Sacramento State is literally at the gateway to Amador County, perhaps California's next great wine region. The university is strategically located west of Placer and El Dorado County wineries, northwest of Amador, north of the Lodi region, and east of Napa and Sonoma Counties. This is more than just a location surrounded by wineries - not uncommon for most major cities in California. The uniqueness Sacramento has is that Napa and Sonoma are the country's most established wine appellations, with Amador and Lodi at earlier stages of development, and Placer even less established. There is a living time-line of wine and wine tourism development for students to observe and research, and industry professionals to learn from. In addition, a short twenty-minute drive from the Sacramento State campus is UC Davis, with its brand new Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, built to support the nation's top-rated program in viticulture and enology.
With this new course, California Wine Tourism, Sacramento State has finally become involved in the rapidly growing wine industry, focusing on the tourism side of the industry, rather than on wine business, wine tasting or wine making. It is a natural fit for the Department of Recreation, Parks and Tourism Administration.
Official Course Description: Introduction to the wine tourism industry in California, with an emphasis on marketing wineries (including diversity in wine marketing), wineries as event stages (tableaux), marketing related agri-tourism products, wine destination “pull” factors, and winery retail. The course will also examine wine mythology, culture and ritual, the role of the sommelier, wine region geography, wine science, and wine tourism impacts (social, moral, economic, agricultural and infrastructural). Includes field trips that do not involve wine tasting.
Photo Credit: Greg B. C. Shaw
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