Student Life

Fifty years ago, a blind tasting in Paris quietly rewrote the story of California wine. On May 24, 1976, a panel of nine French judges, convinced that California wine could not compete with Bordeaux or Burgundy, scored it higher than both. The Judgment of Paris put Napa Valley on the map and changed the way the world thought about American winemaking.

On the evening of May 22, 2026, five student teams gathered in the Robert Mondavi Institute's Food Innovation Lab with one shared ingredient, KARANA GROUND jackfruit, and five very different ideas about what to do with it. 

On April 26, 2026, the Sensory Theater at the Robert Mondavi Institute filled with students, alumni, researchers, and industry leaders for the 3rd Annual Women+ in Wine Symposium, titled Rooted and Rising: Lessons in Resilience for a Changing Wine Industry.

Iron Brew is one of those UC Davis traditions that sounds almost too good to be real. Every winter, students in FST 102B Practical Malting and Brewing spend weeks formulating recipes, brewing batches on nanobreweries in the RMI pilot brewery, and competing for the chance to have their beer produced commercially. 

Past winners, including Off the Clock, Caledonian Nights, Mighty Gale Ale, and Brew La-La have gone from campus fermentors to taps at The Gunrock, Sudwerk Brewing Co., and now Dunloe Brewing . 

On Saturday, May 2nd, 2026, 83 students, faculty and staff from UC Davis gathered at the RMI Sensory building for the first Student Symposium on Food Justice. This gathering sought to unite students who are dedicated to a food system that nourishes both people and the planet and support our collective efforts to advance justice in our food system.

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On May 11, 2026, certified sommelier, debut author, and change agent in the world of wine and beverage, Cha McCoy came to UC Davis with a mission to reframe how we think about wine, food, and who gets a seat at the table.

At the end of January, the Robert Mondavi Institute hosted Coffee Unfiltered: Thinking Outside the Cup, where coffee industry experts spoke to the coffee-curious about coffee’s origins, history and perception over the decades, and offered their predictions for the future. While pondering what could be next for coffee, what was clear above all was the deep connection coffee enthusiasts have with this beloved beverage, not only as a drink, but as a culture.

This February, the Robert Mondavi Institute's Sips and Bites series welcomed two professors from UC Davis's Department of Viticulture and Enology. 

Dr. Andrew Waterhouse is a professor emeritus, holder of an honorary doctorate from the University of Bordeaux, and an ISI Highly Cited Researcher. Dr. Liang Chen is a newly appointed assistant professor whose résumé includes work at E. & J. Gallo Winery and the analysis of wines that traveled to the International Space Station.