UC Davis Teaching and Research Winery (Winemaker & Winery Manager)

Leticia Chacon-Rodriguez was born in Mexico and earned a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering in 1991from the Universidad Nacional Autonóma de Mexico in Mexico City, her hometown. After working at Allied Domecq for four years, she entered the M.S. program at the University of California, Davis, in 1997, majoring in Food Sciences with an Enology emphasis. While at UC Davis, she worked two harvests as an enologist at Delicato Family Vineyards in the Central Valley and stayed on at the university for nearly two years performing research after graduating in 2000.

Leticia’s stayed in the Central Valley for the next several years, first working for Golden State Vintners as an assistant winemaker for nearly two years and then moving to E&J Gallo Winery as a winemaker for five years, leaving there in mid-2007 for a position with Treasury Wine Estates in Napa as senior winemaker. In mid-2014, she moved to Safe Harbor Wines in Napa as its Director of Operations.

She returned “home” to UC Davis in 2019 as the winery manager and winemaker at the university’s LEED Platinum-certified Teaching and Research Winery. There, Leticia will oversee crush operations and wine production, teach enology students about winery operations and wine production, and assist faculty and researchers with winemaking research projects and trials.

Her goals in her new position include the following:

• Continue working on the expansion of the UC Davis winery and to keep on providing the appropriate resources and tools to researchers and students

• Incorporate and apply new technologies and operations resulting from research/investigations performed at UC Davis and other universities

• Continue partnerships with the wine industry to support any challenges that arise

• Inspire and continue preparing our students who are future winemakers!