World Wine Program. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

There is a lot more to the wine industry than growing a few grapes. In fact once the wine is bottled, the real process begins and that is where the World Wine Program comes in.

MUMMA: Our program here focuses on the global business of wine so we don’t train people to grow grapes or make wine. We train people in the other 75% of the industry such as marketing, branding, public relations, retail distribution, import/export those types of areas

That’s Amy Mumma, Central Washington University’s program coordinator who founded the program in 2003.

MUMMA: Our academic track includes a full Bachelor of Science in global wine studies. We have a minor in wine trade and tourism and we have a 15 credit professional trade certificate.

I love a glass of wine but really can’t distinguish a lot of the individual components and Mumma says they can teach you.

MUMMA: We do a lot of training for he wine industry such as marketing and branding classes, classes on business as well as we are heavy into palate training both in our academic and our trade programs where we really teach people how to professionally and hopefully objectively analyze their wines.

You can get more information on the World Wine Program by going to the Central Washington website. More tomorrow.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.