The legal drinking age to consume alcohol in the U.S. is 21, but a newly proposed bill in California is aiming to legalize a sanction to the legal age restriction.
According to NBC, the University of California is backing the bill, proposed by Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro (D-North Coast), that would allow students enrolled in brewing, viticulture, and oenology classes to sample what they are studying. All classes are dedicated to growing of grapes and making wine and beer.
If passed, students enrolled in viticulture programs at the University of California would be awarded special tasting privileges and would no longer have to wait until they are 21 to legally taste alcohol.
The university is arguing that wine tasting and beer tasting is an integral part in perfecting the taste and quality of the products made by the students. Professor Andrew Waterhouse, a wine chemistry teacher at UC Davis, told NBC that the tasting process is "how winemakers do quality control day-to-day."
"Our graduates are expected to possess the necessary skills of their chosen industry when being considered for employment, and one of those skills is the ability to assess wine or beer qualities by taste during production," UC spokesperson Brooke Converse told NBC. "This bill is a modest measure that allows students to receive the best advantage and preparation from their training."
UC legislative director Jason Murphy also explained that tasting the wine is vital to understanding the science behind the process.
"Winemaking has always included a large measure of chemistry -- there are steps along the way that you take to monitor the components of the wine and make decisions on how to proceed," Murphy said. "For those students who can't taste, they're at a disadvantage."
The UC Davis director for government relations, Adrian Lopez, argued that the current drinking laws are pushing students to out-of-state schools that already allow for underage coursework tasting. UC Davis is currently the only school in the UC system to offer a brewing and oenology program, NBC News reported.
"Nowadays, as the world is becoming more global and more national students have more options on where to go," Lopez said. "And this kind of limitation could cause a student to decide to go to an oenology program in New York, or in Florida, as opposed to come stay here in California."
Twelve other states - most recently Washington- have already adapted their laws to allow students in the winemaking and brewing programs to sample the alcohol, an initiative known as "educational exemption."
States that agree with the initiative are: New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Rhode Island, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, Missouri, Florida and Washington.
Do you think students studying viticulture should be exempt from the drinking law?
