05/23/06 New Grape & Wine Education Ctr

New Grape & Wine Education Center. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The Yakima Valley is home to many fine wineries and Yakima Valley Community College is helping to bring a better appreciation and better education to the wine industry. YVCC is in the initial stages of designing and building a new grape and wine education center. Trent Ball, Agriculture Program Chair for YVCC talks about the new facility. BALL: There will be a teaching winery located inside the building along with teaching lab and classrooms, great for the education environment. And secondly, another nice aside, is there's going to be two small pilot or incubator winery spaces that'll be inside the building that we'll rent out that are start-ups. You know want to start-up and need something small so it's a nice little start-up facility for them. And then also inside the building a shared tasting room between the teaching winery and the two incubator units. The makeup of the facility provides kind of a unique environment because it's got a business inside along surrounded by this teaching institution as well. Ball is very excited about the wine industry today and the growth of the Yakima Valley. BALL: In the whole state of Washington the industry is absolutely taking off; extremely energetic and you know they're only getting stronger and stronger with the great quality wines they're producing, getting more and more national and international recognition. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.