Classroom to Bottle: Tales of Cross-Cultural Winemaking
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Practical Information:
Location:
730 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA 94111
Cost:
Free but RSVP required
REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED AS THIS EVENT IS FULL
This year for our holiday celebration, swissnex is pleased to welcome the director and two alumni of Switzerland's enology and viticulture school, Ecole d'Ingénieurs de Changins. Our guests discuss differences between Swiss and U.S. winemaking techniques, marketing culture, and business models, and how these differences actually complement one another. This is best illustrated by our speakers' own professional pathways, which brought them to Changins in Switzerland and to winemaking careers in California and Oregon. Of course, we cannot talk about wine without tasting it. We welcome you to sample wines from Switzerland and from Alpha Omega winery in Napa. Please make sure you register early as participation is limited. Festive attire.
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Jean Hoefliger | |
| | Jean Hoefliger was born and raised in Switzerland. His experiences took him from his home country to Bordeaux to South Africa, making wine at esteemed estates including Chateau Lynch-Bages, Chateau Carbonnieux, and Meerlust. He completed a winemaking and viticulture degree at the Swiss federal school of Changins, then spent five years as winemaker for Newton Vineyard in California before joining Alpha Omega. His passion, knowledge, innate ability, and scientific training put him in a unique position to take the best grapes from Napa Valley and transform them into world class wines. |
Krista Fast-Merlier | |
Krista Fast-Merlier, originally from Oregon, graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science in 1997. After teaching science for a year, her passion turned to winegrowing when she worked in a tasting room for a summer. She spent the next nine months traveling and working in several wineries in New Zealand, Oregon, and Burgundy (France), an experience that turned into a year-long internship. She began studying enology and viticulture at Changins, where she received her Engineer of Enology/Enologist degree in 2006 and was immediately hired by the school to work in research. Along with her enology research, she taught classes in viticulture and assisted with the creation of Changins’ Summer University exchange program with Cal Poly and Fresno State. Last summer, after seven years in Switzerland, Krista moved back to the U.S. with her French husband and young son to be closer to her family and continue her career in the Oregon wine industry. | |
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Founded in 1948 and located in Nyon, near Geneva, the University of Applied Sciences Changins is Switzerland's only viticulture and enology center. The school offers several training programs designed to meet the wide variety of needs in the field and has three schools: enology, viticulture, and arboriculture.
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