Last February, a sellout crowd of 100 budding entrepreneurs packed a two-day Benton Harbor conference run by MSU's Extension Service, getting a crash course on how to start a Michigan winery. Twenty more would-be participants were turned away because the room couldn't hold any more chairs.

Now suppose one of these future winery owners, or another aspiring Michigan winemaker, wants to study the nuts and bolts of how to make wine, complete with hands-on laboratory sessions to learn the chemistry involved. As things stand today, they couldn't do it anywhere in the state. They'd have to go someplace else -- like Cornell  in New York, the University of California at Davis or, starting this fall, Texas Tech. 

That's the issue raised here last week. While other emerging wine regions invest in their next generation of grape growers and winemakers, will Michigan fall behind because we can't or won't pay to educate our industry's future leaders? 

Until 2005, this wouldn't have been an issue. That's when cash-strapped MSU pulled the plug on Professor Stan Howell's five year old Viticulture and Enology program. In an era of difficult choices forced by budget cuts, the Michigan-oriented curriculum simply didn't turn out enough graduates, a critical metric by which the University judges success.

One reason: as in other emerging wine regions, the program's students were in such demand that many didn't stick around to get degrees but jumped ship early, lured by job offers in the industry. Or as former MSU student and current Chateau Chantal winemaker Brian Hosmer, put it, "They didn't see that it was just getting going. They didn't see what was coming down the line."

Howell, revered as the godfather of Michigan viticulture, retired from MSU a year later. His advanced-level Viticulture and Enology classes and laboratories remain in MSU's catalog as ghost courses -- listed but untaught -- even as his former students populate Michigan wineries from St. Julian to Shady Lane.

This theme repeats itself in recent Michigan history. The state's resource drought has forced a stream of unwanted choices between short-term problem-solving and planning for long-term growth -- and short-term always wins out. The future will have to take care of itself.

A 2005 report by the Grape and Wine Industry Council didn't even attempt to anticipate the state's long-term educational needs, but merely tried salvage what it could to "avoid further cutbacks in programs".  The goal "to train the next generation of industry leaders" finished dead last in the report's list of priorities. More pressing needs, according to the Council: extension programs for existing wineries and growers, ongoing viticultural research, and local, entry-level technical training for those hiring into the industry.

Stan Howell still takes a longer view, and sees the need for a higher standard of education -- both theoretical and localized -- as an essential part of the long-term picture.

"Let's say I grow grapes in the Central Valley of California and the Leelanau Peninsula of Michigan," Howell recently explained to me.

"I'm going to start with the same principles of light interception and photosynthetic rates. But in California, I'm going to create a trellis that shades my fruit, because if I don't they will raisin on the vine, they will fry. In Michigan, I'm going to create a trellis that will get some sunlight on my clusters every day. That maximizes the warmth, and a warm cluster collects more sugar than a cool cluster does."

"We need to home-grow our wine industry," he concluded. "We have unique circumstances that can lead to excellence in our wines, but also certain limits in grape and wine production which present unique challenges. We need to have people educated and trained to appreciate those challenges for our industry to grow."

This is the second of a three-part series, expanded from the originally-planned two parts. Next week's article will look at the future of Michigan's viticulture and winemaking education, with a focus on the new VESTA program.