Community revels in wine at

annual fest

By Brent VonCannon
The Collegian

Le Vin Nouveau, the annual French wine festival that Fresno State’s viticulture and enology department tries to replicate each year, made its splash on campus again Thursday night. Several hundred people turned out to pay tribute to the celebration by tasting the various wines the winery is showcasing this year.

“It was Ken Fugelsang’s idea,” Jessup Wiley, marketing manager for the winery and one of the event organizers, said of the plan to start up Fresno State’s observance of Le Vin Nouveau five years ago.

“He wanted to share this tradition that goes on in France. It’s a fun event, right before the holidays. It’s an educational opportunity for the community to come out to the winery and see what goes on here.”
Fugelsang is the winemaster at the viticulture and enology department.

Fresno State’s winery, the first commercial winery to operate on a university campus, offered three Nouveau-style wines for this year’s event: the Noveau Blanc, Nouveau Rouge and Vin d’Une Nuit.

These wines — white, red and rosé, respectively — are spring wines, or those that are released between their harvest and the following spring.

Le Vin Nouveau has its roots in the Beaujolais region of eastern France, a large wine-making area.

Dating back to the 12th century and the Feast of St. Martin, the patron saint of vintners and innkeepers, the celebration marks the end of the wine harvest and ushers in a time of rejoicing. The event is usually observed on the third Thursday of November.

Event-goers paid $10 admission for the chance to taste the various wines and hors d’oeuvres, as well as watch a cooking display by Frederick Clabaugh, executive chef of the Tenaya Lodge at Yosemite.

One of Clabaugh’s creations involved red cherries cooked in brandy and added to vanilla ice cream, a dessert he termed “cherry jubilee.”

Mark Kaigas, a first-year viticulture and enology student, was busy pouring glasses of fig wine to event-goers and finding out their reactions to the taste through a survey.

“It tastes like green olive and is very sweet,” Kaigas said of the year-old fig wine. “We want to know what people think of it as a dessert wine.” Kaigas said guests were offered two drinks of the same wine, each with a different sugar concentration, to see which they preferred.

Wiley said all funds for Le Vin Nouveau come the previous year’s winery revenues. The event is hosted by the viticulture and enology department, Enology Society and Fresno State winery employees.

All wines showcased are all under three months in age, which is one of the main draws of the event, according to Wiley. He emphasized that all the spring wines are made with a slightly different twist, based on the grape and what the company wants to accomplish with each.

“With the Vin d’Une Nuit (Wine of One Night), it’s fermented, we cold soak it for one night, filter it, and then bottled it just two weeks ago,” Wiley said. This process helps the wine retain its fresh fruity character, aroma, and soft tannin structure.

Event organizers have high hopes their efforts will pay off. Curtis Vincent, one of the organizers, said he hopes Le Vin Nouveau leads to increased sales of wine products at the winery and Farmer’s Market. “This event is more promotional than anything else,” Vincent said.

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