It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Dr. Anita Oberholster, Professor of Cooperative Extension in Enology in the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology, after a long and courageous battle with cancer. Her passing leaves an immeasurable void in our UC Davis V&E family. Above all, our thoughts are with Anita’s husband, Connie, and their two children during this difficult time.
Anita grew up on a farm in Malmesbury in the Cape Region of South Africa with her parents and two older siblings prior to completing her BSc with Honors in chemistry at Stellenbosch University. She continued her education with a PhD in Wine Chemistry at the University of Adelaide in Australia, working on factors influencing wine mouthfeel. Upon completing her research in Australia, Anita returned to South Africa, where she joined the Department of Viticulture and Oenology at Stellenbosch University as a researcher and instructor. In 2011, Anita started in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis as our CE Specialist in Enology.
Anita was the ideal CE Specialist: she was smart, a warm person and terrific communicator, and a researcher who excelled at applied research that the industry valued to solve their most pressing problems. In recent years, she led a large group of researchers working on methods for assessing and mitigating the impact of wildfire smoke on wines, providing information that the California wine industry desperately needed in vintages like 2017, 2018, and 2020 when wildfires closed in on key growing regions. Anita was also the lead investigator on a USDA Specialty Crop Research Initiative grant that aimed to understand the impact of Grapevine Red Blotch Virus, a disease that has had an enormous economic impact on the California industry.
Anita communicated extensively with growers and producers all over California, including through traditional on-campus educational extension programs, on the road seminars and winery visits in growing regions in all corners of the state, online Zoom programs, social media outlets, and via YouTube videos—any method to give our stakeholders the information they needed. Anita’s talks were authoritative and informative but were delivered in a friendly and approachable manner with an infectious smile. She clearly had a talent for explaining difficult concepts in an easy-to-understand (and apply) manner that our stakeholders valued so much.
In addition, Anita was a terrific colleague, always ready to jump in when needed, whether as a research collaborator on basic research, a co-mentor for a student’s research project, chairing committees to make our facilities better, helping our VEN Graduate Group operate, or leading in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the UC Davis campus, or UC ANR. Anita was giving of her time and talents off-campus as well, serving for multiple terms on the Board of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture.
As much as she excelled in all these areas, perhaps Anita’s greatest passion was in mentoring a long line of trainees including postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduate interns, guiding and inspiring them to find their common love of science while embracing them in an exciting and caring environment. Those Anita mentored have become leaders themselves in industry and in academia on at least four continents around the world.
We were lucky to have had Anita with us for the past fourteen years. She has had a significant and long-lasting impact on the grape and wine sectors in California. For these efforts and their impact, Anita was recognized by many organizations. She was twice named by Wine Business Monthly as one of the top 50 most influential people in the US wine industry. She received both the Extension Distinction Award from ASEV and the UC Davis Academic Federation Distinguished Service Award in Spring of 2021. Anita received the California Association of Winegrape Growers’ Leader Award of Excellence in April 2022, and she received a Wine Enthusiast Wine Star Award (with Tom Collins and Elizabeth Tomasino) in January 2023, a Northern California Public Media Food and Wine Award (Wine World Game Changer) in March 2023, and then in July 2023, Congressman Mike Thompson honored Anita with an American Dream Award for Yolo County. The American Dream Awards are presented to California’s Fourth District (Lake, Napa, Solano, Sonoma, and Yolo Counties) residents who have come to the United States and made outstanding contributions to our communities.
On a more personal note, Anita was a wonderful friend and colleague. Even with the very busy life she lived, she always found time for warm hospitality with great wine and food, often introducing South African dishes to her guests from California and around the world, from meat and breads on the brai (barbecue) with her husband, to table-sized charcuterie boards and South African casseroles, salads, and desserts. We will miss her very much.
The Department is planning a Celebration of Life for Anita on May 12th from 2 – 5 PM and will announce further details as they are available. The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center Research Fund in Anita’s memory. A UC Davis memorial fund has also been set up in her memory.
This article was originally published on the University of California, Davis's website.