Alumni Profile: Phil Freese
Phil Freese graduated from UC Davis in 1973 with a PhD in biochemistry and biophysics
Phil Freese, '73
Q: What was your major and graduation year?
1973 Ph. D., University of California, Davis; Biochemistry and Biophysics
1968 BS, Purdue University, Biochemistry
Q: What do you do now?
My ‘day’ job now is wine growing consulting. hat is done under the business based in the Alexander Valley of California and is called WineGrow. Within WineGrow I work mainly with wine making firms and my current main clients are in California, Israel and South Africa.WineGrow is a service business that assists wine producers by working with their grape supplies (owned or purchased grapes) to help them produce grapes that will first of all fit their style, quality and volume goals and in general assist them in enhancing the characters of their grapes and wines. Wine grapes are very much a fruit that can be worked with in the vineyard to enhance and emphasize desired characters or in some cases to minimize or eliminate undesired characters. Working in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres gives me an opportunity to experience two vintages each calendar year!
Above and beyond the ‘day job’ listed above, my wife, Zelma Long, and I own a vineyard and winery in South Africa that we call Vilafonte. This gives us two vintages each calendar year and we spend about 4 months of the year in the Cape Town area of South Africa in 3 separate trips per year. I often describe Stellenbosh as UC Davis in the middle of the Napa Valley with the analogy being that Stellenbosch is a world-class university with a wine and viticulture school while being in the heart of the wine growing region.
Our wines are sold around the world with the US, Asia and much of Europe being the central focus points. Those wines are produced from grapes we grow on the vineyard that I planted. We do not buy or sell grapes so that every bottle of wine we produce comes directly from our control and labor. That wine project is called Vilafonte. It is named after one of the soil types that occurs somewhat infrequently in the Cape but has the characteristics of very old soil that is low in its capacity to produce big vines but makes very concentrated and well focused wines.
Q: Do you feel like your major prepared you for the work you do now?
Yes I do.
First of all academic training and the rigorous work of life sciences experimental work that I had an opportunity to do at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UC Davis gave me the basics of scientific investigation. This training is applicable in every aspect of my work with soils, plants, and the fermentation sciences of wine growing. I went on to do my post-graduate work on gene expression in yeast at the U Mass Medical School in Worcester MA. The work in Roy Doi’s lab at UCD set up my curiosity of how environmental conditions can elicit a response and what moderates that response.
Grapevines and the resulting wine character potential(s) are a product of the climate, soils and general management of the biological system – the vine in the vineyard. We know that more or less “stressors” in the vineyard and the severity and timing of those stress conditions can elicit quite different results in the chemistry of the fruit and the outcome of the wines.
While my work at UCD was very much more at the single-cell level, the concepts are general and can be applied in my current work. Note that this is coming from a person who grew up on a medium-sized farm in the middle of Indiana where we grew corn, wheat, soybeans, cattle and hogs. My experiences with farming as a youth had two profound impacts on me – first that I was not interested in farming and that I wanted to work in science and the second being that the love of the land does not go away but given another mode of expression – such as wine growing and working with perennial plants such as grapes will give the childhood experiences a chance for expression in a new and creative way.
Q: What is your fondest memory of UC Davis?
There is a special bond that can develop between a graduate student and his advisor. That bond grew as I worked with Roy Doi. It was a bit of a blow to Roy that I left science and went into the wine industry. That is until he learned more about the industry and grew to understand my passion for taking my training into my new field. One of the high points in my friendship with Roy was when he and his wife Joan came to visit our winery in South Africa in January of 2008.
I truly loved the summers in Davis when most of the students were gone and the graduate students were working and just hanging out. That was such a creative time when ideas seemed to flow, no classes were being TA-ed and the long summer days seemed to facilitate hard work and discovery. This is a creative process and time that will always hold a special spot for me.
Then there were the winter mornings when the fog was laying heavy in the valley and walking across campus in the morning – one could hear the geese calling to their flock seeming to ask where they were and where they were going. Sort of a metaphor for the time I spent on campus I guess.
Q: In what ways do you think UC Davis prepared you for life outside college?
Beyond the practical and interpersonal factors addressed in the last question – I think the lifelong gift of my time at UCD is to keep learning. Keep being curious and keep observing what life is doing around me.
While I was on campus I became interested in the workings of the University and the College. In small ways I was involved in some groups beyond the academic studies. Today I remain engaged in the University. I’m active on the CA&ES Dean’s Advisory Council and with activities with the Department of Enology and Viticulture. I’ve had the pleasure and honor of contributing to extension courses as a lecturer and hosting international guests of the university.
The attachment to the campus is strong and perhaps the most enduring impact that UC Davis had on me is the sense that one needs to give back as well as take away.
Q: What words of advice would you give to current and/or future students of biology at UC Davis?
Do what you do with great gusto and enthusiasm – the time as a student is rare in one’s life as it is a time to focus on building skills, meeting people and developing relationships that will last a lifetime.
Pursue excellence – it is a skill that will work in everything that a person does the rest of their life and don’t take simple answers if they don’t sound like they make sense – trusting your intuition.
Keep engaged in something that you can do the rest of your life – something that brings a sense of wonder to you each day as you discover new things.