Producing wines with distinct flavors and styles is the theme of the Fourth International Symposium on Cool Climate Viticulture and Enology, to be held July 16 to 20 at the Riverside Convention Center in Rochester. Sponsored by the American Society for Enology and Viticulture/Eastern Section, Cornell's Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y., and the New York State Wine and Grape Foundation, the conference will attract hundreds of researchers, grape growers, winemakers, wine marketers and serious enophiles to participate in an event unprecedented in size and scope for North America. The cool climate symposia were initiated in 1984 and were last held in Mainz, Germany, in 1992.
The principal organizer of the Rochester symposium is Thomas Henick-Kling of the Department of Food Science and Technology and the Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva. One of the world's foremost experts on malolactic fermentation, he directs the station's Enology Research and Extension Program where, he said, his aim is to make "the latest scientific and technical information available to members of the wine industry by providing room for fruitful discussion in different formats with researchers" from around the world.
Station viticulturist Bob Pool and food scientists Terry Acree and Bill Edinger are actively involved with the symposium's organizing committee. They will be participating in the symposium with grape geneticist Bruce Reisch, horticulturist Alan Lakso, librarian Peter McDonald, Director Jim Hunter and integrated pest management specialist Tim Weigle from the Vineyard Lab in Fredonia.
Program areas will include regional environments, wine stress physiology, ecologically sound grape and wine production methods, flavor development, wine economics, wine marketing, wine sensory attributes, and the genetics of grape and wine production. Hands-on workshop/seminar formats will cover such topics as sparkling wine production, yeast and bacterial starter cultures, information management, vineyard mechanization, wine aroma defects, flavor adjustment in the vineyard, wine marketing and wine sensory analysis.
Speakers at the symposium will include Richard Smart and Patrick Williams (Australia), Bernadette DuBose and Vincent Gerbaux (France), Wolf Sponholz and Freiderich K. Zimmerman (Germany), Peter Botos (Hungary), Johann Marais (South Africa), Werner Koblet (Switzerland) and Mark Kliewer and Robert Wample (United States).
A trade exhibit will run concurrently with the symposium, which also will include receptions and dinners featuring entertainment, fine foods and -- naturally -- excellent wines from cool climate growing regions around the world.
For further information on the Fourth International Symposium on Cool Climate Viticulture and Enology, contact the Agricultural Experiment Station at (315) 787-2417 or see the symposium's Web site at http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/fst/faculty/henick/asev/cool-climate/.