Fall 2022
BEE happy (and more)
Just a few ways to make WSU Cougs’ palates happy » More ...
Wine
Summer 2022
Nock, nock
WSU alum Andrew Harding and his friend Stephen Amell turned a side trip into a wine business. » More ...
Summer 2021
Passing it on
The legacy of Rick Small and Darcey Fugman-Small at Woodward Canyon Winery continues to the next generation. » More ...
Fall 2020
Heaven so fine
Rob Mercer and his family have deep roots in winemaking and the Northwest. » More ...
Summer 2019
WSU@Prosser
For a century, Washington State University's research and extension center at Prosser has fostered innovations, such as the Rainier cherry, the wine industry, AgWeatherNet, and automated and robotic agriculture. It all started with irrigation that transformed central Washington. » More ...
Summer 2019
Prosser stories
Over a century, Washington State University’s research and extension center has seen a lot of stories and fostered a lot of innovations. Read some of them at these links:
The Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center at Prosser website
HistoryLink essay on WSU Prosser by Elizabeth Gibson (drawing heavily on the essays by Singleton and Proebsting)
AgWeatherNet is the world’s largest public-access weather system updates every 15 minutes via data collected from over 175 stations.
For years, WSU Prosser was the home of WSU’s wine science research. With … » More …
Spring 2019
What’s gone viral?
Grapevine leafroll viruses threatens the wine industry in Washington and beyond, which is why Washington State University researchers like Naidu Rayapati are exploring the way leafroll viruses travel through grape plants. » More ...
Spring 2019
The Wine Club for Cougs
The Wine-By-Cougars Wine Club over the last 12 years has raised the profile of Cougs in the wine industry, engaged alumni, and helped people learn more about wine at WSU. » More ...
Fall 2018
Cornfields to vineyards
“I quit working in 1996,” says master winemaker David “Merf” Merfeld ’13. That was the year he got a job at Bert Grant’s Brewery in Yakima—one of the early craft breweries in the region.
Merf’s passion for fermentation started in his kitchen a few years earlier. He’d driven west to Seattle from the family farm in Iowa. “Thirty, thirty-one hours straight through,” he says, with maybe an “hour stop for a rain storm in South Dakota.” He was in the ’79 Park Avenue his dad gave him: “a great ride, and everything I owned fit in that car.” The first thing he and the buddy … » More …
Fall 2018
Designer labels
Every wine has a tale and deserves a wine label that can tell that story
That’s what motivates Jim Carey (‘78 Comm.) and Jim Craig from Doubleknot Creative in Seattle, a branding and design firm that has carved out a niche crafting the artwork that graces many Washington vintages.
The designers have seen wine labels in Washington evolve along with the varietals and the state’s wine industry as a whole. Washington wines continue to build reputation and credibility, and going against big hitters like California’s Napa Valley, “world-class wine deserves world-class packaging,” says Craig, the creative director of the firm.
Most of all, … » More …