WSU competes favorably with UC Davis in Viticulture & Enology!

Over lunch yesterday at ZINO Vino Liquid Assets Forum, our ZINO Society sponsor partner, Washington State University, provided the content for the lunch discussion.  Dr.  Thomas Heinick-King, WSU Professor and Director of Viticulture & Enology spoke about the breadth of the Enology program offered at WSU.  I was not aware until yesterday that WSU now has a Viticulture & Enology program as large as the one at UC Davis!  Dr. James Harbertson, Assistant Scientist of Enology at WSU then spoke about the actual Science of Wine:  Tannins and Astringency, showing diagrams of cells and molecules and comparing the tannin levels in two different Chateau Ste. Michelle wines.  We had the chance to compare and contrast in the glass between the 2007 Columbia Crest Reserve Merlot and 2007 Columbia Crest Grand Estates Merlot.  When Dr. Harbertson asked us which wine did we think had more tannin, most of the audience seemed to figure it out correctly (but we did have a pretty sophisticated wine-drinking audience at the event).  What was especially interesting to me is that the Reserve Merlot had two and one-half times the amount of tannin as the Grand Estates Merlot.