Course Profile: VEN 103 – Commercial Winemaking
Wine production is often described in terms of grapes, fermentation, and aging, but producing wine on a commercial scale involves much more than just making a good wine. Winemakers and winery business leaders must make decisions about equipment, production volumes, costs, timing, quality, risk, regulatory requirements, packaging, suppliers, and how a wine will ultimately reach the consumer. Understanding how all of these pieces fit together is essential to managing a successful commercial winery.
In VEN 103 – Commercial Winemaking, students explore the complete wine production cycle at a level designed to prepare them to understand and participate in business and operational decisions in the wine industry. Beginning with grape varieties and wine styles, the course follows wine from pre-harvest planning through harvest and crush, fermentation, pressing, storage and aging, blending, stabilization, packaging, bottling, and warehousing. At each stage, students consider not only what is done, but why particular processes, equipment, materials, and timelines are selected for a specific wine, production volume, and price point.
A key part of the course is learning how to recognize and communicate wine quality through sensory evaluation. Students will work with dozens of aroma standards to develop their own sensory vocabulary and practice recognizing aromas they may encounter in commercial wines. These include both desirable wine aromas and aromas associated with common wine faults. Rather than simply memorizing terminology, students will use their own senses to identify, describe, and communicate what they perceive—an important skill for anyone involved in evaluating wine quality.
Photo Credit: Sierra Lambert
A central focus of the course is also learning to evaluate quality and risk. Students examine how wineries identify and control risks throughout production and learn to select appropriate analytical, stability, and sensory measures for different wine styles. They also consider practical business decisions, such as when it makes sense to perform operations in-house versus using contracted services, how supplier relationships affect production, and how packaging choices can influence a finished product.
Students apply this knowledge through case studies and group projects that require them to make decisions similar to those faced by wine-industry professionals. They develop production plans, evaluate equipment and processing choices, and propose new wine products along with the production requirements and timelines needed to bring those products to market. Topics may extend to emerging areas of the industry, including no- and low-alcohol (NOLO) wine products, winery operations, and waste streams.
By the end of VEN 103, students will have a broader understanding of commercial winemaking—not simply how wine is produced, but how the many technical, operational, financial, sensory, and quality decisions involved in production come together to create a commercially viable wine.
The only prerequisite to VEN 103 (Commercial Winemaking) is VEN 003 (Introduction to Winemaking). VEN 103 is taught by Patricia Howe, and she encourages any students curious about this course, offered in the winter quarter, to send her an email at [email protected].