Making Arkansas Wine Better with Time in Austria

WINE SCHOLAR — Amanda Fleming, a Ph.D. food science student, was awarded an Austrian Marshall Plan Scholarship to study at Graz University of Technology in Austria this spring. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo)

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A future chapter in Amanda Fleming’s story as a winemaker and researcher takes her to Graz University of Technology in southeast Austria.

Fleming, a food science Ph.D. student in the University of Arkansas’s Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, recently received an Austrian Marshall Plan Scholarship to strengthen her research on wines made from American native muscadine grapes, Vitis rotundifolia, and traditional European wine grapes, Vitis vinifera.

She leaves in March for four months at Graz.

Making wine better

“My goal is to assist wine producers and grape growers in the southeastern United States make wines comparable in quality to those made from Vitis vinifera, and to ultimately improve public perception of hybrid and native wine grapes,” Fleming said.

To do this, Fleming will assess the impact of co-fermenting the two types of grapes with various treatments to improve flavor, aroma and color stability. She’ll also evaluate different strains of Lachancea thermotolerans, a yeast that is used to improve acidity, aroma and flavor attributes of wines produced from Chambourcin, a French-American hybrid that grows well in humid climates like Arkansas.

Austro-American relations

The scholarship, offered through the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation, provides academic exchanges between students at U.S. and Austrian universities to foster Austrian-American relations in the spirit of the post-World War II Marshall Plan, and to strengthen scholarly and scientific cooperation. The scholarship is awarded to students at U.S. universities conducting research for their bachelor’s, master’s, or Ph.D. thesis at the University of Graz, or degree students at University of Graz conducting research at a U.S. institutions of higher education.

Although an Austrian Marshal Plan scholarship was awarded to food science master’s student Andrea Myers in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic halted the program. Fleming will be the first researcher from the university’s food science department to participate in the program since Sarah Mayfield in 2019.

From west to east

Prior to working on her doctorate in enology, or wine chemistry, Fleming was a winemaker at Post Winery in Altus and spent a decade working at wineries in California’s wine regions, mainly Napa and Sonoma. She is originally from Greeley, Colorado.

In Austria, Fleming will work with Erich Leitner, an analytical chemist at Graz who has established relationships with the University of Arkansas over the years through Renee Threlfall, a research scientist in enology and viticulture for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. Fleming said Scott Lafontaine, assistant professor of food science and flavor chemist with the experiment station, also helped solidify the connection.

“Dr. Leitner is really well-known as an analytical chemist who studies volatiles in beverages and foods, but he has a specialty in wine and some great state-of-the-art equipment,” Fleming said.

A family adventure

Threlfall said Fleming’s research results could be beneficial to a later phase of the multi-state project called “Vitis x Muscadinia,” which is co-directed by Threlfall and supported by a $7 million grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Fleming will retain her status as a student and research assistant in the food science department.

Joining Fleming on the four-month adventure in Austria will be her husband, Jacob, and their 4-year-old daughter, Vivian. Her husband is an artist-illustrator.

“Aside from the exciting research experience, we are thrilled to try new foods and wines, see museums, and travel on the weekends,” Fleming said.