Making Wine, Making Winemakers: My Campus Wine Study at Charles Sturt University 🍇📚

Some campuses teach wine. This one is wine. Out in the Riverina, in country New South Wales where the sky goes on forever, sits Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga — home of Australia's first wine science degree (offered back in 1975, when the place was still the Riverina College of Advanced Education) and fifty years of "Making wine, making winemakers." There's a vineyard history on this soil that stretches to 1893, the National Wine & Grape Industry Centre doing research the whole industry leans on, and a working teaching winery whose small-batch label — Boutique Wines by CSU — wears student-life-inspired labels painted by CSU alumnus Tony Curran. Late October is spring here: the vines are pushing bright green shoots, flowering is a few weeks away, and the whole campus smells like crushed leaves and eucalyptus after morning sun. I came for one day of study. I stayed until the Cellar Door closed. 🌿

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🍇 Scene 1 — Library Hours & Wine Atlases

Morning in the campus library: white blouse, pleated navy skirt, and a wine atlas I had to stretch on tiptoes to reach. Around me — viticulture textbooks, tasting-note notebooks, and that particular hush of students quietly arguing about terroir. I was supposed to be researching, but honestly? The way the light came through those tall windows, I was the one being studied. 🤭

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🍷 Scene 2 — Field Notes in the Teaching Vines

Afternoon took me out to the teaching vines on campus grounds — spring shoots everywhere, tiny buds deciding whether to become this year's fruit. Notebook on my knee, fingers on a young shoot, cardigan slipping off one shoulder while golden light filtered through the canopy. This is what I love about a wine school: the classroom has dirt under its fingernails. The fruit for recent CSU vintages comes from their Mundarlo vineyard, 30km east — but the students learn to read a vine right here.

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🥂 Scene 3 — Cellar Door Study Break

And then, the sweetest class of the day: the CSU Cellar Door — Building 413, Mambarra Drive, open Wednesday through Saturday from 12pm, which today felt like a curriculum written just for me. Loose hair, shirt softly open, one glass of small-batch Semillon swirling gold under the lamp, my wine-chemistry textbook open beside the glass like I was still going to study. The region behind the bottle is legendary too — this is Riverina country, home of De Bortoli's Noble One Botrytis Semillon, the dessert wine created in 1982 that remains one of the most awarded wines on earth. Studying wine here means drinking history with your homework. ✨

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✨ Charles Sturt University Winery — Tasting Notes & Travel Tips

• Wine Featured: Boutique Wines by CSU small-batch range (the teaching winery's student-made label); study companion: De Bortoli Noble One Botrytis Semillon, Riverina's icon since 1982
• Best Time to Visit: Late October–November for spring shoots and flowering in the campus vines; February–April if you want to see students deep in harvest (crush season)
• Getting There: Wagga Wagga is ~5h by road or a short flight from Sydney/Melbourne; the Cellar Door is on campus at Building 413, Mambarra Drive (Car Park 55) — open Wed–Sat, 12pm–6pm, tastings bookable
• What to Wear: 校园小清新 energy — crisp white blouse and a pleated skirt for the library, a soft sundress and knit cardigan for the vines, and something cozy-loose for the Cellar Door after dark

💋 Fifty years of this place turning grapes into winemakers — and one afternoon turning me from student into something far more dangerous: a girl who now knows exactly what she likes in a glass. My next classroom is still a secret, darling… but I'll give you a hint: it involves a coastline and a very old bottle. Study hard until I tell you. 📖🍷