DAVIS - Like a dusty bottle of cabernet grown musty, the University of California-Davis, the premier U.S. university for winemaking and wine research, has not aged as gracefully as it should have.

Classes and research overflow dingy half-century-old buildings. Varietals unsuitable for the scorching climate struggle to grow in the university vineyard. And its tiny research winery is so badly outdated that it lacks one of the most important components in modern winemaking -- an oak barrel fermentation room.

Come fall 2004, though, the campus, which could be nicknamed Wine U for its pedigree and expertise, will embark on a major overhaul.

Ground will be broken next year for three buildings that will be known collectively as the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science. The $82 million project, expected to be completed in 2006, will rise on an alfalfa field on campus, just off Interstate 80. Together with a planned conference center and hotel, and kitty-cornered from the recently completed Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, the institute, with its six-acre vineyard, will help create a grand new gateway to the campus. It also will be a fitting showcase for what university officials hope will become the largest, most prestigious wine-and-food-science academic program in the world.

Robert Mondavi, the industry legend whose namesake Oakville winery changed the landscape of wine growing and winemaking, got the project rolling when he donated $25 million last year.

Although Mondavi never attended the Davis campus as a student, he did take a few classes when its Viticulture and Enology program was part of the University of California-Berkeley's campus. He and his wife, Margrit, know first-hand the benefits of the program: Sixteen of their winery employees are Davis graduates, including son Tim Mondavi, the chief winemaker.

Huge influence

Others who have benefited from the program include Heidi Peterson Barrett, maker of the prized cult wine Screaming Eagle; Dave Ramey, who made a name for himself at Rudd Estate, Matanzas Creek and Chalk Hill; Eileen Crane of Domaine Carneros (Taittinger) sparkling wine; and Michael Silacci of Opus One. Indeed, almost every California winemaker has attended a class here at least once.

``It's amazing they were able to do what they have with what they had,'' Robert Mondavi says of the campus' aging facilities. ``This will allow them to go forward and improve. The people here will teach us how to make our wines better in the future.''

The Viticulture and Enology department has accomplished much since it was established at Berkeley in 1880, after the regents had the foresight to realize that California could become one of the premier wine- and grape-producing regions in the world.

In 1906, the state purchased land in Davis for the University Farm, a research facility for Berkeley agriculturists and a farm school that offered non-degree classes to local farmers. Davis, which became an independent campus in 1959, is the largest of all the University of California sites.

In the past eight years, as the number of wineries in the state jumped from 500 to 900, the number of viticulture and enology students at Davis doubled to 150 a year, says James Wolpert, chairman of that department. But in the past few years, Davis has faced increasing competition from California State University-Fresno. The Fresno program, the only other California one that awards degrees in enology, has the only university commercial winery in the country.

Over the years, research done at Davis has had a dramatic impact on the California winemaking industry. It has identified varieties best suited to the state's growing conditions, defined vineyard practices to generate large enough yields to render grape growing profitable, and invented controlled-temperature fermentation, which improved wine quality.

More than two dozen grape varieties adapted to the state's many microclimates were developed at the university. DNA ``fingerprinting'' conducted here traced the origins of chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon. The health benefits of the antioxidants in red wine were studied. And the Aroma Wheel, a tool that defines the sensory qualities of wine, was invented here.

The new Mondavi institute will be designed by architect Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership of Portland, Ore., which has created academic facilities for seven University of California campuses. The Olin Partnership of Philadelphia, which has done work for many wineries including Beringer and Chateau St. Jean, will do the landscaping.

To foster synergy among disciplines, the three new buildings will house not only the department of viticulture and enology, but also the department of food sciences and technology, the only food science doctoral program in the state.

Students who make wine will mingle with others who make beer in the only four-year accredited brewing-science program offered by a major university in the country. They will also get to know students who are working to design new foods in what is one of the largest food-science programs in the country.

The Anheuser-Busch Foundation pledged $5 million in matching funds for construction of the institute, which will include a 16,000-square-foot food science laboratory, a brewery and a 75,000-square-foot academic building for research and teaching.

A 46,000-square-foot research winery also will be built, which will include the department's first barrel room. The old cellar, which holds 150,000 bottles of wine made by students dating back to just after World War II, will be enlarged at the new site.

Updating the vineyard

The 160-acre vineyard two miles from campus is being replanted. The pinot noir, chenin blanc and chardonnay vines are being uprooted for syrah, mourvèdre and grenache, more suited to the warm climate and to providing students greater experience in making blended wines.

There is also hope that the new campus winery, unlike the present one built just after Prohibition ended, will be bonded. That will allow the university to use grapes from other growing regions and to give away or sell its wines. Now, by law, any wine that isn't used for research must be dumped.

Chairman Wolpert can barely contain his excitement when he thinks about the new facilities. ``In the mid-1960s, Robert Mondavi challenged the Napa Valley to make better wines,'' he says. ``By giving us this gift, he's challenged us to be better than we are now. He's raised the bar, and it's our job to jump it now.''

Wolpert hopes that the new institute will allow the university, like the finest wines, to get better with time.