News
MU to offer new enology emphasis in food science
COLUMBIA, Mo. – The University of Missouri will offer a food science degree with an emphasis in enology, providing students with in-depth education in the science and business of wine production.
Undergraduate students in this program, the first of its kind in the Midwest, will receive degrees in food science with at least 19 credit hours in enology and viticulture, said Ingolf Gruen, food science associate professor.
Courses are being phased in so that freshmen entering in the Fall 2008 semester can take the complete sequence.
Missouri's wine industry has grown from 50 to more than 70 wineries over the past five years, said Keith Striegler, director of the Institute for Continental Climate Viticulture and Enology, located on the MU campus and underwritten by the Missouri Department of Agriculture's Grape and Wine Board. A study commissioned by the Grape and Wine Board reports that the local wine industry employs almost 6,200 people and in 2007 generated an estimated $70 million in federal, state and local tax revenue.
Wineries create a job cluster of related businesses, providing jobs, particularly in small, rural communities, said Striegler.
"There is a shortage of trained people, and we are trying to fill a gap. The idea is we want to grow our own talent for Missouri and then the region," he said.
Missouri's will be one of the few such degree programs in the country and the only one offering a fully integrated "grape to glass" emphasis that ranges from viticulture operation to business management, said Gruen.
Originally posted Jan. 29, 2008
Cooperative Media Group
Amanda Stapp
Editorial Assistant
573-882-3296
StappA@missouri.edu
