As New Mexico’s wine industry prepares for its 400-year anniversary, Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) wine production classes will prepare students to join the winery’s needed workforce.
CNM already offers an associate of applied science in beverage production and management with two distinct concentrations: One in brewing and one in distilled spirits. Next year it will start another in wine. Many students choose to do more than one certificate or more than one concentration. The brewery program was launched in 2016, the spirit program launched in January of 2023, and the wine program will launch in January of 2024.
Antonio Fernandez, a full-time instructor with the beverage production and management program at CNM, tells The Paper. the new facility is already decked out with equipment normally found “in any full-size professional winery,” including crushers, wine presses and fermentation tanks as well as more scientific equipment.
“We have a very well outfitted micro lab with all of the fancy equipment for measuring everything that needs to be taken care of for producing high quality beverages for testing, alcohol pH, and microbiological testing,” Fernandez says. “We even have a machine that does comparative DNA testing to see if you have COVID or other things that we can use for testing for wild yeast or bacterial infections in the beverages.”
Cultivation of vineyards in New Mexico dates back to nearly 400 years. Today, the Land of Enchantment’s wine industry is thriving and rapidly expanding. The 2022 National Economic Impact Study of the Wine Industry shows that New Mexico’s more than 50 wineries produced 900,000 gallons of wine, generating over $1 billion in revenue. As the state moves towards celebrating the industry’s 400-year anniversary in 2029, a large workforce need is being created among wineries across the state.
Anticipating the need for qualified winemakers as the industry grows, New Mexico Wine approached CNM about creating a formal education program for the industry. The wineries were looking for professional development opportunities for their staff, so that they could learn, grow and be promoted from within.
CNM rose to the challenge and expanded their beverage program. With support from New Mexico Wine, they created the educational environment and curriculum needed to learn the knowledge and the skills to break into the industry, and also help those that are in the industry grow their businesses.
“Many wineries look outside New Mexico for their workforce and we wanted to make sure that New Mexicans have the opportunity and access to get the training and education that they need to fill these jobs,” Victoria Sanchez Martinez, associate dean of CNM’s beverage production and management tells The Paper.
In 2019 CNM broke ground on a new beverage facility expanding their existing facilities by renovating about 10,000 square feet and adding an additional 10,000.
Sanchez Martinez says as students finish the program, they can go right into the industry prepared to work. Embedded within the associate of applied science degree are a beverage management certificate for those students who are interested in managing tasting rooms and a wine technology certificate. The wine technology certificate program teaches wine production and equipment styles, maintenance, winery operations, seller operation, food, safety and workplace safety.
CNM works very closely with an advisory committee of wine industry representatives, including Executive Director of New Mexico Wine Chris Goblet and several of his board members.
“Our industry partnerships are really vital to the success of our program,” Sanchez Martinez explains. “They’re the ones who help inform some of the decisions that we make on equipment and keep us on track with trends and needs of the industry.”
Sanchez Martinez says CNM has created a real-world experience in the classroom by making sure that they’re teaching students what they need to know.
“We want to be able to retain that talent and support the industry. If our wineries want to grow and they want to be able to hire folks and to hire them at wages that are meaningful, then we need to help them grow by providing them with that talent,” she says. “By supporting the workforce, we support the wine industry.”
A CNM wine studio tour on Thursday, Nov. 30 is an opportunity to meet wine professionals and learn what their wine program has to offer. An introduction to winemaking provides attendees with a basic understanding of the winemaking process and explains how courses at CNM provide the skills necessary for success in the wine industry. Along the tour participants will sample wine while discussing various topics. Email info@nmwine.com for additional details.