Skip to main content

Quit your job. Palo Alto College is now offering a wine-making degree.

Growth of Texas wine industry has created a demand for skilled workers

SAN ANTONIO – Palo Alto College is offering its first viticulture and enology program, which will show students grape-growing and wine-making.

ā€œThey’re going to be learning how to grow grapes, how to propagate them, how to properly manage them, treat them, how to find disease,ā€ said Yessica Labay, a professor at Palo Alto College.

Labay said students will also get hands-on experience with grapes. The school will eventually build a vineyard next to the community garden on campus.

Colleges leaders saw that the wine industry was growing and wanted to get their students involved.

ā€œThey knew that there was going to be a demand for labor skilled workers that actually knew how to treat those vines,ā€ Labay said.

According to the Texas Wine & Grape Growers Association’s Economic Impact Study, in 2017, the Texas wine industry generated nearly $13.1 billion in economic activity.

One of the program’s partners is Bending Branch Winery, which is located in Comfort.

ā€œIt’s really going to serve a need for our industry. We need more skilled labor in our industry,ā€ said Jennifer McInnis, general manager of Bending Branch Winery.

The winery was established in 2009. McInnis said the business started with just a couple thousand cases, and now, the winery is producing about 20,000 cases a year.

She said there are several job opportunities in the wine industry.

ā€œThere's winemakers, assistant winemakers, enologists -- who are really the quality control in the winery. Then there's also vineyard management, vineyard labor, to actually manage the vineyard to prune, to plant, to harvest,ā€ McInnis said.

Students can earn an associate of applied science in viticulture and enology from Palo Alto College.