{"id":67472,"date":"2020-08-11T11:16:38","date_gmt":"2020-08-11T15:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=67472"},"modified":"2020-08-11T15:27:47","modified_gmt":"2020-08-11T19:27:47","slug":"faculty-focus-debbie-inglis-on-uncorking-a-life-of-wine-in-niagara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2020\/08\/faculty-focus-debbie-inglis-on-uncorking-a-life-of-wine-in-niagara\/","title":{"rendered":"FACULTY FOCUS: Debbie Inglis on uncorking a life of wine in Niagara"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: Faculty Focus is a monthly series that highlights faculty whose compelling passions, innovative ideas and various areas of expertise help weave together the fabric of Brock University\u2019s vibrant community. For more from the series, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking for a good wine recommendation, there\u2019s likely no one better to ask than Debbie Inglis, Director of Brock University\u2019s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI).<\/p>\n

But for Inglis, who is also a core scientist in CCOVI and Professor of Biological Sciences, a truly special wine is a well-integrated oaked Chardonnay. It was one of the first grapes she ever planted and tried.<\/p>\n

Inglis, whose Brock career has spanned more than 20 years, spent the first few years of her life with her parents and two older brothers in Port Dalhousie, while the family owned and rented farms across the Niagara region. In 1981, the family moved to their farm in Niagara-on-the-Lake fulltime, allowing Inglis and her siblings to experience growing up on a vineyard and being introduced to the grape and wine industry at an early age.<\/p>\n

Inglis and her husband, Rob, along with their two 140-pound Leonberger dogs, Piper and Lachlan, live on that same farm today, which still houses an active vineyard.<\/p>\n

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Inglis’ dogs, Piper and Lachlan, enjoy the shade provided from the farm’s trees.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cAs a youngster, you don\u2019t really appreciate what the farm brings to you, but we always farmed together,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Her mother organized the vineyard\u2019s hand labour crew, a job that Inglis and her brothers did together. As they got older, they graduated to driving tractors and doing implementation work. They planted their vineyards at a time before tractors had GPS tracking, requiring the use of tension wires and hand planting.<\/p>\n

As with many working farms, it required the entire family\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of teamwork and comradeship came from that,\u201d she says. \u201cIn addition to further solidifying that family unit, it also brought in a lot of our friends from the region. That extended to my mom\u2019s friends who were looking for work throughout the summer and some of my dad\u2019s friends when they were out of work.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the \u201970s, the grape and wine industry was changing profoundly by moving from juice and hybrid grape production to vinifera grape production, a higher quality of grape used in premium wine production.<\/p>\n

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Inglis (second from left) and her friends often spent summers working on her family farm.<\/p><\/div>\n

While working on the farm was Inglis\u2019 summer job throughout high school and university, she didn\u2019t see herself there long-term. After receiving her PhD in Biochemistry from McMaster University, she worked in her field of study for several years until the company she worked for in Burlington relocated its operations to California.<\/p>\n

Inglis\u2019 roots, however, were in Niagara.<\/p>\n

She decided to stay, and the timing aligned almost simultaneously with CCOVI\u2019s opening.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family was still actively grape farming and my dad said, \u2018There\u2019s this great new initiative opening at Brock. You should see if there is an opportunity there.\u2019 Inniskillin Hall hadn\u2019t even opened its doors yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inglis decided to pursue her post-doc at CCOVI while working with a yeast researcher. Two months later, the researcher left to pursue another opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had this brand-new research facility about to open and didn\u2019t have a wine yeast person ready to occupy the lab,\u201d she says. \u201cI was asked to stay for a one-year contract. I was thrilled and it led into further opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inglis developed her research program around yeast issues during fermentation, concentrating on a topic pivotal to the Canadian wine industry \u2014 Icewine. In 2008, she was named Director of CCOVI, and in 2010, she was crowned Grape King, which represents grape-growing excellence in Ontario and helps promote the province\u2019s grape and wine industry.<\/p>\n

CCOVI, an internationally recognized research institute, focuses on the research priorities of the Canadian grape and wine industry. In addition to industry targeted research, the institute provides continuing educational and outreach services of the grape and wine community in innovative ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cCCOVI is breaking down barriers and doing things a little differently which requires change,\u201d says Inglis. \u201cChange isn\u2019t always easy to implement, but when you have a vision and teamwork, you can work through those challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working through challenges, she says, has been made easier by collaboration with a variety of partners across the University.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I really value at Brock is the collegiality, teamwork and joint enthusiasm that goes into the multi-functional parts of any operation and initiatives like CCOVI,\u201d says Inglis. \u201cIt goes beyond your faculty consortium. It\u2019s the administrative support staff, senior lab demonstrators, teaching assistants science stores personnel, office of research services, marketing and communications experts and interacting with other units for assistance and opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re looking for a good wine recommendation, there\u2019s likely no one better to ask than Debbie Inglis, Director of Brock University\u2019s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":67473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3319,41,1,4],"tags":[49,61,855,3746,8634,348],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67472"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67472"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67489,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67472\/revisions\/67489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}