UNIVERSITÉ SAINTE-ANNE
University awarded funds for implementation of a research winery

Université Sainte-Anne is excited to announce that the Research Nova Scotia Trust is awarding $295,205 in funding to professors Karine Pedneault and Gustavo Leite. This funding will build the spaces and physical resources required to conduct the research activities planned in the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's AgriScience Program project announced last summer.

Located at the Church Point campus, the laboratory will include a wine processing room, a fermentation room and cold storage rooms. These installations will allow for the production of white wines from berries of different ripening levels and terroirs. Data collected during production will allow researchers to better understand berry and wine chemical composition, which are important quality indicators. In collaboration with Acadia University, sensory descriptive analyses as well as consumers' preference analyses will be conducted using wine produced in this laboratory.

"The Research Nova Scotia Trust was established by the province to support important research projects like this one. This project at Université Sainte-Anne is a great example of how business and academia can work together to make a real and lasting impact on Nova Scotia's growing wine industry."

- Dr. Colin Dodds, trustee of the Research Nova Scotia Trust

"We are excited to be able to contribute to the development of the wine industry, a priority area for Nova Scotia, and we look forward to seeing the impacts this laboratory will have on our rural communities."

- Kenneth Deveau, Vice President Academic and Research at Université Sainte-Anne

This wine research laboratory will have positive impacts not only on industry but will also serve as a specialized platform for training highly qualified students and forming teams of experts for the wine sector. Paméla Nicolle, a PhD student and specialist in wine chemistry has joined Dr. Pedneault's team in January to bring important contributions to these research projects.