Bob Coleman is a fourth year Agricultural and Environmental Chemistry student studying the kinetics and mechanism of wine oxidation with Dr. Roger Boulton in the Department of Viticulture and Enology. He was born and raised, third generation, in Sonoma County wine country, and still resides there with his wife, Cynthia, and daughter, Shannon. After receiving his Bachelor of Science Degree in Biochemistry at UC Davis in 1993, he returned home and took a temporary harvest cellar position at Chateau Souverain in Alexander Valley.

The University of California, Davis (UC Davis), and BASF announced a collaboration to unlock new benefits of human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs). The long-term objective of this strategic research partnership is to develop and validate second-generation HMO molecules as potent bioactive compounds that can influence the establishment and maintenance of the gut microbiome and provide benefits beyond the gastrointestinal tract, such as brain health, for infants, children and adults.

About a decade ago if you chose to visit Huntington Beach, there was a good chance you would see Derek Baljeu relaxing on the sand, surfing in the water, or hiking on the local trail. Fast forward to high school and you could find him out in the field or in the classroom. A majority of his earlier years were split between being team captain of the football team and being enrolled in a demanding business program.

Congratulations to Harris Lab postdoc Setereh Shiroodi, who has been awarded a 2018 travel grant form the Center for Produce Safety.

The Center for Produce Safety (CPS) which is located in Woodland, provides the produce industry and government with actionable information needed to continually enhance the safety of produce

This past spring quarter we offered a new course that we hope will one day be a regular part of the curriculum.  In this course, students took wine made in the fall and finished it through packaging in our Teaching and Research Winery.  We have always taught VEN 124, Wine Production, which allows our students to gain valuable hands-on experience in the winery (see May 2018 Newsletter), but this is the first time that we have been able to offer students the hands-on experience of blending, fining, aging, filtering, and packaging their own wines to supplement what they learn in thei

The Oakville Station is a getting a boost from redevelopment.  As the vines from previous research studies matured, and as industry needs have changed, we have started redeveloping the vineyards.  The new vineyards are using modern trellis and irrigation systems and are being installed to accommodate mechanization. 

On June 4th the Department organized a Wine Flavor 101 program on campus titled “Managing Red Wine Quality”. After an overview by Anita Oberholster (Cooperative Extension Specialist in Enology), a great selection of talks by Professors Dave Block, Jim Harbertson and Andy Waterhouse covered topics such as the impact of cap management, fermentation temperature, extended maceration, exogenous tannins and micro-oxygenation on wine composition and potentially quality. The findings of many of these research studies were supported by wine tastings.