Las Positas Community College professor David Everett drew wine from a barrel embossed “Campus Hill Winery” on Thursday inside the college’s new Viticulture and Winery Technology Facility, a lab that Livermore Valley winemakers hope will develop a new generation.
“The end result of this test is going to look like that,” Everett said, pointing to a chromatograph that looked like an impressionist painting of yellows and greens which signaled the prevailing acid contents of the fermenting wine.
Everett has coordinated the Viticulture and Winery Technology program since he joined Las Positas Community College 20 years ago, and his enthusiasm for the new $8.6 million facility bubbled over like a popped bottle of Champagne.
Viticulture and Winery Technology professor David Everett takes a sample of wine for testing in the barrel room of Campus Hill Winery at Las Positas College on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Livermore, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
He noted the atypical European varietals growing on the campus’s four-acre vineyard, egg-shaped wine tanks that are the “only ones in the valley,” and a suped-up crush pad where students bring harvested grapes.
“Our program enables students to perform tasks and jobs and interact and be part of the whole process,” Everett said. “They push buttons and turn knobs and get their feet dirty and their hands dirty and get covered in wine. They’re working every aspect.”
Leaders in the Livermore Valley wine industry hope the graduates of the program will stay local, adding to the area’s innovative winemaking history dating back to the 1860s. Livermore Valley winemaking consultant Meredith Sarboraria said the area sometimes struggles to retain talented young winemakers who flock to more prominent winemaking regions.
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“If you got a degree from Fresno (State) or (UC) Davis or someplace like that, you want to be very successful and very known in the industry,” Sarboraria said. “When people think California wine, generally they’re going to think Napa, Sonoma, and then maybe Paso Robles.”
But Sarboraria is optimistic the new facility will change that trend, and hope is spreading among its industry leaders. Dyrell Foster, President of the Livermore Chamber of Commerce and Las Positas Community College, said the facility will create better workforce development in Livermore Valley, whether in vineyards, barrel rooms or wineries.
The new facility and its state-of-the-art equipment are not limited to students and will be a resource for the entire community where local wine operations can bring in samples of their wine for testing – with a small donation to support the program, Foster believes these interactions can lead to larger partnerships for Las Positas students, leading them into the local wine industry.
Viticulture and Winery Technology professor David Everett conducts an acid test on a sample of wine in the new Campus Hill Winery facility at Las Positas College on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Livermore, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
“There’s just a lot of great excitement and energy that I think we can build upon that will help support not only our students and our faculty, but the community at large,” Foster said. “I feel like this is really just the tip of the iceberg for us.”
Livermore Valley wine has gained more prestige in the past decade with wines that have won various competitions or received awards for their craftsmanship, Sarboraria said. A new facility like Las Positas’ will bolster the industry’s larger goals of competing with Napa and Sonoma for wine enthusiasts seeking its premier blends.
Campus Hill Winery had already garnered acclaim with its products even before its opening. In a student competition of West Coast colleges wine programs in September, Campus Hill Winery won “Best Red” for a 60% Syrah, 40% Granche red blend called “The Hawk.” (https://www.pleasantonweekly.com/cover-story/2024/09/05/learning-from-vine-to-wine-campus-hill-winery-opens-8-5m-processing-facility/#:~:text=Now%20the%20winery%20produces%20award,Santa%20Maria%20earlier%20this%20year.)
Today, a bottle of The Hawk sits atop cupboards in Evertt’s classroom, serving as a reminder of what quality wine can achieve and an inspiration for future winemakers from Las Positas. He mentioned how wines evolve with each new tasting for students, sometimes years in the making.
“They’re always, always, always tasting to understand the evolution of the wine as it gets to its final stages,” Everett said. “I’ve had students taste wine when they come back… We’ll crack it open. It’s like, Oh, my God, this wine.”