Story by Robyn Kontra Tanner, Photos by Joe Johnston

In the cool, pre-dawn hours of Sept. 20, while most Mustangs enjoyed the last few hours of sleep before fall quarter classes officially began, a team of wine and viticulture students and faculty were wide awake and hard at work. It was the ideal time for the wine grape harvest in Cal Poly’s Trestle Vineyard, approximately 12.5 acres of vines located northwest of the campus core.

Just after 3 a.m., professional crews began harvesting ripe bunches of Chardonnay and Pinot noir. Undergraduate students gathered data on the number and weight of grape clusters for a research project on intrinsic variations in berry size as a function of Pinot noir clones, a project generously funded by the Oregon Wine Board under the supervision of Professors Jean Dodson Peterson and L. Federico Casassa. The team then loaded the grapes into the backs of pickup trucks, headed to the Pilot Winery on campus for the next steps in the wine production process.

This may be the last time grapes wind up at the Pilot Winery: In future years, Cal Poly wine will be made in the soon-to-open JUSTIN and J. LOHR Center for Wine and Viticulture.

“There’s a consensus that during harvest, the grapes pretty much dictate your schedule,” said Laura Kelemen, who is working on her senior project in wine and viticulture. “Whether it’s 2 a.m. vineyard picks, 10 p.m. punch downs, or a broken piece of equipment that throws off scheduling, you need to be ready to adapt and make the best of it.”

Kelemen and teammates Josh Toepfer, Peyton Seelye, and Chase Kesecker have spent the season analyzing variations in vine growth and development trends, vine metabolism and water status among different clones of Pinot noir grapes grown in Trestle Vineyard with Professors Dodson Peterson and Casassa. The team hopes to understand how intrinsic variations in berry size affects chemical and sensory profiles of the resulting wines. Kelemen says this experience has given her the chance to shoulder a new level of responsibility in wine harvest logistics.

I’m excited to apply the new insight, skills, and confidence I’ve gained from this project to a full-time position after graduation,” she added.

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