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Wine

alumni tour photo
Summer 2023

A tour of Spain with Cougar winemakers

When the former executive director of the Washington State University Alumni Association asked Melanie Krause (’00 Spanish, Biol.) and Joe Schnerr (’99 Chem.), founders of Cinder Wines in Garden City, Idaho, near Boise, to design a trip for WSU alumni through northern Spain, they didn’t hesitate.

Not only are they proud Cougs, they’ve already visited the Rioja region, which “grows a lot of tempranillo, one of our focus grapes at Cinder. It’s also close to Basque country, and Boise has a lot of Basque descendants, so it’s a good fit for us on several levels,” says Krause, who “picked out beautiful coastal parts of Basque … » More …

Summer 2023

Cougar X winemaker Cameron Rushton (and his wine tasting tips)

Cameron Rushton is happy to sip other winemakers’ whites. But when it comes to crafting his own wine, he sticks to his specialty: robust reds.

Rushton (’10 Hort.), co-owner and assistant winemaker at Five Star Cellars in Walla Walla and creator of Cougar X, makes the wines he especially enjoys pairing with a juicy steak. Cabernet franc tops his list of varietals. Merlot is right up there, too. He also likes tempranillo, malbec, and sangiovese—big, bold, highly ageable reds.

“I don’t make a lot of white,” he says. “I’d rather drink everybody else’s”—Poet’s Leap by Long Shadows Vintners, for example. “I … » More …

Bus at WSU Prosser
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 …