The University of Adelaide’s new wine label was launched at the Waite Winery last Friday by The Hon. David Ridgway, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries and University Vice Chancellor Professor Warren Bebbington.

While not a commercial enterprise, the University makes over 400 different wines from sparkling whites through to fortified wines and liqueurs for research and teaching purposes, many of them of high quality.

“The Hickinbotham Roseworthy Wine Science Laboratory at the University of Adelaide’s Waite campus was built in 1996 and has been the hub of the University’s proud history of teaching, research and collaborative activity in wine science ever since,” says Dean of Waite campus, Professor Mike Keller.

“We’ve been producing premium wines here at the Waite for almost twenty years. This new label provides a clean, polished and professional identity for a quality product made by our winemaking team with the help of students – a product that the University can be very proud of.”

Professor Bebbington spoke about the importance of the Waite wine programs to the wine industry. “Wine education started at our Roseworthy campus with the Australia’s first oenology qualification in 1936 and, over the years, has produced many of the biggest names in wine-making in the country,” he said.

“Today the Waite campus is home to Australia’s premier winemaking and wine science programs, which have now trained a generation of this country’s best winemakers, viticulturists and wine scientists. These highly-regarded wine programs now attract students from all over the world.

“The collaboration that the University of Adelaide has with our partners at Waite is an important one – both for the University and for the industry.”

University chief winemaker Stephen Clarke provided an overview of the wines available under the new label, many of which were available for tasting and enjoyed by the attending guests.

The launch of the new label coincides with the first showing of plans for expansion and refurbishment of the winery with the aim of making it the best facility in the world for students and researchers working in the wine and allied sciences.

“The Hickinbotham Roseworthy Wine Science Laboratory is the cornerstone of our teaching and research around the winemaking process,” says Vladimir Jiranek, Professor of Oenology and Director of the ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production.

“When it was opened almost two decades ago it was arguably the best facility of its kind in the world. But at that time it was servicing 20 students and a six tonne vintage.

“Now we have close to 100 students using the winery each year and a vintage of about 120 tonnes. The demands on our winery are intense and the opportunities to develop new approaches and technologies around all aspects of winemaking require an expanded and more sophisticated facility.

“The University of Adelaide is helping the industry meet future challenges and we need to build a winery to match.”

The new wine label was developed by the University’s Marketing and Communications team.

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