How the Tides Are Changing Within the Wine Grape Industry
March 26, 2023 This year’s Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, North America’s largest wine grape conference, held annually in Sacramento, CA, featured several sessions for growers confronting change in the industry. The meeting’s opening luncheon keynote was in concert with the theme of a changing industry, as it was delivered by Robin McBride, who serves as the Board Chair and President of McBride Sisters Wine Company, a multinational organization with headquarters in Oakland, CA. It is in the top 1% of volume, the largest Black-owned wine company in the U.S.
As far as the sessions focusing on the problems facing growers in the wine grape industry, here are some highlights:
Vine Characteristics for Resiliency — When considering the development of a vineyard and the appropriate choice of cultivar, grape growers must consider future climate changes, limited access to water and other natural resources, potential for novel and/or newly resistant diseases and pests, and challenges with labor availability and operational constraints.
Vineyard Automation: Where Are We Now — There are robots and tractors that can perform autonomous operations in our vineyards. However, growers must find ways to make them pay off.
Doing Even More, with Even Less — Evidenced by an age where competition and availability for water is at an all-time high, vintners and viticulturists must find creative solutions to an increasingly difficult situation, including irrigating with water of challenging quality, utilization of desalinated water, and the feasibility of recycling winery wastewater back into the vineyard.
Preventing and Mitigating Low-Temp Injury or Cold Damage in Grapevines — Cold injury is a significant limitation. As injury may occur in the fall before vines are fully acclimated, during the mid-winter period when low temperatures exceed the vines’ maximum hardiness level, and in the spring when vines are de-acclimating in response to warming temperatures.
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