SRCJ's Shone Farm Winery blends education, grapes

Santa Rosa Junior College is not only one of the best deals in higher education, it is also a working winery.

The Shone Farm Winery is a small-scale operation run on the college's 365-acre farm in the Russian River Valley, about 4 miles northeast of Forestville.

Students and faculty raise grass-fed cattle and lambs, grow about 14 acres of fruits and vegetables. And next Saturday they are holding a free winetasting to celebrate the release of the school's second vintage.

Shone Farm grows about 60 acres of Russian River grapes, which for years it has sold to wineries such as Benziger, La Crema and Ravenswood.

In 2008, with help from high-profile volunteers, the college began using some of its grapes to produce wine under the college's new label. Shone Farm Winery lets the college both extend the classroom into a working winery and provide greater recognition to its agricultural endeavors, said Chris Wills, the campus winemaker.

"Part of having this winery is developing the Shone Farm brand," Wills said. "The other part is education. The students are involved in everything."

It released its first vintage in November, consisting of 23 cases of chardonnay. Next Saturday it will release 72 cases of of sauvignon blanc, 88 of chardonnay and 26 of ros? The goal is to eventually produce up to 200 cases a year.

Students do everything from helping with the crush to bottling and designing wine labels.

Joe Hansen, 40, began taking viticulture classes at the junior college in 2006 as a part-time student. For Hansen, it was a way to move from wine lover to wine creator. "Everything there is hands on," said Hansen, a Kenwood resident. "That's how you learn. You learn by doing."

Hansen owns Green Acres Manor, an elderly care home. He took his winery knowledge and planted grapes on his property and produced his own wine.

"I actually produced my own chardonnay '09 vintage," Hansen said. "It's like the culmination of my classes."

Other students are recent high-school graduates looking to land jobs in the wine industry, Wills said.

"I have wineries calling me asking for employees," he said.

The college is in the midst of tweaking its vineyards and intends to remove its merlot and pinot blanc and increase plantings of syrah, pinot noir, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc, Wills said. The change includes planting an additional 10 acres of grapes, and the prospect of running a profitable operation.

"Once everything comes into production, we'll be sitting pretty," Wills said. "We'll hopefully be running a surplus and giving back to the college."

The college cannot legally operate its own winery, so it created a foundation that obtained state and federal permits. Board members include Teejay Lowe, chief executive of G&G Markets, who said the program focuses on premium wine production.

"The premium wine business is different in size and approach than other operations," Lowe said.

Students are taught the practices of high-end operations that focus on smaller batches, versus the larger operations in the Central Valley, Lowe said.

Wills, who teaches the wine production classes, spent 20 years in the wine industry as a winemaker for Korbel and others. He said the program is still in its infancy and continues to grow and expand. "There is a lot of potential up here," he said.