If you wonder how big winemaking has become between the coasts, here’s one good indication: Indiana’s land grand university, Purdue, is offering wine industry employees wanting to enhance their knowledge, skills, business and careers, and serious noncommercial winemakers looking to take their pastime to the professional startup level.
Purdue’s online Winemaking Certificate course is an affordable, compact, yet comprehensive review of commercial winemaking principles and practices. It includes six progressive modules covering ground from grape to glass.
Topics covered range from a critical review of winemaking techniques, styles and traditions to advice on aging, stabilization, filtration, bottling, and shelf-life optimization. Portions of the curriculum focus specifically on winemaking in Indiana and the Midwestern and eastern United States, but much of it is applicable to wineries anywhere in the world.
“The class accommodates different skill and experience levels, and all participants will gain new knowledge and refresh their existing knowledge, even if they have taken other winemaking classes already,” said Christian Butzke, Purdue’s wine professor, who developed and teaches the Winemaking Certificate course.