Thomas Henick-Kling has no difficulty explaining what sets WSU’s wine program apart from the rest.
“Our students are taught by excellent faculty who are active researchers in the field, and that’s very important,” said the program’s director.
WSU offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in every aspect of grape production and wine making. The four-year undergraduate degree is offered at Pullman and the Tri-Cities, while the others can be completed at Pullman, Tri-Cities and Prosser. The university also offers a viticulture and enology (V&E) certificate online with some all-day instruction on campus and in area vineyards and wineries.
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Students get
industry-relevant experience and conduct real-world research in WSU’s viticulture and enology program. |
Henick-Kling said he appreciates the joint location of the WSU wine program at the Pullman campus and at WSU Tri-Cities.
“Almost literally 90 percent of the Washington wine industry is within an hour’s drive of the Tri-Cities campus, so many of our students and faculty are in the middle of a major wine producing area,” he said. “The involvement by industry is just tremendous.”
One of the world’s premier wine scientists, Henick-Kling assumed his responsibilities with WSU in March. He was formerly a professor of enology and director of the National Wine and Grape Industry Centre at Charles Sturt University in Australia. Before that, he was a professor of 20 years at Cornell University with especially strong partnerships in Europe.
His international experience already is benefitting WSU’s program. Henick-Kling is working with former university colleagues as well as wine growers and enologists in Germany, France and Australia on developing research collaborations and student internships.
“While the students may leave the state for awhile, many of them will return to Washington with a new perspective they can apply to their work here,” he said.
And with 600 wineries scattered throughout the state, jobs are available for those who finish.
“The demand for graduates is higher than the number of graduates we have, and that’s just within Washington state,” Henick-Kling said. He noted that alumni of the WSU V&E program have the skills to become assistant winemakers upon completion of their degrees, and “some of them very quickly will be primary winemakers because the job market is so hot right now.”
He said he doesn’t see that growth slowing anytime soon.
“The industry
has a lot of capacity to grow and diversify within Washington State,” he said. “The market share of Washington wines within the state is going to grow, and we still haven’t fully accessed markets in the U.S. and overseas.”
