Maynard Amerine In His Own Words

Professor Emeritus, Maynard Amerine (1911-1998) joined the UC Davis Division of Viticulture in 1935 and retired in 1974. As a junior enologist, he was hired to work with Professor A. J. Winkler to improve the quality of grape varieties grown in California. From this modest beginning, Maynard Amerine became known throughout the world as a foremost wine expert through his research, travels, and lectures on wine and grape growing.

California, just coming out of Prohibition, had yet to become the world-class wine growing region it has developed into. Against great odds, Amerine acknowledged that, “the wine industry has become respectable in my time. The major accomplishments of the wine industry are that it has increased the quality of its raw product and its making of that raw product into wine. Immeasurably. And the industry has become respectable.” Much of its success has come from the work of Maynard Amerine.

The exhibit was drawn from the Maynard A. Amerine Papers which includes travel diaries, historical photographs, a map of his travels, and selections of his writings. The library recently converted historical video tapes to digital files. You may listen to class lectures for “Sensory Analysis of Wine” and view a brief description of his papers.