In the fields and cellars of wineries around Charlottesville, a local community college is training future winemakers, vineyard owners, and wine industry professionals.
By Jennifer Conrad Seidel • Photos by Molly McDonald Peterson
The wine industry in Virginia is growing. Even in 2009, when we were spending our grocery and entertainment dollars more carefully, the sales of Virginia wine rose more than 7 percent—to almost 400,000 cases.
That is great news, indeed. But as new wineries open and existing ones grow, the industry faces a new challenge: finding a qualified workforce.
Virginia Is for Winemakers
In 2004, administrators from the Workforce Services Program at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville collaborated with winemakers and vineyard owners in and around the Monticello Wine Trail to develop plans for what is now two complementary certificate programs: one in viticulture (vineyard management) and one in enology (winemaking). By February 2006, the program had graduated its first class of 15.
The program is built on one-day seminars, usually held on Saturdays so that those with full-time jobs can enroll. Taught by winemakers, vineyard managers, winery owners, and business consultants, classes are held at local vineyards. The training is hands-on, not book-based, and topics include everything from blending to marketing, grafting to pruning, tasting to harvesting.
Seminars are offered year-round, and the 10 classes required for each certificate are offered each calendar year, so someone could get through the program quickly. Students are not obligated to complete a certificate, however. Among the approximately 400 students who came through the program in 2009 were hobbyists taking a single class, curious connoisseurs taking tasting classes, and career-focused students determined to complete the whole certificate program.
Recess All the Time
Classes are held in the field as the seasons allow. In fact, many classes could not be held anywhere else. A class on blending and another on winery design and equipment are held in winter, when fieldwork is slow. Soil prep and planting are taught in the spring, as is dormant pruning. Summer brings classes on canopy management and pest control. Come fall, students lean about harvesting and bottling.
A few classes stretch over both semesters. The custom crush class starts in the fall just before harvest and concludes with bottling in the early summer. What is the literal fruit of such “studying”? Each student brings home four cases of wine. In another two-semester class—vineyard management—students “adopt a row of vines” for a year at DuCard Vineyard in Madison County, where owner Scott Elliff trains them in pruning, thinning, dropping fruit, and overall decision making.
A few restaurants have also participated in the program. The sommelier at C&O, on Charlottesville’s pedestrian mall, taught a three-session class on pairing wine and food. Siips, a few blocks away, was the venue for a series of weeknight tasting classes focusing on different wine regions across the globe. The Lafayette Inn in Stanardsville hosted a class on home winemaking.
Meet Your Classmates
On a sunny Saturday in March, a dozen people gathered at First Colony Winery for a wine marketing seminar taught by Neil Williamson of The Trellis Group. The class included a panel discussion with Martha Soden, general manager of First Colony; Sarah Gorman, business manager of Cardinal Point Vineyard and Winery; and Jim Turpin, founder of Democracy Vineyards and a graduate of the PVCC program.
The students present were at different points in their careers—some more likely to own a vineyard than work for one. Recent Virginia Tech graduate Maya Hood White studied theoretical math and physics, but now she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the chemistry of winemaking. Carole Keathley already has a career in marketing, but she is looking to make a lateral move into marketing for Virginia wineries, marrying her training and her love of local wine. After retiring from an international Fortune 100 company, Chas Lawrence is ready to pursue his dream of growing and making wine.
The Dream
It’s hard to believe that a young graduate with a degree in math and physics would turn down a job offer from Northrop Grumman in this economy to pursue a career in winemaking. “I was always interested in wine but thought it was unapproachable. I wondered, ‘Who makes wine?’ And then I realized, ‘I can do that!’ When I was offered that job, I realized that I would never return to this path if I took a nice little cubicle job,” said Maya Hood White.
“I’ve been taking winemaking classes through U.C. Davis’s distance learning program. The Davis program is focused on California and South America, though, which are very different from Virginia. It’s great as a foundation, but I like the idea of staying and making wine here,” she explained. White, who is interning at Afton Mountain Vineyards, hopes to study enology at Virginia Tech. So in addition to taking about 10 seminars, she is taking chemistry classes at PVCC as well.
“I have a real interest in the chemical aspect of making wine—the polymerization of phenols—because no one really knows how that happens. I love that side of it. But I also enjoy making wine. It’s so hands on, and it’s technical but artistic as well.”
The Lateral Move
“I know marketing, and I know Virginia wine as a consumer,” said Carole Keathley, a marketing expert and consultant, “but I took this class because I wanted to hear what these people had to say. I want to help the smaller wineries, which don’t have big budgets but are passionate about wine.” She has already worked with Gabrielle Rausse and is organizing an Earth Day service event, with trail clearing and tree planting, at DelFosse Vineyards and Winery.
In addition to learning more about marketing in this industry, Keathley hopes to strengthen her understanding of wine through the other classes, too. “I learn the most when I do a vertical tasting or a comparative tasting by varietal,” she explained. “I’ve taken a few tasting classes in the program—beginning tasting, advanced reds, and advanced whites. I am now able to appreciate the different varietals, terroirs, and approaches to winemaking found around the world.
“I have a black thumb,” she laughed. “I’m never going to grow grapes. But I can parlay all this knowledge to advance my career.”
The Second Career
When Chas Lawrence retired just over two years ago, he asked himself what he wanted to do with the second half of his life. The answer, it turns out, is plant a vineyard and make wine. He worked through the viticulture certificate in just over a year, and is now working on the enology certificate.
But unlike most of his classmates, who live in Virginia, Lawrence drives up from Raleigh to participate in the PVCC program. “I’m taking some sustainable agriculture classes closer to home,” he explained, “but there is nothing like this program near me. The one-day format works perfectly.”
Lawrence and his wife bought 11 acres of land in the North Carolina mountains in 2002. A small vineyard had already been started on the property, but the previous owner had walked away from it; by the time the Lawrences bought it, it was overrun. But a lot of the hard work had been done: the site had been selected and the infrastructure, including a blacktop road, was in place. They sat on it until he started taking classes at PVCC.
“I started these classes and started learning about pruning and spray programs. There’s a wealth of information about grapes here, and it’s more transferable to North Carolina than anything I’d have gotten at U.C. Davis,” he said gratefully. “And it’s more accessible.”
He just planted a group of heirloom apples and hopes to make cider as well as wine. “My wife is putting hives in,” he added, “so we may try making mead, too.”
Full Speed Ahead
When Greg Rosko graduated from the program, he had no idea that he’d soon end up as its director. Rosko is an educator by training—he still works for the Charlottesville City Schools—and his experience as a student is quite valuable to him in his current position. He expressed his appreciation for the support the program gets from area vineyards. “The wineries around Charlottesville are wonderful and very generous. We wouldn’t be where we are without them.”
Asked about how the program is affecting the industry, Rosko pointed out that several graduates, like Democracy’s Turpin, have started their own vineyards. “Out in Free Union,” he added, “Michelle and Jeff Sanders are building a winery.” Other student-owners include Skip and Cindy Causey of Potomac Point Winery and Steven “Kim” Moreno of Neala Vineyards. Rosko also ticked off a list of other students employed in the industry at present, naming assistant winemakers, assistant vineyard managers, tasting room managers, interns, and retail wine associates.
DuCard’s Elliff said that participating in the program has helped his business grow. “Based in part on the great word of mouth about the adopt-a-row class and the wines that come out of it, DuCard is expanding production and opening an on-site tasting room for the public.”
Rosko hopes to grow the program by adding a chemistry lab course. “It would be great for students to at least be familiar with the chemistry,” he said. “It would provide a good foundation for those who want to enter the industry, no matter what their job title.” He’d also like to offer more classes on the business end of things, like accounting.
“Vineyards are farms,” he noted, “and farms have different tax forms than other businesses.”
The program recently added a two-year credited apprenticeship in partnership with the state’s department of labor and industry. Two full-time winery employees are currently apprenticing, one in winemaking and the other in vineyard management.
PVCC had started to offer classes like those taken by sommeliers-in-training, but enrollment in these seminars wasn’t high enough, most likely due to the recession. (Consuming all that wine gets expensive.) Rosko is hopeful that this decision will be revisited as interest grows and the economy rebounds.
Piedmont Virginia Community College
Charlottesville, VA
(434) 961-5354
www.pvcc.edu/workforceservices
Jennifer Conrad Seidel is the editor of Flavor and would probably sign up for a cidermaking class if it were offered.
