The public is invited to join in an evening of wine and gourmet food on Saturday, May 14, as the annual Winkler Dinner is held in the courtyard of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at UC Davis.

The evening’s menu will include six courses, each prepared by a different chef and paired with a donated wine. Winemakers will be present to introduce each wine, and silent and live auctions will be held before and after dinner.

The gourmet event is coordinated by the Davis Enology and Viticulture Organization (DEVO), a club founded nearly 30 years ago by students in the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology to promote interaction with the wine industry and the community, and to fund student scholarships, internships and travel.

For many years, the dinner was held under the Winkler Vine, an impressive California Mission grapevine that once spread over a one-half acre arbor. The vine was named in memory of the late Albert J. Winkler, chair of the Department of Viticulture and Enology from 1935 to 1957.

This will be the third year that the Winkler Dinner is held in the Mondavi courtyard, as two new grapevines are being prepared for planting in honor of Winkler and the late Harold Olmo, a pioneering grape breeder and professor of viticulture and enology at UC Davis.

Tickets for the dinner are $175 per person or $1,200 for a table of eight seats and may be purchased online at: http://devo.ucdavis.edu/winkler-dinner/2011.

More information about the event can be obtained by contacting viticulture and enology graduate student Kristina Werner, DEVO president, at