Newark Star Ledger Features Monmouth University's Vineyard (NJ)

Monmouth University's vineyard project sparks student interest in fine wine
By Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger
December 16, 2012 at 8:00 AM, updated December 16, 2012 at 8:06 AM

MONMOUTH COUNTY — The fledgling vines taking root on a hillside in West Long Branch are small and bare and don’t look like much yet.

But in a few years, their grapes are supposed to make the first 300 or so bottles of Monmouth University’s own wine.

The project — dubbed the MU Vineyard — was planted this spring by students at the private college. The rows of vines on the lawn of the university president’s house are designed to be a living laboratory for science students. Once the first vintage is ready, campus officials hope art majors will design the labels and marketing students will help sell the bottles.

Though most college students know more about beer than fine wine, biology major Mitchell Mickley said his classmates at the 6,500-student university are excited to see a vineyard taking root on the edge of campus.

"Their faces kind of light up when they hear about it," said Mickley, 21, a junior from Howell who helped plant the vines.

Pedram Daneshgar, an assistant professor of biology in his third year at Monmouth, came up for the idea for the vineyard after attending a conference where he heard that creating a campus-wide project could be used to teach students across majors.

Wine was the first thing that came to mind, the assistant professor said.

"I wanted to do something I thought kids would be interested in. So, I picked wine growing," Daneshgar said.

Monmouth University President Paul Gaffney offered to let students use the lawn of Doherty House, the presidential residence, to plant the vines. The spot was perfect because it is secluded and the gentle slope will allow water to drain, Daneshgar said.

Because students provided free labor, the university spent only about $2,000 to buy and plant 100 vines, campus officials said. They ordered 1-year-old Cayuga White and Chambourcin vines from a New York grower, because the red and white varieties have been grown successfully in Monmouth County.

The vineyard is expected to grow more costly in three or four years when the first grapes are ready to be harvested and made into wine. University officials hope donors will fund the fermenting and bottling equipment needed to make the site a full-fledged winery.

Janet Giunco, one of the owners of 4JG’s Orchards and Vineyards in Colts Neck, thinks their chances are good..

Giunco and her husband, an adjunct professor at Monmouth’s business school, are serving as consultants on the project. They gave students a tour of their 40-acre vineyard, a tutorial on the basics of wine making and advice on which grapes to plant.

Giunco, a member of the Garden State Wine Growers Association, said she was excited to see students learning about wine production.

"New Jersey’s wine growing industry has been growing exponentially," Giunco said, noting the state’s wineries have doubled to nearly 50 in the last decade. "We need talent to run them and maintain them."

Monmouth joins several colleges around the country planting vineyards as teaching tools. Napa Valley College in California and Cornell University in New York run sizeable vineyards. A group of Oregon community colleges also broke ground on a $7 million teaching winery a few years ago.

Other schools with wine-making majors, called viticulture and enology, plant vines for research purposes.

Before approving the vineyard idea, Monmouth University administrators said they weighed whether it was wise for a school to get into the alcohol business.

"Part of our messaging to college students is the legal and responsible use of alcohol. We ought to be modeling that at all times," said Michael Palladino, dean of Monmouth’s School of Science. "This is mature, responsible use of alcohol."

The vines are each expected to produce between 8 and 12 pounds of grapes a year. But the Monmouth students have already run into several challenges. The wind and rain from Hurricane Sandy stripped the vines of their leaves in October, though the plants did not appear to suffer any long-term damage. The vines were also infested with Japanese beetles, forcing students to set traps and remove the insects from the plants by hand.

It remains unclear whether the Jersey Shore campus, located about a mile from the Atlantic Ocean, is the right environment to grow grapes. Campus officials said their are lessons to be learned from the experiment, even if the vineyard fails.

"It’s all part of the learning curve," Palladino said. "It’s going to be fun for these guys, either way."

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http://www.nj.com/monmouth/index.ssf/2012/12/monmouth_universitys_vineyard_project_sparks
_student_interest_in_fine_wine.html#incart_river_default