- Author: Mike Hsu
Serving Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado and Tuolumne counties, UC Cooperative Extension advisor Lynn Wunderlich was formally assigned to focus on viticulture and integrated pest management in the region. But her innate curiosity – as well as her dedication to meeting the wide-ranging needs of local communities – led her to develop expertise in a remarkable array of topics.
“That was both the challenge and the opportunity of being a foothill farm advisor – lots of small farms, lots of diverse agriculture, so I got to do some cool things,” said Wunderlich, who is set to retire on July 1. “To serve the needs of the clientele up here was very gratifying...
- Author: Stephen J. Vasquez
Scientists from UCLA's Cotsen Institute of Archaeology are participating in a cave excavation in southern Armenia. Since 2007, they have unearthed a 6000+ year-old wine-making facility, complete with a fermentation vat, a wine press, storage jars, drinking vessels, and remnants of grape seeds and vines. Gregory Areshian, assistant director of the Cotsen Institute and co-director of the excavation, recently published his work in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Areshian suggest that the production of wine was used to honor the dead.
Read more about the findings in the National...
- Author: Stephen J. Vasquez
Joined by hundreds of friends, supporters and alumni, the University of California, Davis, officially opened the doors on January 28th to the world’s most environmentally sophisticated facility for making wine, brewing beer and processing foods. The new, 34,000-square-foot teaching and research complex, located within UC Davis’ Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, was financed entirely by private philanthropy — no state or federal funds were used. The campus received more than $20 million in private support to construct and equip the complex.
It is the first such building to receive LEED Platinum certification, the highest rating for environmental design and construction awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council....
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Grape crush has begun at a new UC Davis winery that is intended to become self-sustaining in terms of energy and water, according to a UC Davis news release that ran in the Daily Democrat. The facility's environmentally friendly features include onsite solar power generation and a system for capturing rainwater and conserving processing water. The stored rainwater will be used for landscaping and toilets. "We want to demonstrate a self-sufficiency model that is applicable to any business with limited water," the article quoted
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A story in the Sacramento Business Journal about a common fantasy in the workaday world - quitting one's job and starting a winery - was informed by UC Cooperative Extension research. And the bottom line is sobering.
The story says it will cost $4.5 million to get the winery going and keep the business running through the first three years. If you want to make your own wine, "plan on spending another several hundred thousand dollars to start a small winery," the story said.
Writer Celia Lamb spoke to UC Davis viticulturalist Jim Wolpert about the cost of building the...