College Named after Father of California Wine's Grandson  

By C. MacDonald

Santa Maria, California--Capt. Allan Hancock was a noted California sea captain, land developer, oilman and philanthropist, who leased his property for $1 a year to a Junior College here in 1954. Four years later, voters approved a bond measure to purchase the land and build additional buildings on the campus, they renamed Allan Hancock College.

Recently, that college gained fame for its agribusiness program and was officially bonded to sell its very own wine, appropriately called Captain's Reserve,” in honor of Allan Hancock, whose grandfather--Agoston Haraszthy—was The Father of California Wine.” Agoston, from Hungary, founded the state's first commercial winery--Buena Vista—in Sonoma and built the first stone winery building. The business flourishes to this day.

I'm sure both Agoston and Allan would be extremely proud of the college's current agribusiness program, which offers Associate in Arts degrees in Viticulture, Winemaking and Wine Business and now sells its own wine. The program has a huge potential,” said Alfredo Koch, Ph.D., who once worked in his family's vineyards in Argentina. It's so important to California, the main winemaking state in the country.”

The educational experience is incredible,” said Nick Refice, a second year Viticulture and Enology student at Hancock, whose grandmother owned a 20-acre winery in Temecula. It's so exciting to think that our school's namesake's roots go back to ‘The Father of California Wine.' I'm learning so much here about the whole business of wine—from the fields to the processing to the marketing.”

Students from around the world come to Hancock to seek degrees in the program, which has four acres of practice vineyards in its outdoor classroom on campus as well as in a nearby Los Alamos field, near Highway 101. Captain's Reserve offers 11 varieties of wines, including Bordeaux, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Money from the sales of wine goes back into the school's agribusiness program. You can Google the college to find out where to purchase the wines, whose popularity is taking off.  In Southern California, they're already a popular item at the 70-year-old, legendary Lucci's Italian-American Deli, 8911 Adams Ave., Huntington Beach.