06/16/08 Winemaking for Beginners

Winemaking for Beginners. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. I am fascinated by the winemaking process. And one of these days I plan on trying my hand at it. WSU has been working at making the creation of fine boutique wines something that many people can enjoy. Debra Lancaster is the WSU Learning Center Coordinator for Skagit County. LANCASTER: While some of the wineries here to keep their production up they're buying their grapes from the eastside so they're making wine with eastside grapes too, the soil type and the climate here supports grapes that are closer to the grapes that are on the French coast and part of the German area. If you aren't familiar with winemaking, there are many variations in grapes that make up the unique flavors. Lancaster says that while this class is full, they are targeting the beginner. LANCASTER: We're kind of targeting an audience who is thinking of staring a winery or maybe has just entered the industry. We're assuming they don't have a science background, they don't know anything. They might have been a dot-comer or something like that and now they want to get into something in another stage in their life. There is an on-going push to bolster the west side wine industry. LANCASTER: We're very different from the eastside. Most of the research dollars are going eastside because that's where the land is, that's where most of the production is but were quite honestly close enough to the bigger metropolitan areas if we can get some smaller wineries going with their little tasting rooms, on a one-day trip people from Seattle can come up, hit 3 or 4 wineries and take the train back. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.