St. Helena High School's class of viticulture with the grapes for their 2008 vintage Zinfandel last September.
St. Helena, Calif.--In what is possibly a unique program in the United States, St. Helena High School offers a year-long class in viticulture, including both managing vines and making wines. It's an introduction to the business that dominates St. Helena, population 6,000, in the Napa Valley.
The students aren't allowed to taste the fruit of their efforts, however, though each of their families does receive a bottle.
It's not surprising that the school offers the opportunity. St. Helena is widely considered the heart of America's wine country. It is home to such venerable wineries as
Martini,
Beringer,
Sutter Home/Trinchero and the former Christian Brothers, as well as many newer small wineries. Many people who work in small wineries live in St. Helena.
Agriculture teacher Laura Mendes leads the viticulture class through the entire process from the vineyard to the bottle.
The viticulture class is taught by Laura Mendes, one of three agriculture teachers at the high school. She also teaches ag biology, and plant and animal science as well as viticulture, all classes that help fulfill science requirements for graduation. Mendes also coordinates the work experience program for the school, which includes the collaborative winemaking project.
Mendes graduated from University of California, Santa Cruz, and then earned her master's degree and teaching credential from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. She has been teaching for 15 years, the last four at St. Helena High where she started the vit program in 2005. Before that, she managed the sustainable agriculture program at Santa Rosa Junior College in Sonoma County.
Mendes says she started with nine students, but this year's class numbered 40. Up to now, there has only been one class per year, and students must be juniors or seniors. Mendes admits that the timing of the harvest and school year don't mesh well. The students generally pick the grapes and make wine just as school starts, and don't get much experience tending vines until later.
A student checks the grapes for ripeness last fall.
The first two years of the program, the class acquired grapes, hardly a problem in St. Helena, but then Ed and Rich Salvestrin, whose vineyard adjoins the school, volunteered a small plot of Zinfandel vines for the students to tend and pick.
Each year, the school works with a different winery. In the past,
Sherwin Family, Louis M. Martini and
Rombauer have helped; this year, it was
Duckhorn Vineyards, where winemaker Bill Nancarrow worked with the students.
Nancarrow notes that he visited the class the first day to talk about what they'd be doing, and also tasted the grapes and checked their properties. "The grapes were ready to pick immediately," he noted.
After the students harvested the grapes, they took them to Duckhorn, where Nancarrow says the students were able to watch the winemaking in progress. He explained what was happening, then stopped the regular production, had the students cluster around the sorting table, then sorted and destemmed the grapes and crushed them into T bins.
He then explained about native and inoculated yeasts, and let the students decide which to use. "I tried to get them involved in making decisions," he recalls. This was the one last time the students could taste the must. They chose to inoculate, so prepared the yeast and added it.
After the alcoholic fermentation started, they couldn't taste the wine again.
It's a hands-on process, but strictly hands-off the finished product for the viticulture students.
Students helped with punch down, then they pressed the grapes. Since Duckhorn didn't have a small press, they pressed the grapes by hand through a screen. After running the numbers, Nancarrow discussed malolactic fermentation process, and then the fledgling winemakers filled a barrel.
The intention is to bottle the wine next January in time to present bottles at the annual Future Farmers of America dinner. Meanwhile, the current class learned more about growing grapes, including hands-on experience in pruning, as well as early stages of growing in spring. The students also recorded the process.
Nancarrow says he suspects 90% of the students come from families in the wine business, about half of Mexican descent: "A nice mix," he says. "I bet one quarter of them plan to take over their family wine business," he adds.
Roxanne Prager etches and paints each bottle by hand. One 3-liter bottle of wine is made each year, and auctioned to help support the program. Bidders like Koerner Rombauer and Jim Regusci have helped raise $100,000 to date.
Most of the wine--20 cases--is bottled in magnums and each student gets one personalized bottle for his or her family--and likely an eventual taste.
