New Cabrillo Wine Studies degree raises profile of Santa Cruz’s wine industry

The launch of a Wine Studies Associate in Science program at Cabrillo College uncorks a new era of wine education in Santa Cruz County. The degree aims to give students a broad yet deep understanding of the wine industry that could transform it into one of the best public wine education programs in the state.

Those close to the program also believe that it will have a positive impact on the Santa Cruz County’s wine industry and give more visibility to the local winegrowing region.

“I think the program will definitely bring more legitimacy to our region and by doing that will help elevate the respect for the industry, the wine, the local wines that come out of here,” says viticulture consultant Prudy Foxx. 

Local winemakers, producers and winery owners sit on the board for the wine program and teach some of the classes. Foxx has been a viticulture consultant since 1983 and worked in Santa Cruz County for more than 30 years. Over that time, she’s cultivated many of the vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and will share her expertise in the area’s soils and grape-growing environments in the viticulture class. She plans to take her students out of the classroom and into the vineyards to discover where wine is made. 

Foxx is a champion for the local wine region, and says the many microclimates for which the Santa Cruz Mountains American Viticultural Area (AVA) is known give students an unparalleled opportunity to understand different grape-growing areas. 

“The incredible diversity that students in this area will be exposed to will provide an opportunity to see how wine grapes and even different varietals of wine grapes grow,” she says.

There are 13 community colleges in California that offer degrees, certificates or courses in enology, the study of wine, and/or viticulture, the study of growing grapes. But few are as robust as the new wine studies program at Cabrillo, especially in the central and southern part of the state. 

Transferability to UC, CSU is key

Cabrillo is now one of two institutions to offer a wine-focused A.S. degree south of the San Francisco Bay Area; the other is Reedley College, southeast of Fresno and more than 170 miles from Aptos, where Cabrillo College’s main campus is located. Reedley offers an A.S. in enology. 

The 60-unit degree includes eleven major courses in topics ranging from wine grape viticulture, world wines and basic winemaking. Significantly, seven of the courses will be transferable to the California State University and University of California systems for those who want to pursue higher degrees. The program also contains two companion certificates: a seven-course Certificate of Achievement in Wine Studies and a noncredit Global Wine Certificate of Completion. The program launches in the 2024-25 academic year. 

Over the course of their education at Cabrillo, students will gain an intimate understanding of the Santa Cruz Mountains wine region. That knowledge of the local AVA and its wines is something the students will take with them as they further their education and continue into wine professions. 

“The Santa Cruz wine growing area is utterly unique. It’s a historic winery region, but the producers really struggle to be heard,” says Wine Studies Instructor Deborah Parker Wong. “The winemakers and producers in the local industry are really happy that students are learning about wine and the wine industry in their [American Viticulture Area].” 

Including wine industry professionals on the board and in the classroom also “connects the program to reality,” says Laurie Love, Lookout’s wine columnist. Love is a former wine studies student at Cabrillo and worked with Wong to create the new program. 

Boon to local wine industry

Love notes that connecting students with wine professionals introduces them to the needs of the local wine industry and its job opportunities. “Many winemakers and wineries know the reputation of the Cabrillo wine program and are ready to hire people that come out of that program,” says Love. 

There are numerous job opportunities in the wine industry, from grape-growing and wine production to sales and distribution. The California wine industry alone employs 422,000 people and generates $170.5 billion in economic activity, according to a 2022 study by Wine Institute and the California Association of Winegrape Growers. 

There are about 50 wineries in Santa Cruz County, and at least another 15 growers, according to Wines of the Santa Cruz Mountains, an organization that promotes the local wine region. The industry directly employs more than 500 people, with a gross revenue of $45 million a year. 

When Love began taking wine courses at Cabrillo in 2015, she had left a 30-year career in the tech industry. She says she had always had an interest in wine, and loved the community she found in the Cabrillo wine program. She eventually earned all three certificates that were formerly offered and used her education to study for several sommelier certifications through private institutions. 

Says Love: “I took the class just for fun, because it was something that I was interested in. But it really opened my eyes to the possibilities for something I could do as a career, but also the sense of community that is there in that group.” 

Collaboration bears fruit

The creation of the degree and the certificates is the culmination of three years of work by Wong and Love. It stems from and builds on a rich collection of 16 wine courses within the Culinary Arts & Hospitality Management department, first pioneered by former chair Sue Slater in 2000 as companion courses to the culinary classes. 

Those original courses have been retired or reworked in order to make the courses transferable to universities. 

Wong says she was inspired to pursue transferability for the wine studies courses because without it, she felt she was “teaching into a black hole.” 

“Students couldn’t take that excellent wine education they were receiving and matriculate into a higher degree,” she says. “There is a whole list of schools that have programs in enology and viticulture, or they could go directly to UC Davis for a bachelor’s degree or master’s degree.” UC Davis has one of the most prestigious enology and viticulture departments in the country. 

Because Cabrillo is a public institution, Wong says the program creates greater accessibility for low-income and minority students who want to enter the industry. Private courses in wine education are widely available, but often cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. 

Cabrillo’s program allows students to “leapfrog” into the industry with a wine and spirits education that could be cost-prohibitive if they chose to pursue it in the private sector, says Wong. And the courses — which cover the breadth of the industry, from the business of wine, its sensory evaluation, and domestic as well as international production — are more comprehensive than what many schools offer. 

“The state schools don’t teach semester-long courses in France, Italy, Spain or California,” says Wong. “The only place you can get that information is at the community college level or through private education.”

Now, her inbox is flooded with emails from prospective students inquiring about the program, many of them young and from diverse backgrounds. 

The courses will be open to students as young as 18, thanks to Assembly Bill 1989, the “Sip and Spit” law passed in 2015 and adopted by Cabrillo in 2022. It allows adults 18 to 20 to taste wine in an academic setting. 

Other programs in the state don’t prioritize sensory evaluation, but Wong has made it a cornerstone of her curriculum, incorporating it into every class she teaches. This is crucial to students who want to pursue careers in the wine industry as soon as they leave high school, she explains: “It’s a huge priority, because it’s a skill you can either acquire over 20 years, or you can train over a period of four semesters and be significantly ahead of your peers.” 

Wong jokes that she loves to attract students from chemistry, biology and horticulture: “Once students take a wine class, quite often, their first wine class is the beginning of their career.”

FOR THE RECORD: A previous version of this story misstated Deborah Parker Wong’s title. She is the wine studies instructor.

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.