Midwesterner Teaches Winemaking in Napa

Paul Gospodarczyk has made wine in several states, plus New Zealand.

Napa, Calif.—A few eyebrows raised when Napa Valley College hired a Midwestern vintner as head of winemaking for its respected Viticulture and Winery Technology Program, but a closer look at Paul Gospodarczyk’s background—and meeting him—quickly dispels any questions about his qualifications.

Gospodarczyk comes to Napa from the Des Moines Area Community College, where he served as associate professor and program chair for its viticulture and enology program.

There, he dealt with native and hybrid grapes, not the fine European grapes grown in Napa Valley. He jokes, “I have experience with the sweet wines that are attracting many new wine drinkers,” but his experience is far broader. He was a cellar rat at Wine by Joe in Oregon, Stone Bluff Cellars in Oklahoma, Villa Maria Estate in New Zealand and Crooked Creek Cellars in Cortez, Colo. Gospodarczyk holds a master’s degree in agricultural education with an emphasis in food science from Iowa State University and a bachelor’s degree in fruit science and enology from Missouri State University.

He also has taught at Rend Lake College and Northeast Iowa Community College and has been an instructor in wine microbiology and sensory science for the Viticulture Enology Science and Technology Alliance (VESTA).

In addition, Gospodarczyk is among a small group of winemakers also certified as a sommelier by the Court of Master Sommeliers.

He is also owner/director of Today’s Wine Professional, a consulting firm that aims to convert first-time visitors to wineries into life-long customers. It increases winery tasting room sales through ‘web-based’ and ‘on-premise’ training programs focused on providing customer service and executing wine sales.

He has established nine wineries and worked on a project basis with other clients in sensory analysis, laboratory development, operations training, stability testing, refrigeration installation, gravity-flow utilization and formulation of excellent tasting wines. Continuing to support industry Gospodarczyk steps into big shoes. The two-year college has developed a strong local reputation for training workers for more than 30 years under the guidance of viticulturist Dr. Stephen Krebs and, for the past eight years, with enologist Bryan Avila.

Speaking in the busy Napa Valley Vintners Teaching Winery during harvest, Gospodarczyk shared his thoughts about the wine program and his interests.

The new professor regards this position as his dream job. “I wanted to be an enology educator,” he said, and where better to do it than the most famous winemaking region in the United States?

He notes that the majority of participants in the winemaking program are nontraditional adult students, and many are seeking specific skills—not certificates or an associate’s degree in winemaking. Some already work in the industry, while others may be considering a career in wine or establishing their own winery.

A few might regard this as a first step toward a degree at the University of California, Davis, California State University, Fresno, or California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, but some of the viticulture and winemaking classes don’t transfer—though general classes like chemistry and biology do.

Gospodarczyk says the college hopes to add a full-time viticulturist, but the program already calls on a strong cadre of experts from the wine industry to teach many of its classes.

The college has 5 acres of vineyards, and all are used in making wines—some of which are sold to raise money to support the program. The vineyard is planted at a relatively cool location in southern Napa Valley and includes Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir as well as two vines each of 30 varieties in a living library.

The wines are sold through the winery and at a few stores in the area, though Gospodarczyk would like to expand to some restaurants and other retailers, too. He wants students to learn about marketing as well as making wines, skills they’re likely to find important in a winemaking career.

The college’s teaching winery contains small versions of commercial winemaking equipment, not home winemaking tools. “Students gain experience on real-world equipment,” he notes. They can even learn to drive forklifts.

“Our job is to support the industry,” Gospodarczyk said. “We can respond to their needs.”

It should be noted that Gospodarczyk’s passion for teaching has reached beyond enology, too. In 2010 he received a Volunteer Service Award from President Barack Obama for helping establish a tropical fruit-processing facility in Tacuba, El Salvador. Tacuba is home to subsistence farmers and is one of the most impoverished regions of that country. The processing facility was established to stimulate the local economy by creating a market for farmers’ small harvests.