Podcast Transcript
Musical intro.
Hi, this is Leah Kolt, Cal Poly’s Public Affairs Director. Recently I talked with Dr. John Peterson, the head of Cal Poly’s Horticulture & Crops Science Department about the wine & viticulture degree program here.
After only a few short years of existence, the wine & vit program is now the largest one in the country.
We were joined by Cal Poly alum Hoy Buell, who owns Hearthstone Winery in Paso Robles, Calif., and by Hearthstone’s winemaker, Paul Ayers.
The four of us chatted in Hearthstone’s new tasting room on Vineyard Drive off Highway 46 west of Paso and just a half hour from the Pacific Ocean. I asked Dr. Peterson to tell us about Cal Poly’s wine program, which recently released the first vintage to be totally grown and made by students, from vines to wine.
Dr. Peterson:
Well, we actually did really well on our 2007 vintage. It’s going to be released this October. We produced four wines: a Syrah, a Pinot Noir, a Chardonnay and a Zinfandel blend. We entered them in the San Francisco wine competition, and our blend, the Mustang Red, won a double gold, which is really exciting! Then our Syrah won a gold medal in San Francisco as well.
We entered our Chardonnay and our Pinot Noir into the Paso Robles wine tasting here just a few weeks ago, and we won a gold for each of those as well. So we’ve been really kind of excited. This has been a quad-gold year for us, including a double gold.
It’s sold either through the Cal Poly store downtown in San Luis Obispo, or Taste, which is a tasting room in downtown SLO. Or you can buy it online through CalPolyWines.com. All the proceeds from it go back into the wine & viticulture program to support the student activities.
We have almost 300 students. We are now the largest program in the United States. And we’re a unique program in that the students are educated with concentrated information about oenology and viticulture, as well as wine business. They can specialize in one of those three areas but in the end they take coursework and are educated in all three areas. So they come out with a very broad-spectrum, well-rounded education. And there are some really great job opportunities when they come through the program.
This network is actually a really great network because I find that Cal Poly alumni really help each other out. They create really great opportunities for our students. We find we can actually send our students for internships and job opportunities really anywhere in the wine world – whether it be in South Africa, Chile, Australia, throughout California or even other parts of the United States. Cal Poly graduates are out there, and they help our students get experiences and opportunities.
Alum Hoy Buell, owner of Hearthstone Winery: One of the things that ties into this is that Cal Poly has always been a learn-by-doing university, and it really makes a difference in how our graduates are more readily desired by industry because they can they can get the job done better.
Dr. Peterson: Yes, they are work ready and they hit the ground running. You know, we developed a university tagline that is “learn by doing,” and it’s more than just words. It’s really a measure of practice as to how we educate students. In Hort & Crops, because of that, we evolved to our own tagline that builds on that builds on that, which is that our Hort & Crops and our wine & vit students “learn, do, lead” because they wind up being leaders in the industry.
Leah Kolt: So we could say that Paso Robles wines are ready to drink and Cal Poly wine graduates are ready to work?
All: That’s right! (Laughter)
Music
