Many successful non-professional grape growers throughout the CCCounty have gained a working vineyard knowledge by taking weekend extension courses in Viticulture and Enology at schools like UC Davis, Napa Jr College, Santa Rosa JC, and other JCs. These courses will be of great benefit as you progress in your grape growing and wine making knowledge. The first things they will teach you is sanitation, sanitation, sanitation, and temp control, temp control, temp control. The degree of success you obtain from growing your own grapes and making you own wines will be in direct proportion to the effort you put in to appropriate learning followed by proper installation.
There are also several excellent books and publications on grape growing and winemaking. These are invaluable in that you can learn at your own pace and have ready references to a variety of information. Winemaker Magazine is a must for all small growers and hobby winemakers. Books and guides include:
- The way to Make Wine by Sheldon Warrick which is the go to book for beginning and intermediate winemakers
- Shea Comfort has a series of winemaking tutorials available from the MoreWine website
- Grapes into Wine by Philip Wagner
- Viticulture vol 1 and 2 by Combe and Dry published by Winetitles
- The Guide to Growing Grapes by Wes Hagan is an easy read is very informative and can be obtained via winemaker magazine.
Your board plans to periodically have speakers from the industry lead focused topic meetings on particular subjects which will be published in advance in the online website newsletter. Watch the newsletter to take advantage of these events when they are available.
