The summer school, involving universities from five countries, will take place at the URV in 2020 via a European mobility project

Students and teachers from five European universities, including the URV, participated in the Summer School on Organic Wine Production in Geisenheim, Germany, from 15 to 27 July. In 2020, the Faculty of Oenology will host the second edition of the summer school.

The three editions of this training activity and the three symposia form part of the project funded by the Erasmus+ programme OENOBIO, which is aimed at student and teaching staff mobility. The first edition took place in Germany, where 30 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral students and 12 professors met to explore the possibilities of what is regarded as a strategic growth area in the wine sector.

European project to improve the professional development and employability of oenologists

For these students, the summer school is an opportunity to acquire new knowledge and share their own knowledge with students and teachers from other European universities, namely the University of Bordeaux (France), which is the project coordinator, the University of Turin (Italy), and the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest (Romania), in addition to the URV and the University School of Geisenheim (Germany).

Together the five higher education institutions, along with the oenologists’ union Bio of Nouvelle-Aquitaine (France) and the wine producers’ organisation Ecovin (German), make up the consortium of the OENOBIO project, which seeks to help students, future researchers and producers to improve their skills and competencies in the field of organic wine production and thus their employability and development as oenologists.

The URV has sent 6 students, Alexandre Bru, Isabel Garcia, Otger Costa, Natalie Perez, Júlia Martí and Candela Ruiz, from its Bachelor’s Degree in Oenology and from the Oenological Research speciality of its Master’s Degree in Fermented Beverages so they can learn about the processes involved in organic wine production. Also participating in the summer school are the professors Paco López and Jaume Gramona.

They arrived at the summer school with the knowledge they had acquired in class and at Geisenheim, they have learnt about the importance of organic wine production for obtaining a “balance between the vine and nature”, explains Alexandre Bru. The school places an emphasis on practical knowledge, “We are outside for half of the course; in 30 hectares owned by the university where we learn about many different types of vine, and different systems for training, pruning and caring for them”. The exchange of knowledge helps the students to “approach concepts and problems in a different way”, he adds.