Abstract:

Teachers and students of six educational institutions from three European countries are involved in a project based on the wine world, the Enoculture Erasmus+ project. The partnership is made up of four secondary schools, Aurelio Gómez Escolar school (Spain), 1º Gymasio Acharnon (Greece), Regional gymnasium of Livadia (Cyprus) and 5º Gymnasio Chanion (Crete, Greece), an education center which also provides vocational training cycles, the Instituto de enseñanza secundaria Teguise (Lanzarote, Spain), and a higher education institution, the University of Burgos (Spain). The project is based on experiential learning and is the follow-up to earlier projects carried out from 2014 (Erasmus+ projects No. 2014-1-ES01-KA201-004362 and No. 2016-1-ES01-KA201-024948).

The Enoculture project aims, among other things, to show some historical events and technological advances in Europe through the history and evolution of viticulture and winemaking in different countries and regions. This is a multidisciplinary project, so practically all the teachers in each partner school (discounting specialized subjects or those with little connection) introduce some activities in their class.

The adaptability of the vine (Vitis vinifera) resulted in its spread throughout the Mediterranean with the expansion of the Ancient Greek Civilization. The production of wine in EU dates back to over three thousand years. When the wine sector was in full swing, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the phylloxera, insect which feed on roots and leaves of the vines, reached France from America. The infestation spread to almost every vineyards of Europe and destroyed them. The students develop a study of the pre-phylloxera grapes in Europe which exist in Lanzarote, Cyprus and Crete, where three of the schools involved in the project are located.

In addition, a simulated business within the industrial wine sector is simulated: students make wine at their schools, design a quality plan, analyse grapes and wine, and prepare an economic, legal and marketing study. The aim is to make a direct connection between the students and their business and social context, producing an immersion of them in the world that surrounds them, and to discover new contexts during their mobilizations. They analyse and adapt their work to the culture, religion, and customs of their partners. Thanks to the project, the students embark on an investigation into European heritage, culture, and enoculture, the latter being a basic socioeconomic sector in the local context of all the partners.

The project is designed to facilitate non-formal learning, exchanges and cooperation, even across different educational levels. It develops a close collaboration not only between secondary schools in different countries but also involving a university and a vocational training centre. The centre of Lanzarote provides an intermediate training cycle in Agroecological production and the University of Burgos provides Bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry and Food Science and Technology, which complement the activities of the project, reinforces the technical contents relating to agriculture and viticulture, as well as providing support with quality control and physicochemical analysis performed on grapes and the wines elaborated by the students.

Acknowledgement:
The authors thank the financial support provided by EU (Erasmus+ project No. 2018-1-ES01-KA201-049936).

Keywords:

Erasmus+, KA201, wine and grapes, experiential learning, different educational levels.