Roots of growth: Donors provide key addition at institute—a vineyard

University of California, Davis
May 1, 2009

(Photo credit: John Stumbos)

UC Davis winemaker and cellar master Chik Brenneman says growing a vineyard at the campus’s new front door makes “a real statement about how much this university values its viticulture and enology program.”

The agricultural industry in California values the program as well, so much so that a pair of companies donated all the rootstock for 5,400 vines and some 57,000 feet of drip irrigation line for the 13.5-acre vineyard that spreads out from the new Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at the campus’s south entry just off Interstate 80.

Monetary contributions also came in:

Wendell Jacob gave $500,000 in memory of his father, Harry Jacob, who was a professor of viticulture. To recognize this gift, the demonstration block in the new vineyard has been named after Professor Jacob.

A gift in memory of John Gist, a prominent grape-vine nurseryman and campus supporter, will go toward support of the student rotation block.

Other donations included a $30,000 gift from Petite Sirah I Love You, an advocacy group.

“Without these gifts, we would not have had any vineyard on the site, so the gifts have been essential in creating a fantastic teaching facility, as well as creating a grand new entrance to the campus,” said Andrew Waterhouse, chair of the Department of Viticulture and Enology. “This will be a wonderful display to let the public know about our teaching and research efforts.”

He added that the gifts also will help support vineyard maintenance, “perhaps even more important in the future than the establishment of the vineyard.”

Soon a winery will be built nearby, putting the Department of Viticulture and Enology all in one place — at the RMI. Hundreds of students will now be able to simply walk outside to work and study in the vineyard, instead of shuttling to Hopkins Road, west of Highway 113, where the department maintains about 100 acres of grapes.

The new grapevines should yield their first crush for the new winery in three years, Brenneman said.

But first things first, like the rootstock: It came from Sunridge Nurseries of Bakersfield, in a donation valued at about $6,500. A Woodland labor crew did the planting on April 22 and 23.

Months of preparation involved putting in underground water mains and aboveground irrigation lines. For the latter, Madera-based Eurodrip USA and Fresno-based Netafim USA provided nearly $4,000 worth of material.

The next step: “chip budding,” or the process of grafting grapevines to the rootstock. That will happen this fall or in the spring, Brenneman said, depending on how fast the rootstock matures. Hundreds of grapevine varieties will be selected, he said, for six blocks:

Student rotation — For hands-on work with vines at six annual stages of maturity. (This block will take six years for completion; then, each year after that, the oldest set of vines will be removed, to be replaced with beginner vines.)

Production — For winemaking classes.

Library (two blocks) — Major grapevine varieties of the world, alphabetically and regionally arranged.

Heritage — A field blend of more than 200 vines, to be grown in a classic head-trained system (trimmed and pruned to resemble a bush, without wires). This block will be dry-farmed, and the cultivation will follow sustainable viticulture practices.

Demonstration — For different vine-training and trellis systems used in California and around the world.

This article was reprinted from “Dateline UC Davis.”

• Chik Brenneman, Viticulture and Enology, (530) 754-9067, cabrenneman@ucdavis.edu
• Dave Jones, University Communications, (530) 752-6556, dljones@ucdavis.edu