and improving the quality of Wisconsin wine has now carried through several generations of their family.

Now, Wollersheim is run by Bill and JoAnn’s daughter Julie, a UW-Madison business alumna, and her husband and winemaker, Coquard, who arrived on agricultural exchange from France in 1984, carrying with him more than 400 years of family history in winemaking.

“Wollersheim is super supportive of the university and [has] a long history with the university,” says Smith, the UW-Madison wine specialist. “They believe very that good wine can come from Wisconsin, as they’ve certainly demonstrated, that they want to help everybody else achieve that.”

For Wollersheim, it isn’t just about improving their own products, but rather the reputation and quality of Wisconsin wine overall.

“They want the entire industry to be well-respected, so they are very supportive of ways to help improve the overall quality of wine in the state and providing the resources to do that,” Smith says.

In the meantime, UW-Madison food science will continue to build on the success of Red Fusion’s first year. This will culminate in the production of two wines this fall — a red and a white — that will be sold at Wollersheim and the Wisconsin Union.

And, who knows? Maybe in another 6,000 years archaeologists will uncover the remains used to produce a bottle of Red Fusion and maybe they will talk about the advancing methods and knowledge that came out of the program and the impact it had on the art and the industry for centuries to come.

Bailey Nachreiner-Mackesey

21 going on Liz Lemon, Bailey spends most of her time with a large black coffee in hand and behind her Mac writing, designing and creating. When she’s not on a rant about poor font choices or counterintuitive InDesign default settings, Bailey can be found binge watching The West Wing or re-listening to Serial Season 1 more times than she cares to admit. As with most things she starts, Bailey got a bit too invested in this job and has now made it her dream career, hoping to work on design for a magazine publication come graduation this spring when she will complete her degrees in Journalism & Mass Communication, Political Science, and Gender & Women’s Studies.