Enology Notes #74

Winery Planning and Design Workshop May 31, 2003. A one day Winery Planning and Design Workshop is scheduled for May 31, 2003 at the Holiday Inn Leesburg at historic Carradoc Hall, 1500 East Market Street, Leesburg, Virginia. This program is for those seriously interested in entering the commercial wine industry.

This event is hosted by Loudoun Cooperative Extension, and coordinated by Dr. Bruce Zoecklein, Head, Enology-Grape Chemistry Group, Virginia Tech.

The workshop will include presentations, discussions, and printed materials on the following:

The components of a successful business plan
The economics of table wine production
Winery design
- Design areas:
  - raw production handling
  - fermentation
  - barrel fermentation/storage
  - warehousing
  - lab
  - bottling
  - tourism/administration
- Equipment
- Refrigeration, temperature control, ventilation
- Sanitation, steam and hot water requirements
- Lighting
- Electrical requirements
- Water and waste water requirements
- Gravity flow considerations
- Caves
- Expansion considerations
Government compliance
- BATF
- ABC
Mobile bottling line

The workshop fee is $250 payable to "Bruce Zoecklein's Foundation." Checks can be mailed to:

Additional program information is available from Ms. Terry Rakestraw at e-mail rakestra@vt.edu or by phone at (540) 231-6805 and posted on the group's web site at www.fst.vt.edu/zoecklein/index.html or www.vtwines.info - from the home page click on "Events."

Wine Closure Symposium and annual meeting of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture, Eastern Section July 8-11, 2003, Corning, New York. The Closure Symposium (July 9-10) will feature a number of international speakers on practical and relevant subjects including: Progress toward elimination of TCA, an overview of cork alternatives, Cork QC, screw caps and other wine bottle closures, etc., including sensory analysis. Additional information is available through my office, posted on my website, and posted on the website of the ASEV-ES at www.nysaes.cornell.edu/fst/asev.

Wine Microbiology Workshop July 21, 2003. Location TBA. This day-long program will feature my colleague, Lisa Van de Water, The Wine Lab and Pacific Rim Oenology Service, and will cover practical issues with regard to wine microbiology. I will also cover the subject, Managing Sulfur-Containing Compounds. This will include factors influencing organic and inorganic sulfur compound production, and steps to lower the impact on wine quality. More information to follow. Mark your calendars!

Norton Roundtable. The third annual Norton Roundtable meeting will be conducted at Chrysalis Vineyards, beginning at 1:00 p.m. on July 28, 2003. This meeting is for current Norton grape growers and winemakers. RSVP required. If you are interested in attending send me an e-mail message at bzoeckle@vt.edu.

Viticulture and Enology Internships. In 1995, the Enology-Grape Chemistry Group, in the Department of Food Science and Technology at Virginia Tech, established an annual internship program. This program has allowed qualified viticulture and enology students to gain practical skills, while providing a new and often technical prospective. Originally established for my graduate students, this program was expanded to include students of horticulture, chemistry, biochemistry, and related fields. This mutually beneficial experience has served the students, the Department and our industry quite well. Due to the high demand, we expanded our internships to include recent graduates, undergraduate students, and additional interested wineries.

Each year at about this time, we inform Virginia Tech students of our internship program. I ask those with an interest in viticulture, enology, or both, to provide me with a written letter of intent, a resume and collegiate transcripts. Following a review, we interview qualified students, and I make my recommendations to the winery. Students are selected on a competitive basis for internships in viticulture, which run from mid-May to mid-August, or in enology, which run from mid-August to mid-November.

Wineries interested in participating in this program, for either enology or viticulture students, should contact me via e-mail ASAP. The most important requirement for a participating winery is to outline the student's role and involvement in vineyard/winery activities, and the winery's expectations. This program is not designed as a source of cheap labor, but to help students in their technical and practical understanding of the Virginia grape and wine industry. Additional winery compensation specifics are between the student and the host winery.

For additional information, please contact my office. If you are interested in either an enology or viticulture intern, please e-mail me and provide, in outline form, the specific tasks the intern would perform, any specific qualifications you would require, etc. Again, the money aspects of this experience would be between you and the student.

Extension Lab Service. The Enology-Grape Chemistry Group offers chemical, physical, microbiological and sensory analyses for the Virginia commercial wine industry.

As a result of budget restraints (our College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has lost 20% of its funding!), the service has been scaled back, but remains in place. It is designed to supplement winery in-house quality control analysis.

To help assure a rapid turnover, send an email message to winelab@vt.edu with the word "Analysis" in the subject line, and list the analysis desired and the date the sample will be sent.

Subscription to Enology Notes. All past Enology Notes and Vintner's Corner newsjournals are posted on the Enology-Grape Chemistry Group's web site at: http://www.fst.vt.edu/zoecklein/index.html or http://www.vtwines.info/. Enology Notes are slightly different in content from the subscription based Vintner's Corner newsjournal.

To be added to the Enology Notes list serve send an email message to bzoeckle@vt.edu with the word "ADD" or "REMOVE" in the subject line.