Published 2:56 pm Tuesday, May 27, 2025
For 25 years, the wine studies program at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Ore., has provided hands-on training for future winemakers, vineyard managers, cellar workers, lab technicians and tasting room professionals.
That highly trained workforce has produced outstanding fruit with fewer farming mistakes, as well as great wines, said Paul Davis, program director.
“We have a huge list of alumni out in the industry,” Davis said.
A celebration of the Chemeketa wine studies program’s 25th anniversary is set for 1 to 4 p.m. June 7 at Chemeketa Cellars.
The event will include exclusive barrel tastings, sabering demonstrations, behind-the-scenes winery tours and a station where guests can bottle and label their own wine.
The college also will debut its 25th anniversary traditional method sparkling wine crafted by the program’s students.
More than a dozen alumni will pour samples of their wines.
For more information or to purchase tickets, go to https://www.chemeketacellars.com/Barrel-Tasting.
The Chemeketa wine studies program has about 80 students enrolled every term. Some are already working in the industry and looking to level up, while others are younger.
The program has 8 acres of vineyards, where students manage 11 varieties of grapes, as well as its own winery and tasting room.
Students harvest 25-30 tons a year, processing half the grapes and selling the rest.
Only about 750 cases of Chemeketa Cellars wines are produced annually.
“We have limitations based on our labor force, which is students,” Davis said.
Davis said the grape to glass experience is helpful in Oregon, which features more than 1,000 wineries, many of them small businesses.
Students often want to create boutique wineries where they grow their own fruit, process it and sell their wine themselves.
Many Chemeketa wine students continue their education at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore., with its fermentation sciences program, or Linfield University in McMinnville, Ore., which focuses more on business aspects of wine.
Chemeketa also partners with the University of Bordeaux in France and students can study overseas for a year.
Megan Jensen, Chemeketa wine studies program coordinator, venue manager and tasting room manager, said students enter their work in wine competitions every year.
“It definitely boosts their confidence,” Jensen said.
Almost every wine Chemeketa has ever submitted has received an award.
“It’s really great for the students to see their wine holding its own with wine from all over Oregon and all over the country,” Jensen said.
For the first time this year, the college is offering its noncredit vineyard operations classes in Spanish to meet the needs of the industry’s growing Hispanic workforce.
“Providing it in their native tongue has opened up a great opportunity for them to continue their education,” Davis said.
He hopes the Spanish language classes will continue in subsequent years.
The program also installed new equipment for creating traditional method sparkling wines this year.
Davis thinks the Chemeketa wine studies program will continue to grow and expand its offerings.
