By Scott Weybright, CAHNRS

When then-18-year-old Andrew Gerow packed his car to drive from his home in Michigan to start at ���سԹ�, he knew what he wanted from his education.

Gerow said he visited the before enrolling and “I knew immediately that I wanted to attend WSU.”“I’ve always loved anything to do with art and science,” said the Grand Rapids, Michigan native. “I literally stumbled upon����online, and I couldn’t get it out of my head.”

Three years later, Gerow, who will graduate in December 2020, has been named the Wine Spectator Wine Science Student of the Year.

“I was shocked when Dr. Henick-Kling told me,” Gerow said. “That was a great Zoom call because they tricked me, saying that they wanted to talk about my Blended Learning projects.”

Thomas Henick-Kling is the director of WSU’s Viticulture and Enology program.

Blended Learning is the program’s hands-on winemaking class that culminates in the production of commercial wines made by students. It has been Gerow’s favorite class so far during his time at WSU.

“The discussions about wine varieties, tasting different varieties to see what we like and what we don’t, then talking about how to produce what we want, it has been fantastic,” Gerow said. “I was involved in four projects, and two will go to market in the near future.”

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the timeline for Blended Learning releases hasn’t been determined yet. But when they do come out, Gerow will have two Rieslings and a rosé on his wine resume.

“I’m really happy with the results,” he said. “The timing is off, they were supposed to be bottled a few weeks ago, but they will eventually be available.”

“He’s an impressive student,” Henick-Kling said. “He’s graduating in three and a half years, and will make great contributions to our industry.”Gerow earned the student of the year honor, and corresponding scholarship, through his high academic achievement, his initiative and engagement with other students in Blended Learning, and his great follow-up work with the partner wineries, Henick-Kling said.

Gerow has worked in three wineries (two in Washington, one in Traverse City, Michigan), and two vineyards. He’s spent time in tasting rooms pouring and selling wine, and in the cellar.

His goal is to gain international experience after graduating by working in Australia or New Zealand.

After getting some more hands-on experience, he also plans to attend graduate school to further his formal wine education.

“My ultimate goal is to own a medium-sized estate winery one day,” Gerow said. “There is so much to learn when it comes to wine and winemaking. The balance between art and science is incredibly addicting and I can’t wait to keep learning.”

���سԹ� the Wine Spectator Scholarship Program

The Wine Spectator Scholarship Program was developed in 2018 thanks to a generous contribution from the Wine Spectator Scholarship Foundation.�� Each year, $99,000 is awarded to outstanding V&E students. Congratulations to this year scholars:

Wine Spectator Student of the Year

• Andrew Gerow

Wine Spectator Undergraduate Scholars

• Megan Meharg
• Jordan Culpepper
• Ava Pearson
• Autumn Miller
• Erin Lopez
• Christopher Gutierrez
• Bayli Picker
• Dalia Montero
• Yaritza Gomez
• Michael Nunnelee

Wine Spectator Graduate Fellows������������������

• Lindsey Kornowske
• Bailey Hallwachs

Gratitude and humility: Those traits don’t often define a 4.0 GPA student who has created his own blockbuster wine, and who holds the honorific of Wine Spectator Student of the Year. But those are precisely the traits that describe Noel Perez (’20).

A first-generation college student and the middle-child of three, Noel grew up learning the twin values of hard work and education in Washington’s Walla Walla valley.

“Agriculture has always been part of my life,” Perez said. “When I was a kid I would go with my parents to go pick apples, onions, asparagus, and cherries.”

His first foray into the wine-making business began shortly after high school in a facility that processed some 24,000 tons of grapes annually. He loved every part of the job, and could have easily made a comfortable living in that part of the industry.

But when his father passed away, Perez knew he had to go back to school. Having completed the College Cellars program at Walla Walla Community College as the youngest in his class, Perez entered WSU’s Viticulture & Enology Program in 2017.

“Education was a way to honor all the hard work my father and family had instilled in me,” he said.

Unlike most people who enter the wine industry at an older age—often as a second career, or following a military deployment—Perez quickly discovered that his years of hands-on experience afforded him the benefit of perspective.

“I did the backwards path,” he joked. “If you want to get into the wine making industry,” he added, “go do a harvest first, before you step into a school. Then you’ll know if it’s in your heart or not. The job is far more than wine tasting. There is a lot of blue-collar work involved.”

Starting the V&E Program, Perez immediately showed his academic prowess, winning scholarships such as the Walter J. Clore��scholarship from the Washington Wine Industry Foundation. His love for academics, he said, comes from his mother.

“My mom always said, ‘No matter what you do in life, be educated. Push through.’”

Honoring his mother’s charge, Perez set out on his most ambitious project yet: making his own wine��in WSU’s Blended Learning class, taught by Thomas Henick-Kling, professor and Director of the V&E Program.

“I wanted to make something different,” he said. “So, I proposed making a Sangiovese for the school before I graduated. I couldn’t let myself leave here without doing that.”

Settling on that particular wine was significant because no other student in WSU’s V&E Program had yet made it.

“Noel’s Sangiovese was one of several projects students carried out in several wineries that year,” Henick-Kling said. “Noel knew where to source excellent fruit and how to make an outstanding wine from it.”

Still, the��bar was very high. “All wines produced in the Blended Learning class must be excellent,” Henick-Kling added.

“I’ve produced a lot of wines,” Perez allowed. “But nothing with my name on the label. So, I put my whole heart into it.”

Because Sangiovese is one of his favorite varietals for its character and crimson color, Perez knew exactly what he wanted from his signature wine.

“I wanted to make a wine with a little higher alcohol but with a lot of fruity notes and spicy character, but not too overwhelming.”

In the spring of 2019, Thomas Henick-Kling, professor and Director of WSU’s V&E Program, called Perez into his office for a meeting.

“At first, I thought I was in trouble,” Perez joked. Then he thought the meeting might be about his Sangiovese project. But it wasn’t about his signature wine.

“That’s when they told me I was the Wine Spectator Student of the Year.”

Perez was stunned. “I froze,” he said. “I thought they were kidding, because there are so many good students here. I couldn’t believe it.”

In 2017, Wine Spectator donated $1 million to the WSU Viticulture and Enology Program to help establish the resources for teaching, research, and scholarships.��The Student of the Year award includes a $15,000.00 scholarship from the Wine Spectator Scholarship Foundation and is awarded annually to a V&E student in recognition of their academic achievements and contributions to the wine industry.

is a print and online publication, with approximately 3 million readers worldwide.��The flagship magazine��examines the world of wine from the vineyard to the table, exploring wine’s role in contemporary culture and providing expert reviews.

When he told his mother, she was overwhelmed. “She cried her eyes out,” Perez recalled.

But Perez’s backward path to success didn’t end there. Last August, his Sangiovese received top honors and recognition at the����annual Winemaker’s Picnic & Barrel Auction, where it competed handily with the state’s leading labels.

In the end, five cases of his Sangiovese sold for a��whopping��$9,155. The proceeds are part of the total revenue the Auction of Washington Wines raises to support the WSU Viticulture & Enology Program.

When asked what his mother thought of his latest achievement, Perez said, “She told me to stay humble, and to remember where I came from.”

The question now is, where will he go?

“There are so many different options after I graduate. Eventually, the plan is to create my own label, and to create a company where I can take everything I have learned in work and school and bring it all full circle.”

By Brandon Schrand, College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences

RICHLAND, Wash. – When Madeleine Higgins was trying to pay the rent in New York as a struggling fashion writer, she never dreamed that one day she would be interning in a custom-crush facility in Walla Walla, Wash., learning to make wine as a top-student in and garnering national distinction.

A Los Angeles native who grew up in Seattle, Higgins attended Loyola Marymount where she majored in Psychology, minored in English, and sold shoes part time to foot the bills. After graduating in 2013, Higgins landed a job in New York writing for Condé Nast’s��, though she quickly found herself living in an unsustainable situation.

“I wasn’t surviving in New York,” she said. “I couldn’t afford to eat.”

It was when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer that Madeleine finally said goodbye to New York and returned to Seattle to be with family. As her mother recovered, Higgins started selling shoes again, helping out where she could.

“It was during this time I realized that writing wasn’t going to happen for me,” she said. “I don’t think I had enough passion to move through the difficulty of getting started. That’s when a chance encounter changed everything.”

A winery tour that changed everything

Higgins said she had a family friend who worked for , and that hearing someone from the industry talk about wine was very interesting. The conversation led to a private tour of the Woodinville, Wash. winemaking facility.

“I was really inspired by that particular tour,” she said.

In researching winemaking as a career, she was immediately drawn to WSU’s viticulture and enology program. But it was still a big decision. Then her mother gave her the push she needed.

“She told me to jump in and go for it,” she said.

Empowered by her mother’s courage and triumph, Madeleine moved to the Tri-Cities and started classes in 2016, ready for the challenge.

“I can say that I have always worked hard, and in my family—we’re Irish—hard work is one of our things,” she said.

Hard work pays off

Over the last three years, her hard work has yielded great success. Beyond maintaining a high grade-point average, Higgins completed a research assistantship, won Best Undergraduate Poster at the Washington Winegrowers Convention, created a wine for WSU Blended Learning at and secured a coveted internship with in Napa Valley this summer.

Then this spring, she was named����Student of the Year, an accolade that comes with a $15,000 scholarship from the magazine’s scholarship foundation.

The honor, Higgins said, validates all the 5 a.m. routines of checking Brix, the grapes’ sugar content, in Walla Walla that turned into late nights at the studying phenolic compound structures, in addition to all the weeks of research with no days off in between her internship and school commitments.

But above all, she said the recognition told her that all her hard work and leap into a new life was worth it.

Looking back, she credits the program’s faculty for what she has accomplished.

“They are incredibly supportive,” she said. “At WSU, I have access to some of the most important wine researchers in the world.”

Life comes full circle

Many aspects of her life are now coming full circle, she said. Having once written for a magazine, she is now being honored by one. And after completing her internship in Napa Valley this summer, she plans on traveling to New Zealand.

“The same family friend who first introduced me to wine has a daughter there and a lot of wine connections,” she said.

In New Zealand, she said she wants to learn by comparison.

“The only way for me to make an impact is to learn what other wine regions are like,” she said.

But ultimately, she intends on making that impact at home.

“Washington is a really innovative place for wine making, she added. “Someone told me it’s the ‘rock and roll of wine.’ I love the idea of being a part of that.”

Learn more about�� at .

RICHLAND, Wash. – The Wine Spectator Scholarship Foundation will donate $1 million to the Washington State University Viticulture & Enology Program, the first of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. Announced at the annual Auction of Washington Wines Gala on Aug. 19 in Woodinville, Wash., the donation will be dedicated to teaching labs and facilities as well as scholarships for viticulture and enology students.��

Half of the $1 million donation will support the build-out of the Life Science Teaching Laboratory at the Ste. Michelle Wine Estates WSU Wine Science Center,����— a state-of-the-art facility that is one of the most technologically advanced wine science centers in the world and attracts exceptional researchers and students — on the ���سԹ� campus in Richland, Wash. The remainder will fund viticulture and enology student scholarships, $100,000 every year for five years. In recognition of the Wine Spectator Scholarship Foundation’s gift, the atrium of the Wine Science Center will be named in their honor: The Wine Spectator Atrium.

Wine Spectator, , is a print and online publication, with approximately 3 million readers worldwide. It examines the world of wine from the vineyard to the table, exploring wine’s role in contemporary culture and providing expert reviews.

“We are elated to have the support of such a pre-eminent authority on wine,” said WSU President Kirk Schulz. “Wine Spectator Scholarship Foundation’s generous donation is an investment in the WSU viticulture and enology program and showcases the caliber of research work that is at the forefront of our Drive to 25,”

“Washington State University has demonstrated a leadership position in wine education in the United States, and we are therefore proud to recognize the university’s high achievement with our commitment,” said Marvin R. Shanken, editor and publisher, Wine Spectator.

Washington wines are recognized for their quality and value, evident through data published by Wine Spectator magazine. For the past six years, Wine Spectator has rated more Washington wines 90 points or higher and at a lower average price than any other wine-producing region in the world.

WSU’s viticulture and enology program,��,�� is a comprehensive education and research program that prepares students for successful careers in the wine industry and supports the needs of the region’s winemakers and grape growers. Multidisciplinary, science-based, and hands-on, the viticulture and enology program offers students technical, scientific, and practical experience in every aspect of the grape-growing and winemaking process.

 

Media contact:

Marta Coursey, director, WSU CAHNRS Communications, 509-335-2806 marta.coursey@wsu.edu

Kaury Balcom, WSU Viticulture & Enology, 509-572-5540,��kaury.balcom@wsu.edu

Lori Rosen, Wine Spectator, 212-255-8910,��lori@rosengrouppr.com