Beverly Tepper, PhD - Rutgers University, Department of Food Science

Putting classroom theory into real-world practice, Beverly Tepper, PhD in nutrition and professor of sensory science at Rutgers, became a vineyard owner and winemaker in 2016. Tepper and husband Mark Pausch, a yeast molecular biologist, were “looking for the next chapter,” she says. Her academic specialty is the science of taste, and the couple’s compatible, wine-oriented skill sets, plus a piece of available agricultural property down the road from their house, inspired them to start developing Avventura vineyard and winery. Avventura’s central New Jersey location, in Allentown, hasn’t traditionally been the state’s wine country, but “there are vineyards popping up all over,” Tepper says. “It’s an extraordinary time to be involved in wine in New Jersey.”

Tepper is currently developing her vines and navigating the slow bureaucratic process of opening a winery in New Jersey, to be called Crosswicks Creek Winery; at the moment she can make wine only for personal use and is using her driveway as a crush pad. But along the way she’s found another hugely influential way to contribute to the wine industry in the state. There are “huge gaps in the workforce development in New Jersey,” she says. Unlike New York or Pennsylvania, the state had no college or graduate level viticulture or oenology programs. To meet this need, she launched a month-long summer Grape and Wine Science Certificate program through Rutgers, now in its second year, and over time hopes to develop the program into a regular credit offering to undergraduates or graduates. Like making wine, it’s not a process that happens overnight.

Crosswicks Creek Winery at Avventura Vineyard
Allentown
crosswickscreekwinery.com