The UC Board of Regents recently authorized plans to build a state-of-the-art research center in which to study wine, beer and food.
The facility will include a research and teaching winery and the August A. Busch III Brewing and Food Science Laboratory. Working with the UC Davis Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, it will host scientific research, student training and industry collaboration.
Construction on the building ‘mdash; which will include a food-processing plant, a dairy-processing facility and a pilot brewery for the department of food science and technology over its 34,000 square feet ‘mdash; will be completed next year. The winery will also house a large experimental fermentation area, controlled temperature rooms for large-scale testing, barrel and bottle cellars, a testing lab and a special bottle cellar for donated wines. A 12.5 acre teaching and research vineyard, along with educational gardens, will be located outside the winery.
‘Our students will be able to learn about winemaking using the most advanced facility, and learn approaches to improve sustainable and precision wine production,’ Andrew Waterhouse, professor and chair of the UC Davis department of viticulture and enology, said in a statement.
Both the winery and the laboratory will be modeled to achieve certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design through the U.S. Green Building Council. The winery will be the first in the world to include sustainability features such as onsite solar power generation, rainwater capture and water conservation and carbon dioxide containment and removal for sequestration.