Viticulture
A viticulture focus can be chosen as a junior or senior project for students in the Vineyard Academy. Vineyard Academy has had the privilege of collaborating with Taft Street Winery in order to create their own wine. The students pick the grapes, prune the grapes, put posts in for the plants, and maintain it throughout the school year. When the grapes are picked they are sent over to Taft Street Winery where the grapes are made into wine and packaged into wine bottles with the student made label. With every wine sale from Taft Street, 90% of the sales goes directly back into the Vineyard Academy budget.
Francis Ford Coppola Winery
Francis wanted to get more involved with community and charity and as a result approached Vineyard Academy in taking on ten students per year to intern one of the ten different departments that the winery has. The ten departments are; the lab, viticulture, maintenance and landscape, the cellar, tasting room, guest services, hospitality, the front and back house of the restaurant and events. In each area a student learns all they want and need to know about that specific part of the winery. At the end of the internship the students present a project, sharing their experience interning. Coppola also offers job opportunities to Vineyard Academy students especially after internships.
Aloha Custom/Boomerang Plus
David Hamelburg owns Aloha Custom which specializes in athletic wear and graphic apparel. Every year he takes on interns from Vineyard Academy. He teaches the students all that it takes to do what he does. From showing them how the graphics are created on the computer to the printing press where the graphic is printed onto clothing. David is also a part of our Advisory Board that meets a couple times a year to validate and discuss what the academy plans to do or is doing.