INDUSTRY FOCUS

Endowment Funding Spurs Innovation in Grape and Wine Research and Education at Cornell

By Amanda Garris

Just as wineries can vary in production capacity, viticulture and enology research questions come in a range of sizes. Traditional  funding sources favor long-term, multi-university projects, and Cornell faculty have been successful in obtaining millions of federal grant dollars. However, funding from private donors and industry groups is fueling short-term projects that are focused, pro-active, and innovative.

"The endowments are extremely valuable as a way to allow researchers to test out an idea or mobilize quickly in response to an industry need," said Tom Burr, director of Cornell's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva. "We are very fortunate to have a growing portfolio of endowments provided by loyal donors interested in supporting research and extension in viticulture and enology."

One example is a project headed by Justine Vanden Heuvel, assistant professor of horticulture, to determine the best viticultural practices for one of Cornell's newest grape varieties, Noiret.

"When new varieties are released, there are often still many unanswered questions, such as whether they are best grown on their own roots, or using rootstocks, or whether vineyard spacing and training system affect wine quality," she said. "It's the kind of research that people want done, but there's no obvious funding source."

Vanden Heuvel's study has allowed her to make specific recommendations to growers—avoid vertical shoot positioning and six foot spacing—based on demonstrated consumer preference among wines produced using a variety of training systems and vine spacings.

Her study was made possible by the Kaplan Fund, which was established in 1987. Named for Jacob M. Kaplan, who sold Welch's to the growers of the National Grape Co-operative in 1956, it has facilitated numerous pilot projects in pest and disease management, including crown gall, leafroll, powdery mildew, mealybugs, and grape berry moth, as well as extension newsletters and viticulture research.

The donors to Cornell's endowments and other funds have diverse motivations. However, most have a personal stake or a family history in the wine and grape industry, like Peter and Tacie Saltonstall, the owners of King Ferry Winery on Cayuga Lake.

"When I served on the Dean's Advisory Council, I realized that former CALS Dean Susan Henry really went out on a limb to establish the undergraduate enology viticulture program," said Peter Saltonstall '75. "Now we have all these young researchers, and yet the money to fund their projects unfortunately just doesn't just magically appear."

The Saltonstalls see their endowment as insurance that researchers will be able to respond to New York problems.

"I personally wanted to know Cornell would continue research germane to our local issues," said Saltonstall. "Otherwise, they will have to rely on the large corporations for their funding."

Ronni Lacroute '66, co-founder and co-owner of Willakenzie Estate winery in Oregon's Willamette Valley, has provided endowments to support widely different projects at Cornell, from undergraduate scholarships to a biennial tour of the Cornell Wind Ensemble to Costa Rica. Her endowment to support viticultural research at Cornell was based on a conviction that its research was relevant throughout the United States.

"Cornell has been such a leader in cool climate research and training," said Lacroute. "I wanted to fund projects that promise the greatest benefit to the broadest number of people, and the work at Cornell has broad implications outside of New York as well."

One of the first endowments was initiated in 1994 by the late Marvin Sands, founder of the Canandaigua Wine Company (now Constellation Brands), and John Dyson '65, who with his wife Kathe is the proprietor of wineries in the Hudson Valley, the Tuscany region of Italy, and California's Russian River Valley. 

"We needed to learn how to grow vinifera grapes in New York State and have them be world-class," said Dyson. "The only place to do that in New York State was the Geneva Station. At the time, there were only a handful of wineries in the entire state, and now there are almost 300."

Since then, the number of endowments and other funds related to viticulture and enology has grown. Donors include the Larry Goichman '66 Family, Joan Kaplan Davidson '48, John Dyson, and Michael Nolan '77, as well as the Saltonstalls and Lacroute.

The majority of endowment funds are earmarked for research, and they function as a competitive, internal grant program within Cornell.

"Proposals are requested from faculty each year, and awards are made based on proposal quality," said Burr. "In selecting projects, we pay particular attention to how outcomes from the work will positively impact the grape and wine industry."

Other projects currently made possible by endowment funds include one by assistant professor of enology Anna Katharine Mansfield, who was intrigued by significant differences among Riesling clones in the Finger Lakes for phenolics, compounds that affect the ageability of wine.

"Phenolics can contribute to bitterness and browning, but it's poorly understood," says Mansfield. "Understanding them is essential to anticipating and proactively addressing quality issues relating wine flaws."

Endowment funds are also being used to tackle another unwanted aroma that can surprise winemakers and consumers after the cork is popped. Rotten egg smells can result from stealthy elemental sulfur residues, leftover from sprays to control powdery mildew in the vineyard.

"We noticed that wines made from grapes treated with elemental sulfur can go into the bottle having no detectable hydrogen sulfide-rotten egg aroma, but after a month and a half they will develop these aromas in the bottle, which had been reported anecdotally by winemakers," said Gavin Sacks, assistant professor of food science. "We are trying to investigate where elemental sulfur can hide in the wine."

His approach is to label the sulfur molecules, a process he compares to tagging migrating birds for monitoring. By tracking the compounds formed by elemental sulfur during fermentation, they can determine how to remediate wines that have this problem.

Although research is a common endowment focus, some donors have chosen to directly support graduate students, faculty, and the undergraduate major in enology and viticulture established in 2008.

Michael Nolan '77, a managing director at J.P. Morgan, has provided funding specifically to support outstanding graduate students, who have worked on projects from deducing the chemical basis of Riesling aroma to reducing the need for sulfur dioxide preservatives in wine. Larry Goichman '66 with his wife Jennifer endowed the Goichman Family Professorship of Enology and Viticulture, the first in the enology and viticulture program, which is currently held by Burr.

Donors who want to support the program, but not at the endowment level, have contributed to the Current Use Fund for Viticulture and Enology, which is used in the undergraduate program to support teaching assistantships, field trips, classroom needs, and outfitting the labs.

"We value all of these gifts to enology and viticulture," said Marc Smith, NYSAES assistant director. "And we are tracking the outcomes, to document the benefits of this work to the industry and the regional economies they fuel."

Amanda Garris is a freelance writer based in Geneva, New York.