Alcoholic Beverage Industry

Wine

Wine has been made by humans for over eight thousand years. First made from wild grapes, today wine is produced from grapevines grown in cultivated vineyards. Vineyards produce not only wine grapes but fresh table grapes and raisins for eating as well. It takes the scientific knowledge and artistic craftsmanship of a well-educated vineyard manager and wine maker to create the finest wines.

The way wine smells and tastes depends on the grapes from which it is made, the alcoholic fermentation, and the processing and aging of the new wine. At harvest, wine makers have the following responsibilities: deciding when to pick the grapes, scheduling delivery to the winery, overseeing crushing and pressing, and monitoring the fermentations. After fermentation, wine makers must choose from the many options to finish a young wine. They supervise the winery staff to complete the different wine processing steps, such as the transfer of the wine to other vessels (racking), clarification (fining), filtration, blending of different-flavored wines, and bottling. They are responsible for assuring wine quality by sampling, tasting, and chemical analysis. Production and sale of alcoholic beverages is strictly regulated by the state and federal governments, and wine makers must keep accurate records of the wine produced to ensure that the winery complies with these regulations.

Vineyard managers direct the harvest operations by guiding the vineyard crew and harvest workers. The managers are responsible for making decisions about new plantings, the support structure (trellis) for new vines, as well as their pruning after harvest. The managers prepare schedules for water and fertilizer application, control vine pests and diseases, oversee vineyard experiments, and coordinate the sampling of grapes in the vineyard to determine ripeness prior to harvest.

While there is no official certification for wine makers or vineyard managers, students majoring in viticulture and enology (the science and technology of grape growing and wine making) must develop both broad theoretical skills and in-depth technical knowledge, as well as excellent communication and problem-solving skills. Both prospective wine makers and vineyard managers need a comprehensive preparation in plant biology and microbiology, mathematics and statistics, chemistry, biochemistry, and physics. College course work focuses on the underlying scientific principles so that the students can understand current wine industry practices. These students are required to take an array of specialized courses on such subjects as vineyard establishment and management, grape development and composition, wine sensory evaluation and instrumental analysis, and winery design, as well as management, marketing, and economics. By taking local and overseas internships, students obtain valuable real-world experience from practicing enologists and viticulturists, and critically apply their understanding to create their own innovative styles and practices.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the grape harvest (crush) occurs usually between the end of August and the beginning of November, depending on location, grape variety, and weather. Intense, physically demanding fourteen-hour days (seven days a week) are to be expected during the peak of crush. In the off-season, wine makers have become increasingly involved in the business aspects of the winery, which means they enjoy a significant amount of traveling to promote their wines, as well as public speaking and other marketing activities. The vineyard manager attends to the vines year-round and is in constant communication with the vineyard crew and the wine maker to ensure the best grape quality and yield.

As wine makers and vineyard managers deal with the production of an alcoholic beverage, they serve as role models to coworkers and consumers, educating them about the responsibilities and consequences associated with its consumption. Winegrowers enjoy teaching an appreciation for the challenges of growing an agricultural crop, good stewardship of their farmland, and respect for the great technical and artistic challenges to create a beverage that is highly regarded worldwide.

Today, wine grapes are grown in countries with moderate climates around the world, often in scenic places, especially along coastal valleys and major rivers. Living in a beautiful environment and being able to taste the fruit of one's labor are among the most rewarding aspects of becoming a successful, and sometimes famous, wine maker or grape grower. This greatly compensates for the intense seasonal workload during harvesttime and a relatively modest starting salary. The annual salary depends a lot on the size of the winery. In 1999 the average salary was $28,000 to $64,000 for assistant wine makers, $49,000 to $112,000 for wine makers, and $37,000 to $64,000 for vineyard managers. Starting salaries were around $25,000 for qualified graduates with a bachelor's degree to $35,000 for those with a master of science degree.

Beer

Beer was probably first made by the Egyptians at least five thousand years ago, possibly as a variation of baking. There is considerable evidence of beer being used in religious rituals, for sacrifice, and also in medicines. Beer is made from malt that, in turn, is made from barley. Barley is steeped (soaked) in water and then permitted to germinate with constant turning and aeration for four to five days. It is then dried and heated (kilned), which imparts the delicious flavors of malt. In the brewery, malt is milled and mixed with hot water (known as mashing), which extracts the starch in the form of sugars. This "wort" is then boiled with hops to add bitterness. After cooling, yeast is added and fermentation creates alcohol and carbon dioxide and a myriad of desirable flavor compounds. After aging to clarify and stabilize the beer, it is packaged and pasteurized for sale.

The malt beverage industry comprises three interdependent industries: brewing, malting, and hop supply. Although some brewers grow hops and make malt, the malt and hop industries are generally independent. These industries are dominated by a few giant companies who have an international reach.

The malt and hop industries employ students trained in plant sciences because these businesses grow, store, and use living plants. Employees must maintain good working relations with growers of barley and hops and advise them as well to assure that malting barley is planted and nurtured correctly. Superior barley is selected and purchased upon harvest. The storage and manufacture of malt or hop products, their analysis and processing to a final product, and research and sales, also tend to involve plant scientists although a broader range of skills, including chemistry and engineering, are required. Finally the malt and hop industries maintain cordial relations with the brewers through technical sales and services.

Professional employees of these industries are therefore in the field with farmers, in the processing plants, in the analytical laboratory, or on the road visiting customers. Good communications skills are necessary. Such employees in these industries are relatively few, and there are no large pyramidal management structures for steady upward mobility and advancement over many years. Experienced employees, however, are valued and well compensated, because they build important relationships with growers and customers. Entry salaries tend to be modest although good for the sometimes rural locations of the work.

Barley for malting tends to be grown close to the Canadian border, from Minnesota to Washington, where the malt houses (factories) for making malt are also located. Hop growing and processing is concentrated in the Pacific Northwest.

Brewing companies are much less likely to seek plant scientists for employment. They tend to seek graduates in food science, food engineering, or chemical engineering. For specific tasks of laboratory analysis, those with experience in chemistry or microbiology might be required. The reason is that by the time the malt and hop products reach the brewery they have lost their identity as plant materials and are now simply bulk commodities with specified properties for the process of making beer.

Brewers work in large plants operating sophisticated machinery in which huge volumes of a highly perishable product are processed. Much of the work is computerized. Brewers are dedicated to following well-established operating procedures for consistent production of a high-quality product in the brew house, fermenting and aging cellars, and packaging plant, as well as using standard methods in the laboratory for analysis of the product.

There are no specific training programs for the malting and hop industries; programs in cereal science and plant science, however, are broadly applicable to the field. Similarly, training in brewing science is restricted to one university, the University of California at Davis.

Christian E. Butzke

Michael J. Lewis

Bibliography

American Journal of Enology and Viticulture. [Online] Available at http://www.ajev.com.

American Society for Enology and Viticulture. [Online] Available at http://www.asev.org.

Bamforth, Charles. Beer: Tap into the Art and Science of Brewing. New York: Plenum, 1998.

Boulton, Roger B., Vernon L. Singleton, Linda F. Bisson, and Ralph E. Kunkee. The Principles and Practices of Winemaking. Frederick, MD: Aspen Publishers, 1999.

Fetzer, Pat. "1999 Salary Survey." Practical Winery and Vineyard 20, no. 4 (1999): 6-15.

Hardwick, William A., ed. Handbook of Brewing. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1995.

Hough, James S., D. E. Briggs, R. Stevens, and T. W. Young. Malting and Brewing Science, 2nd ed. Frederick, MD: Aspen Publishers, 1981.

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UC Davis Dept. of Viticulture and Enology. University of California at Davis. [Online] Available at http://wineserver.ucdavis.edu.

Winkler, Albert J. General Viticulture, 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1975.