Plumpton College are pleased to announce the Wine Division will host their inaugural Annual Industry Research Symposium, which will take place as a webinar on Friday 18th February 2022.

The UK’s Centre of Excellence in Wine Education, Training, and Research, has selected ten recently graduated students from across their three major courses to share research and subsequent insights into the English and Welsh wine industry

Dr Greg Dunn, head of Plumpton Wine Division commented
“Good applied research underpins the profitability and success of agricultural industries, including wine industries, around the world. The UK wine industry is both small and young in comparison to other industries. While it behoves us to learn from other research being done in other wine regions, there is a role for local, contextualised research and development that is cognizant of our unique conditions and specialist products.”

He continues “An important component of any of our degrees at Plumpton is the research project. It allows the student some freedom and creativity and demonstrates an ability to independently develop research questions and conduct, analyse and report on the outcomes. Although these projects are necessarily short term, they can provide extremely useful insights and knowledge to industry.”

The research papers will be delivered by the student and hosted by the program managers for BA (International Wine Business), BSc (Viticulture and Oenology) and MSc (Viticulture and Oenology), in turn. At the end of each presentation, webinar guests will be invited to ask questions and discuss implications.

The Plumpton Industry Research Symposium is open to anyone working in the UK drinks industry.

To register your interest please sign up here:

SYMPOSIUM TIMETABLE

Welcome

09:00 – 09:15 Dr Gregory Dunn (Curriculum Manager, Wine)

BSc (Wine Production) – Dr Akshay Baboo

09:15 – 10:15 Effects of vineyard management on flavour and aroma compounds in Bacchus (Tamasine Herriott)

Clonal evaluation of potential fruitfulness in Chardonnay across sites in a UK vineyard (Samantha Williams)

Recreating ancient recipes, and winemaking techniques in a modern-day context: roses, citrus leaves and amphorae (Hannah Quayle)

BA (International Wine Business) – Paul Harley

10:30 – 11:30 Impact of Covid-19 on the English and Welsh wine industry presented (Lucy Sawyer)

The Effects of Covid-19 on English Wine Producers (Andrea Quirrenbach)

The barriers of trading fine wine in the on-trade (Edmund Cole)

MSc (Viticulture & Oenology) – Dr Heber Rodriguez

11:45 – 13:00 “This wine makes me feel…” – An investigation on consumers emotional reaction to sustainable wine (Charles Negus)

Have the Wines of the New World and Old World become more difficult to differentiate? With an Initial Exploration of why that may be so. (Philip Hedger)

English Sparkling Wine vs Champagne: A study examining the impact of the “Champagne Effect” on English consumers’ perception (Neil Walker)

Determining whether blending before MLF impacts the kinetics, the chemistry and the sensory analysis of base sparkling wines in the UK (Zoe Driver)

Summary

13:00-13:10 Simon Thorpe MW (CEO WineGB)