With the first rain of the season in Davis this week, we turn toward winter with optimism.

From UC Davis News and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Dear RMI Supporter,

This month we celebrate the return to traditions, but with new safety measures.

In-person classes start this week, and there is a welcome buzz of students on campus. Face coverings change the landscape of smiling faces, but the energy and enthusiasm are still palpable. 

From UC Davis News and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Dear RMI Supporter,

From UC Davis News

If consumers cannot tell the quality of a product when they buy it, it can drive high-quality products, like a good French wine, out of the market. Consumers would not pay a premium, and producers would have no incentive to make costly quality improvements. This widely held economic tenet, formalized in a famed article by Nobel Prize-winner George Akerlof, suggests that without standards, consumers could be left with mostly “lemons,” such as defective used cars.

Dear RMI Supporter,

So much has shifted since our last newsletter in May. We have considered your survey suggestions and have set the wheels in motion for our fall programs.

Since COVID-19, socially distanced, virtual, and remote functioning has become the norm. Many people, businesses, and institutions have had to scramble to adapt to this new way of life. However, Wine.com has been unknowingly prepared since it was founded in 1998 with its expansive digital shop and focus on bringing wine and spirits right to the consumer’s door.

Ironically, the same night that I attended the Robert Mondavi Institute’s virtual forum titled “Growing Real Beef Without the Moo: The Future of the Cultured Meat Industry,” my dinner plans included cooking ground beef to serve with a pasta dish I was making. After spending the night learning about cultured beef, I was about to cook conventional beef, and I could not look at it the same way. I now had a deeper appreciation for the meat in front of me and a new education on the growing food demands our world is facing.

The solution to the growing food demand? Cultured meat.

Looking for an easy A with a happy hour? Don’t enroll in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California-Davis.

“A lot of students come here thinking they’re going to get to taste a lot of wine,” says Andrew L. Waterhouse, director of the Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science and professor of enology.

I think fermentation is amazing. Majoring in viticulture and enology, I hear about the process of fermentation in my classes almost every single day. After all, without fermentation, we would not have wine. However, fermentation impacts more than the process of winemaking; it is used in beer, pickles, cheese, yogurt, kombucha, and so many other foods.

I’m Kendal Koorenny, a senior in the UC Davis Viticulture and Enology program who has been given a fun and exciting task: giving a student’s perspective on events hosted by the Robert Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine Science.