UBC Reports | Vol. 47 | No. 02 | Jan. 25, 2001

30,000 bottles of wine to be on walls of library

Facility designed to bolster B.C.'s young wine industry

B.C. wineries are delivering 22,000 bottles to UBC where it will be determined which of their products will improve with aging and how they stack up against the world's best.

A 117-square-metre Wine Research Library is being constructed in the basement of UBC's Food and Nutritional Sciences Building at 2205 East Mall. The wine industry is financing the $500, 000 facility whose heavy oak doors will officially open this summer.

Another 8,000 bottles of international wines are being donated to posterity and future prosperity by people who will receive a tax receipt for the full market value.

After extensive discussion with the province's wine industry the university is establishing the B.C. Chapter of the Canadian Wine Library, says Agricultural Sciences Prof. Hennie van Vuuren, director of the B.C. Wine Research Centre (BCWRC) at UBC.

"Young B.C. wines will be evaluated and analyzed annually to provide vital information our industry needs to consistently achieve outstanding quality," he says.

"The Wine Research Library is one example of how our faculty is being transformed to contribute to the economy and environment through advanced research and education," says Agricultural Sciences Dean Moura Quayle.

A special vinotheque in the library will house the premium international wines. Their aging will be compared to the same varietals from B.C. and graduate students will analyze all wines to exacting standards using state-of-the-art-technology. Wines will also be tasted annually by an expert board of directors which is currently being appointed.

"Systematic analysis will help us better understand wine complexity and quality," says Virginia Marks, a BCWRC graduate student who can't wait to uncork and share the secrets in a donated $450 bottle of 1970 Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou Saint Julien Medoc.

"For Canadians to create an exceptional wine industry, researchers must have access to the widest possible diversity of vintages, varieties, qualities and regions," adds John Husnik, another of the centre's graduate students.

"It will be a spectacular and unique facility," says van Vuuren.

BC's young wine industry comprises 60 wineries producing more than 300 wines.

The B.C. Wine Research Library at UBC will be the world's only collection of an entire wine-producing region's wines.

Van Vuuren adds that donating fine wine is a wise investment.

"Donors are making a significant -- as well as a 100 per cent tax deductible -- contribution to the world of wine."

For more information e-mail hjjvv@interchange.ubc.ca.

See also: Century's best Chardonnay to uncork $1-million prize