Over 30 Wines At College Cellars

Over 30 Wines At College Cellars

Susan Allen
Susan Allen
It's Vine to Wine Wednesday on the Fruit Grower Report.

After meeting with the Tim Donahue director of wine making at the Walla Walla Community Colleges' Institute for Viticulture and Enology, it's easy to see why his courses attract applicants from across the globe. Unlike UC Davis and other schools focused on solely research, you get your hands dirty, even toughened in this two-year hands on program . Another difference is that they are basically funding:

We are kind of self-funding.

Their wines are sold under the college cellars label at site and online

DONAHUE: When we sell the wines the money from the sales of those wines goes back into the program. So we are absolutely a business, I think that's also important for the students to see. They have to understand that there are cost incurred from growing grapes, we purchase grapes, I take a tiny bit of donated fruit if it helps someone out but primarily we buy all our fruit to stay legitimate and not be a competing entity to any wineries so we have real costs to our wine. We are being paid to run this business. And so we also teach at the same time, We are probably one of the only wineries out there that are self-funding in a fairly significant way We make 30 different wines here, that's a huge portfolio for any winery of our size, it's probably 20 too many wines but it gives students opportunities to teach from an educational standpoint it's very well set up.

I left with a great cab, nice blend and to my husband's delight an oaky chardonnay reminiscent of our days in the early 80's working in Napa.

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