Adelaide ‘pioneers’ online wine course

More than 30,000 students from 150 countries have enrolled on a free six-week course to learn the art of growing grapes and winemaking.

Named the World of Wine: From Grape to Glass, the course was developed in conjunction with the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine and Adelaide’s e-learning platform, AdelaideX.

The syllabus is focused on educating beginners through to “passionate wine enthusiasts” and covers the principles and practices that underpin grape and wine production and their impacts on wine style and sensory properties with an Australian focus.

The team behind the course, Kerry Wilkinson, Paul Grbin, Cassandra Collins and David Jeffery stated that “more than 90% of students were from outside Australia” with 30% coming from the United States while China, Canada, India and the United Kingdom represented about 5%  enrolments each.

The University also partnered with China’s Tsinghua University last month which is attracting thousands of enrolments through its own online platform, XuetangX.

Wilkinson said the team wanted to deliver a course at a level that didn’t require any prior knowledge of grape growing or winemaking.

“We wanted to take participants on a journey from the vineyard to the winery, and then to the kitchen or restaurant table, thereby giving them greater confidence in their ability to select and discuss wines.”

Wilkinson said the University was looking to re-launch the course next year with virtual field trips through vineyards in the Barossa Valley and to winemaking operations at Yalumba which would allow students to see a commercial winery in action.

“The University of Adelaide is known to be Australia’s No.1 wine education and wine research university so it was definitely something we wanted to be seen to be leading.”