Napa Valley College unveils new wine education center
By Paul Wagner
NAPA, Calif. — Napa Valley College is set to commence construction this spring on the Wine Spectator Wine Education Center, a state-of-the-art facility poised to revolutionize its acclaimed Viticulture and Winery Technology program. With an initial $10 million grant from Marvin Shanken of Wine Spectator, this ambitious project hopes to mark a new era in wine education, blending advanced technology with hands-on learning to cultivate the next generation of wine industry leaders.
An additional $2.5 million bequest from the estate of Evelyn Allen will fund the first phase of the construction project. Allen was a longtime Napa Valley College adult education student who bequeathed her estate to benefit the physical education and agricultural programs at the school.
The new Wine Spectator Wine Education Center is a 7,000-square-foot classroom building that will be constructed as phase one of a larger project. It will feature two flexible sensory classrooms that can be combined to seat up to 80 students and a laboratory classroom with 28 lab stations designed to give students hands-on experience with wine-laboratory practices.
Shanken sees Napa Valley College’s VWT program as playing a critical role in the future of wine in the Napa Valley.
“If there was ever an educational institution poised for significant contributions to the growth of the California wine industry,” Shanken said, “this is it.”
The college is now raising funds to address the second phase of the project, a Wine and Hospitality Training Center facility estimated to cost between $3 million and $4 million. This building will be dedicated to comprehensive training in wine marketing, sales and hospitality and will encompass areas such as winery food programs, wine club management, tasting-room operations, tourism and the role of a winery chef.
Functioning as a dynamic "marketing lab," the center will offer both classroom and practical training spaces for the college's food and wine programs. Key features include a demonstration kitchen for hands-on student training, a tasting bar, and adaptable seating arrangements to simulate various hospitality and tasting-room environments. Additionally, the space will serve as a venue for industry training sessions, educational events and presentations by guest speakers from the wine industry.
The program currently offers classes in its Napa Valley Vintners Teaching Winery, the Trefethen Laboratory classroom and a third building known as the Ag Lab. The Ag Lab building was the initial core of the program when it began in 1984 but has since been deemed as seismically unsafe. Both it and the Trefethen Laboratory classroom will be razed and completely rebuilt to better serve the program’s future needs.
The Trefethen family played a key role in funding the existing laboratory classroom by making a major donation and leading the fundraising efforts with local vintners in 1999. The new Wine Education Center will carry the Trefethen name into the laboratory classroom in recognition of the family’s role in both fundraising and the ongoing participation of their team in support of the program.
Torence Powell, president of Napa Valley College, has spoken about both the program’s success and its future needs.
“Our VWT Program is one of the largest in the world, and job placement rates for our VWT students have consistently exceeded 80%,” Powell said, “Our professionally farmed teaching vineyard continues to provide the essential field training that students need to compete in the Napa Valley and beyond. Our teaching winery is the first bonded winery in the California community college system, and we released our inaugural vintage in the spring of 2009.”
He went on to say that as the program has grown, the facilities have become increasingly inadequate to meet the needs of the students and the industry.
The Napa Valley College Viticulture and Winery Technology program currently provides students access to viticulture, winemaking, and wine marketing and sales associate of science degrees, as well as a number of proficiency certifications that include vineyard pest scout, vineyard pruning, viticulture operations, wine laboratory technician, winery management, lab analysis of must/wines and many more. The program is comprised of more than 30 accredited classes with units that transfer to national and international four-year degree programs. Over the past few years the program has conferred 66 degrees and 42 certificates.
Given Napa Valley’s role in the world of wine, it is fitting that the school provides its students with job-ready skills by receiving a high-quality, accessible and affordable education with excellent mentors. Warren Winiarski, founder of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, is one of them.
“Napa Valley College is a vital resource for our community, providing students with job-ready skills by receiving a high-quality, accessible and affordable education,” Winiarski said, “I’ve been lucky to be a guest lecturer in the wine marketing program class and have seen firsthand the quality of education these students receive.”
Napa vintner Doug Shafer sits on the program’s foundation board.
“The wine program at Napa Valley College is an invaluable resource both to students and to the wine industry,” he said. “With its schedule of evening classes, the program is accessible for students currently employed in wineries. The program’s remarkable job-placement record ensures successful employment and a thriving, growing, wine-producing community.”
With those kinds of endorsements and aspirations for creating one of the great wine-education centers in California, Powell is excited.
“We celebrate the Wine Spectator’s recent gift to build a Wine Education Center at the southern entrance to the college — the gateway to the Napa Valley,” he said. “But more remains to be done. We must finish this campaign by raising the necessary funds to build the Wine and Hospitality Training Center where our students can gain real-world skills in wine sales, hospitality and tasting room management. Together we can forge a future that will provide pathways upward for our students, helping them and our community thrive.”
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Paul Wagner's career includes 29 years as an instructor at Napa Valley College's Viticulture and Winery Technology Department, authorship of award-winning wine marketing books and numerous speaking engagements at global conferences.