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COURSE DESCRIPTION

Wine is very simple; it is the fermented juice of ripe grapes. It is what happens when you leave crushed grapes alone with the wild yeasts that naturally cling to them. The idea of wine, however, is very complicated and hotly contested. How should wine be made, where, and by whom? How should wine be consumed and on what terms? Making sense of the battle for the idea of wine requires us to try to understand the problem using many of the disciplines of the liberal arts, especially history, geography, natural science, economics, and politics.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

To understand the local and global political, economic, and social forces that shape wine production and consumption; make analytical connections across disciplines to develop a well-rounded understanding of wine; …and become informed, engaged, and critical thinking consumers of wine.

NOT YOUR RUN-OF-THE-MILL RESEARCH PAPER 

For one assignment, students write an analysis of a wine region of their choice in the form of a travel guide, choosing an issue they care about and showing how traveling to the region would illustrate their perspective on it. Ly says: “I always get all kinds of cool angles, from climate change to the role of migrant workers in wine regions to LGBTQ+ owned wineries and more. It's always fun to see what they come up with, and this kind of personal take is what I hope they embrace.” 

THE PROF’S VIEWPOINT

“This course was created by Mike Veseth ’72, founder of the IPE program, because wine is such a powerful lens through which to understand many local and global issues. I took over when Mike retired to build on this idea and show students that by engaging with wine, they can explore and connect the dots between many economic, political, and social phenomena they already care deeply about. I want students to feel empowered to find their own diverse ways of connecting with the wine world, and I am fascinated every semester by how they each use the class to make sense of the wines around them.”

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Ly adds: “I took over Mike's course at the time my wife and I started a project to research the rise of the Chinese wine industry, which turned into our 2020 book Adventures on the China Wine Trail, then translated and updated in 2023 in Spanish as Aventuras en la ruta del vino de China. Everything I learned about the Chinese economy, I learned by traveling China's wine regions. So I know firsthand the power of wine as a lens through which to understand important issues that are far bigger than wine itself.”

Classes for a Changing World is a regular feature in Arches that spotlights one of the scores of inspiring, innovative, and timely courses offered each semester at Puget Sound.