Winemaking

Paul Mabray, leading expert in digital transformation and a powerful change agent in the wine industry, shares his insight on the challenges impacting the wine industry and what wineries should be doing to sustain their brand.

Avoid the red wine headache this holiday season, with these top white wines for gifting, serving and celebrating from veteran winemaker and wine educator, John Buechsenstein.

Learn how Purnima Sreenivasan is combining her love of horticulture with her interest in wine to pursue a new career in the wine industry with the help of our Winemaking Certificate Program.

Learn about the various jobs available in the wine industry with advice from Winemaking Certificate Program lead instructor Pat Howe.

Investing in an effective cleaning and sanitation program is essential to the quality and safety of your wine – and your bottom line. Get an overview from instructor Leticia Chacon-Rodriguez on cleaning and sanitation measures that all winemakers should consider before beginning their next batch.

Consider these 5 lessons from veteran winemaker and UC Davis Winemaking Certificate Program instructor, Grady Wann, as you begin or consider starting a career in the wine industry.

Viticulture consultant Jennifer Rohrs brings her background in plant ecology to the classroom. As an instructor in the Winemaking Certificate Program, she aims to anchor students in the biology of the vine itself and introduce them to all the interactions that happen in the vineyard.

Meet Larry Schaffer, Winemaking Certificate Program instructor and owner and winemaker at tercero wines.

Winemaker Enrico de Alessandrini, founder of Sassaia winery in Italy, says the Winemaking Certificate Program gave him the scientific foundation to better understand the winemaking process.

After 32 years in the U.S. military, Steve Shoemaker was ready for a new pace of life. Now, he’s the owner and winemaker of the award-winning 3 Oaks Vineyard in Clovis, California.

Sarah MacDonald teaches GIS in Viticulture. As a staff researcher at UC Davis and owner of Envision Geo, she uses her expertise to support an array of viticulture projects.

Patricia Howe is a faculty member of the Winemaking Certificate Program at UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education. She has been involved in the winemaking industry for over 35 years, working across the country and globally.

If you've been dreaming of a career in the wine industry, consider this advice from our alumni. Whether they were fulfilling a lifelong dream in retirement or changing careers, they all shared a passion for winemaking. See what they had to say about their journey and how the Winemaking Certificate Program helped them get there.

After a successful career in accounting, Perry Reyes decided to marry his love of wine with his experience in finance. He is currently the controller of accounting and finance at Korbel Winery. His experience in the OIV Wine Marketing Program gave him the foundation he needed to take the leap from CPA to wine business.

Leticia Chacon Rodriguez has more than 20 years of experience in wine production and winery operations. As someone with her finger on the pulse of the wine industry, we asked for her thoughts on how she and other winemakers are navigating COVID-19.

Pedro Vargas of Vino Vargas in Paso Robles, California, completed UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education’s Winemaking Certificate Program in spring 2011. We asked Vargas to tell us about his recent successes.

Thomas Cernac, a recent graduate of the Winemaking Certificate Program, is a retired U.S. Air Force mechanic and now a vineyard manager and winemaker in El Dorado County, California.

Sanne Poulsen had been working in agribusiness management and marketing when she moved to Marlborough—New Zealand’s wine country. After relocating, Poulsen made friends with people in the wine industry and became intrigued by the profession. Looking to invest in her education to balance the practical and technical skills, she found the UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education Winemaking Certificate Program.

Leticia Chacon-Rodriguez is the new winemaker/winery manager for the Viticulture and Enology Department at UC Davis. With more than 20 years of wine production and management experience in the California wine industry, Chacon-Rodriguez is enchanted by the winemaking process and the science behind it. She teaches Wine Filtration Short Course.

Nichola Hall is the newest instructor for UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education’s Winemaking Certificate Program. She will be teaching the third course in the program, Quality Control and Analysis in Winemaking. Hall is currently a staff scientist for Scott Laboratories in Petaluma, Calif. and a co-winemaker for Mathew Bruno Wines in Rutherford, Calif.

UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education’s Winemaking Certificate Program has a new faculty member. Pat Henderson will be teaching three of the five courses in the program: Wine Production, Quality Control and Wine Stability. Henderson is the owner/proprietor of About Wine Consulting and has a degree in fermentation science from UC Davis.

“It’s a landscaping project that got completely out of control,” says Richard McClellan, owner of Highland Hills Vineyard and Winery in Ramona, Calif., when asked about how he got into the wine industry. His “project” is a family affair that has grown into a successful boutique winery that produces 500-750 cases of estate wine each year.

As a landscape architect, Richard Krumwiede, now winemaker/viticulturist at Sycamore Ranch Vineyard & Winery, always enjoyed visiting the grounds of the many wineries he worked on. In 2007, he decided to plant a zinfandel vineyard on his own property after a beetle infestation killed off the native pines. As the vineyard developed, he began making wine, further cultivating his interest in viticulture and winemaking.

David Pardes, M.S., MBA, a tax partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers in San Francisco, brings 12 years of wine industry experience, and a bit of humor, to his decade’s-long career of teaching finance, accounting and taxation to vineyard and winery owners and executives.

Lucy Joseph, M.S., is curator of the UC Davis Wine Microbe Collection and co-instructor of Wine Microbiology Workshop. With more than 35 years of experience as a professional microbiologist, she is an expert in spoilage issues, especially Brettanomyces.

4,083 days. That’s how long it took for Amy LaBelle to realize her dream of making wine full-time. She began her career as a corporate attorney, but five years into practicing law, she realized she had missed her calling. From that moment, until the day she opened the doors of her winery, she did something every day to move her dream forward, and now she is the founder and winemaker of the award-winning LaBelle Winery in Amherst, NH.