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WINE BUSINESS MONTHLY December 2018 • $5.95

The Industry’s Leading Publication for Wineries and Growers

Women and Leadership Roles in the Wine Industry

Barrel & Oak Survey Report PLUS:

2018 American Wine Writer Survey Results How Irrigation Frequency Affects Roots, Vine Water Use and Fruit Ripening Winemaker Trial: Where Whole Clusters are Placed in Fermenter Matters

2018 YEAR IN REVIEW Top Stories • Top Deals • Top Hires

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month in review WINE BUSINESS MONTHLY December 2018 • Volume XXV No. 12 EDITOR Cyril Penn

December 2018 • $5.95

WINE BUSINESS MONTHLY

The Industry’s Leading Publication for Wineries and Growers

www.winebusiness.com

MANAGING EDITOR Rachel Nichols SENIOR EDITOR Erin Kirschenmann

Women and Leadership Roles in the Wine Industry

STAFF WRITER/NEWS EDITOR Kerana Todorov COPY EDITOR Paula Whiteside

2018 Y E A R

CONTRIBUTORS George Coope Mark Greenspan Alicia Hoepfner Barbara Insel Michael S. Lasky Jake Lorenzo Thibaut Scholasch Eric Stern Tom Wark

IN REVIEW

• Barrels & Tanks

on out, the 2018 harvest has just concluded, winemakers are catching their breath, and wines are bubbling along in the tanks. We’ve experienced a smooth harvest, a welcome change from last year. The numbers aren’t in yet but 2018 is expected to go down as a big year. The December issue includes a look back at the year’s top wine business stories, notable transactions and people moves. It also acknowledges some of the great people we lost this year who made big contributions to the wine world. This issue includes results of the 2018 American Wine Writer Survey and analysis of the management roles women occupy in the U.S. wine industry today. The article looking at the presence of women in management roles at wineries provides data about women in management positions at wineries producing 10,000 cases or more by region (within California) and winery size. It confirms what one might suspect: that women are under-represented in sales, operations and viticulture and over-represented in HR, marketing and direct-to-consumer sales. The article concludes with recommendations on reducing bias and improving diversity in hiring and promotion. The American Wine Writer Survey report delves into details about what wine writers want from publicists, how they get information and how they view wine writing as a career. When it comes to the big picture, the most significant finding is simply that the future of wine writing is increasingly female. AS THIS ISSUE HEADS

WINE BUSINESS MONTHLY

DECEMBER 2018

Cheers to a Smooth Harvest

SENIOR TECHNICAL EDITOR Curtis Phillips

Barrel & Oak Survey Report PLUS:

2018 American Wine Writer Survey Results How Irrigation Frequency Affects Roots, Vine Water Use and Fruit Ripening Winemaker Trial: Where Whole Clusters are Placed in Fermenter Matters

DESIGN & PRODUCTION Scott Summers

2018 YEAR IN REVIEW Top Stories • Top Deals • Top Hires

PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER Eric Jorgensen

When WBM published the American Wine Writers Survey way back in 2004, data indicated wine writers were mostly men more than 50 years old. Only 24 percent of respondents to the 2004 survey identified themselves as female. In 2018, 45 percent of the respondents to the survey were female, and the younger those respondents were, the more likely they were to be female. As was mentioned in this space last month, if you’re receiving this magazine for the first time, it may be because some Wines & Vines subscriptions are starting to transfer over to WBM. Wine Business Monthly and Wines & Vines magazine will be merging with the January 2019 issue of Wine Business Monthly. Look for greatly expanded coverage of timely winemaking, grape growing, sales, marketing business and technology topics. Cyril Penn – Editor

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contents

December 2018 • Volume XXV No. 12 • The Industry’s Leading Publication for Wineries and Growers • www.winebusiness.com

2018 Y E A R Top Stories

IN REVIEW

16 Top Deals

22 Top People Moves

George Coope

sales & marketing

winemaking CHART 1

Increase

Will the number of barrels your winery purchases this year: By Year

Stay the same

2018 Barrel & Oak Survey Report . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Decrease

60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 2006 vs 2005

2007 vs 2006

2008 vs 2007

2009 vs 2008

2010 vs 2009

2011 vs 2010

2012 vs 2011

2014 vs 2013

2015 vs 2014

2016 vs 2015

Source: 2018 WBM Barrel & Oak Survey

2017 vs 2016

2018 vs 2017

Curtis Phillips

Winemaker Trial Where Whole Clusters are Placed in Fermenter Determines Organoleptic Qualities . . . . . . . . . . 40

2018 American Wine Writer Survey: The Changing and Growing Wine Writer Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Tom Wark

0:00

The Growing U.S./China Tariff War Taking its Toll on Glass Industry . 80 Now that an estimated 70 percent of the United States wine industry’s glass bottles are sourced from China, the real and threatened 10 to 25 percent tariff on Chinese glass imposed by the U.S. Commerce Department has caused budgetary concerns for glass distributors and their winery clients.

Where you place whole clusters of grapes, Pinot Noir in this case, ostensibly will affect the perceived tannin extraction, cause potential volatile acidity development and perhaps lend a more carbonic quality that’s best avoided. Michael S. Lasky

Case Studies: Sanitation Best Practices for Large Wineries . . . . . . . . . 44 “Sanitation is like washing your dishes after you eat. You may not like it, but it’s key.” Kerana Todorov

Michael S. Lasky

Retail Sales Analysis: Off-Premise Wine Sales Up 0.8 Percent . . . . . . 84 Off-premise total table wine sales increased 0.8 percent from the same period of the previous year in the four weeks ending Aug. 11, 2018, according to Nielsentracked data. In the 52 weeks ending Aug. 11, wine sales increased 1.6 percent.

40 Years in Wine A Look Back . . . . . . 50 technology & business Eric Stern

grape growing The 2018 Growing Season: Just Another Great Vintage? . . . 56 This past season was smooth sailing compared to last year. Mark Greenspan

Irrigation Strategies Maintain Natural Grapevine Mechanisms Through a Drought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Study: Leadership in the Wine Industry and the Role of Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Barbara Insel and Alicia Hoepfner

As Wineries Utilize More Data in Sales Programs, How Do They Determine Which Data Matters? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Experts at this year’s Wine Industry Technology Symposium advised the best use of data is to avoid overloading. Michael S. Lasky

Thibaut Scholasch

departments month in review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 advertiser index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 jake lorenzo Jelly Donuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

COVER PHOTO:

Andrea Johnson

COVER DESIGN:

Scott Summers

winemaker of the month. . . . . . . 105 Brandon deLeuze, winemaker/partner, ZD Wines, Rutherford and Carneros, California

Wine Business Monthly (ISSN 1075-7058) is published monthly by Wine Communications Group, Inc., 35 Maple St., Sonoma, CA 95476. Subscription rates are $39 for domestic; US$49 for Canadian and US$89 for foreign subscribers. Periodicals Postage Paid at Sonoma, CA, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Wine Business Monthly, PO Box 1649, Boulder, CO 80306-1649.

who’s talking in this issue

WBM

December 2018

Salvador Bello, cellar manager, Beringer, “Sanitation Best Practices for Large Wineries,” page 44

“Every day, you’re washing. That’s one of the highest priorities that we have—after safety.”

Gina Hennen, winemaker, Adelsheim Vineyard, “Winemaker Trial,” page 40 “We won’t change our winemaking regime as a result of the trial but what we will do is explore this whole cluster placement in greater detail.”

Mark Greenspan, founder, Advanced Viticulture, Inc., “The 2018 Growing Season: Just Another Great Vintage?” page 56 “2018 was a bumper crop for most vineyards; and as a result, it was quite difficult to sell any unsold fruit, and many vineyards had extra fruit available because of contract limitations.”

Dr. Randy Worobo, professor of food microbiology, Cornell University, “Sanitation Best Practices for Large Wineries,” page 44 “Cleaning is removing the organic residue from a surface while sanitizing is the disinfection of any microbial contamination that remains on the surface after cleaning.”

Michael Honig, owner-winemaker, Honig Vineyard and Winery, “The Growing U.S.-China Tariff War Taking its Toll on Glass Industry,” page 80

“If all they’re looking at is two different bottles side-by-side and we are competing with untaxed wine from Australia and Chile, that’s a big competitive disadvantage.”

Thibaut Scholasch, co-founder, Fruition Sciences, “Irrigation Strategies,” page 66 “Ultimately, understanding yield and fruit composition responses to longer intervals between irrigations can be achieved by monitoring vine water deficit variations along berry volume variations and fruit ripening profile.”

10 December 2018 WBM

Cork_9,5x12,375.pdf

CMY

15/07/2018

18:54

WBMevents 2018 WINE BUSINESS

Leadership Dinner

Financial WINE INDUSTRY

at the

SYMPOSIUM

Our 2018 Honorees and the people who introduced them. FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Eric Jorgensen, Michaela Rodeno, Clarice Turner, Agustin Huneeus, Augustin F. Huneeus, Joe Ciatti, Peter Byck, Andy Beckstoffer, Tuck Beckstoffer

ALL PHOTOS BY THE PHOTO GROUP FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:

12 December 2018 WBM

Cyril Penn, Liz Thach (SSU), Erin Kirschenmann

Joe Ciatti RIGHT: Andy Beckstoffer

LEFT:

Financial WINE INDUSTRY

WBMevents

Tom Steffanci

SYMPOSIUM

Esther Mobley, Andy Beckstoffer, Carmen Castaldi

Tim Persson, Violet Grgich, Cindy DeVries, Ray Johnson

Curtis Mann, Matt Stamp, Joy Sterling, Mike Taylor

Liz Thach, Tim Persson

Russ Joy, Dana Sexton Vivier

Presented by the Wine Industry Symposium Group, a subsidiary of 14 December 2018 WBM

WINE BUSINESS MONTHLY

David Newlin

WBMevents

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2018 Y E A R

IN REVIEW

Top Stories

IN REVIEW

Has possible implications for large retailers expanding national footprint, could open up out-of-state retail-toconsumer wine shipping

After hiatus, conference and trade show presented by Napa Valley Grapegrowers moves forward

E C E M B E R

Wines Vines Analytics Launches Report Based on Industry’s Best Data The monthly report is the latest iteration of the ongoing evolution of Wines & Vines magazine, founded in 1919: Wine Communications Group (WCG)—parent company of Wines & Vines—will no longer publish the monthly magazine after the December 2018 issue and will redirect resources toward publishing the monthly Wine Analytics Report, expected to launch Jan. 15, 2019. The changes come with no staff reductions or layoffs as many Wines & Vines editorial features move to the pages of Wine Business Monthly

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2018 Y E A R

IN REVIEW

Top Deals Wine Industry Merger & Acquisition Review

U.S. Economy Brings “Goldilocks” Style M&A Market George Coope

George Coope, senior director of strategy and analysis, has more than 25 years of investment banking and advisory experience in the wine, beer and distilled spirits industries. Prior to joining Zepponi & Company, Coope held senior roles at several boutique investment banks in San Francisco and was a founding member of the consumer practice group at Hambrecht & Quist LLC. He also worked in R&D and operations at Miller Brewing Company. Coope is a former director of Patz & Hall Wine Company and The Coppola Companies. Coope graduated with a B.A. from Stanford University, an M.S. in food science with a specialization in viticulture and enology from UC Davis and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

and acquisition (“M&A”) retrospective (see December 2017, WBM), we cautioned that the U.S. economy was in the eighth year of an unusually long economic expansion and that signs pointed to potential economic slowing. Yet, one year later, despite tariff battles and political uncertainties, we find ourselves still in a “Goldilocks” economy: growth isn’t hot enough to trigger strong inflation nor cold enough to lead to recession. We are motoring along in the Federal Reserve’s comfort zone of 2 to 3 percent GDP growth with core inflation at a modest 2 percent. Most importantly for the U.S. wine industry, the job market has strengthened, and consumer spending continues on a moderate growth trend. IN LAST YEAR’S MERGER

22 December 2018 WBM

The wine industry enjoyed another year of growth in 2018, albeit at a low single-digit rate, representing a decline from previous years. IRI data indicated 2.1 percent growth in total off-premise dollar volume for the 12 months ending Aug. 31, 2018 versus the prior year period. This is slightly less than the 2.6 percent growth reported by IRI for the 2017 calendar year and well below the 4.4 percent growth recorded in 2016. It is important to note that packaged imports, driven in large part by sparkling and Rosé wines, grew at approximately twice the rate of domestic wines and contributed almost half of the dollar growth in the U.S. market for the 12-month period ending Aug. 31, 2018.

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2018 Y E A R

IN REVIEW

Wine industry merger and acquisition activity continued in 2018 at the same moderately strong pace as in 2017 and was notable for its diversity, both in terms of seller and buyer types and in terms of the motivations driving the transactions. While it is not possible to fit all of 2018’s deals neatly into a few categories, several broad themes were apparent, including

TA B L E :

continued investment in the Pacific Northwest, the growing participation of private equity (PE) in the wine industry, and ongoing interest in high-end brands and assets in Napa Valley. In addition, multiple producers, both major and mid-tier, consummated noteworthy transactions in furtherance of their growth strategies.

Notable Wine Industry Transactions Announced in 2018

Closing Date Target

Acquirer

Assets Acquired

Location

January

Layer Cake and Cherry Pie

Vintage Wine Estates

Brands

Napa, California

January

Benton-Lane Winery

Huneeus Vintners

Brand, Facility

Monroe, Oregon

January

Tamarack Cellars

Vintage Wine Estates

Brand and Tasting Room

Walla Walla, Washington

January

Maison Bleue

Willamette Valley Vineyards

Brand and Tasting Room

Walla Walla, Washington

January

Bellacosa

Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits

50% Interest in Brand

North Coast, California

February

Cross Canyon Vineyard

Hancock Natural Resource Group

Vineyard

Paso Robles, California

March

Freixenet S.A.

Henkell & Co.-Gruppe

50.7% of Outstanding Shares

Sant Sadurni d’Anoia, Spain

April

Acrobat

Foley Family Wines

Brand

Eugene, Oregon

April

Vintage Wine Estates

AGR Partners

Minority Investment

Santa Rosa, California

April

Heitz Cellar

Gaylon Lawrence

Brand, Facility and Vineyards

St. Helena, California

May

Rancho Real Vineyard

E&J Gallo

Vineyard

Santa Maria, California

May

Sierra Madre Vineyard

E&J Gallo

Vineyard and Sierra Madre Trademark

Santa Maria, California

June

Accolade Wines

Carlyle Group

100% of Company

Sydney, Australia

June

Locations

E&J Gallo

Brand

Multiple Regions Worldwide

June*

Codorniu Raventós Group

Carlyle Group

Majority Stake

Haro, Spain

July

Outpost Wines

AXA Millésimes

Brand, Facility and Vineyards

Napa, California

August

Kosta Browne Winery

Duckhorn Wine Company/TSG

Brand, Facility and Vineyards

Sebastopol, California

August

Beso Del Sol Sangria

The Wine Group

Brand

Sourced in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

August

Weidert Farm

Farmland LP

Large Farm with Vineyard Potential

Walla Walla Valley, Washington

August

Truett-Hurst Inc.

Precept Wines LLC

Wholesale (Control Label) Business

Healdsburg, California

August*

Stony Hill Vineyard

Long Meadow Ranch

Majority Stake in Brand, Facility and Vineyards

Calistoga, California

September

Duck Pond Cellars

Great Oregon Wine Company

Brand, Facility and Vineyards

Dundee, Oregon

September

Swanson Oakville vineyards

Huneeus Vintners

80-acre Vineyard with Winery Site

Oakville, California

* Announcement date

24 December 2018 WBM

Top Deals Investment in Pacific Northwest Ramps Up

Private Equity’s Broadening Participation

The Pacific Northwest was a center of attention again this year as several mid-sized, California-based suppliers established or expanded their presence in the region. Huneeus Vintners, owner of Quintessa and Faust in Napa Valley and Flowers Vineyards & Winery in Sonoma County, acquired Benton-Lane Winery in Monroe, Oregon in January, which represented Huneeus’ first foray into the state. Also in January, Vintage Wine Estates purchased Tamarack Cellars in Walla Walla, Washington. Tamarack’s Firehouse Red blend, which carries a Columbia Valley appellation and is priced under $20, will no doubt have significant expansion potential in Vintage Wine Estates’ distribution network.

In 2018, we witnessed a number of important PE investments in the wine industry, both in the U.S. and internationally. On the domestic stage, TSG Consumer Partners, owners of Duckhorn Wine Company, made a major addition to Duckhorn’s high-end brand platform with the acquisition of Kosta Browne Winery in Sebastopol, California. Kosta Browne’s luxury priced Pinot Noirs are sourced from top California vineyards and sold predominantly through its mailing list. This was a PE “secondary” transaction, meaning that it was a transfer from one PE firm (J.W. Childs) to another PE firm—an event that is becoming increasingly common in the financial world. Vintage Wine Estates was also the beneficiary of PE funding, not in the form of a buyout but rather in a minority investment by AGR Partners, an investment firm focused on the food and agribusiness industries. AGR participated in a $75 million equity round intended to provide growth capital and fuel Vintage Wine Estates’ active acquisition program. In the international arena, 2018 marked entry into the wine industry by one of the PE industry’s largest and most active firms—The Carlyle Group. Carlyle has more than $210 billion in assets under management across six continents. In June, Carlyle announced the acquisition of Australia’s Accolade Wines, producer of Hardys Wine, House of Arras and Houghton in Australia and Geyser Peak in the U.S. In the same month, Carlyle also announced the purchase of a majority stake in Spanish Cava producer Codorniu Raventós Group. Carlyle intends to use its global resources to expand the market reach of both companies, particularly in Asia where Carlyle has a very strong presence.

BENTON-LANE WINERY

The largest Pacific Northwest brand transaction of the year was the April sale of King Estate Winery’s 150,000-case Acrobat brand to Foley Family Wines. Acrobat substantially increases Foley’s presence in Oregon and complements their $25+ Four Graces brand with a sub-$20 Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris brand positioned in the wholesale distribution channel. For the seller, the transaction creates an opportunity to refocus internal resources on the core King Estate brand and on direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales. In September, Great Oregon Wine Company (owner of the rapidly growing Rascal brand) announced the acquisition of Duck Pond Cellars in Dundee, Oregon. Duck Pond not only adds another brand to Great Oregon Wine Company’s existing Oregon portfolio, but also provides the company with considerable production capacity in the upper Willamette Valley and approximately 300 planted acres in the Willamette Valley and the emerging Umpqua Valley American Viticultural Area (AVA). A major vineyard-related investment in the Northwest occurred in August when agribusiness investment firm Farmland LP of San Francisco, completed the purchase of the 6,000-acre Weidert Farm on the western edge of Washington’s Walla Walla Valley AVA. With stated potential of approximately 1,600 vineyard acres, the property has the capacity to significantly expand the future grape supply in the region. However, with the current oversupply of grapes in Washington, the timing for bringing on significantly more vineyard capacity in the state is certainly questionable.

Napa Valley Jewels Change Hands Following LVMH’s majority investment in Colgin Cellars late last year, 2018 witnessed the transfer of three more iconic Napa Valley properties to new owners. Heitz Cellar was purchased by banking and agriculture investor Gaylon Lawrence in April. The winery had been in the Heitz family for three generations, following its founding in 1961 by Joe and Alice Heitz. The sale of Outpost Wines, a highly regarded luxury estate winery on Howell Mountain, followed in July. Outpost represents the first U.S. wine investment for purchaser AXA Millésimes, a subsidiary of French insurance firm AXA Group. AXA Millésimes is the owner of Château Pichon-Baron and Château Suduiraut in France’s Bordeaux region. The Outpost transaction was followed by the sale of a smaller historic Napa Valley brand, Stony Hill Vineyard, to the Hall family’s Long Meadow Ranch winery in August. Stony Hill predates even Heitz as the founding McCrea family harvested their first vintage in 1952. The McCrea family will maintain an equity interest going forward, and some members of the family will participate in management of the combined entity.

WBM December 2018 25

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2018 Y E A R

Top Deals

IN REVIEW

Other Notable 2018 Transactions

Overall Perspective on 2018

Both major and mid-tier suppliers engaged in significant transactions in 2018 in support of their growth strategies. Among the largest players, E&J Gallo continued to expand its collection of vineyards in California’s Central Coast region with the mid-year additions of Rancho Real Vineyard and Sierra Madre Vineyard in Santa Barbara County. Both properties are sizeable, totaling more than a combined 360 planted acres dedicated primarily to Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Rhône varietals. The vineyard acquisitions are destined to support Gallo’s Central Coast ultra-premium and luxury brands. On the brand side, Gallo acquired the globally sourced Locations brand from Dave Phinney, from whom Gallo also purchased the Orin Swift Cellars brands in 2016.

Similar to 2017, U.S. wine industry M&A activity in 2018 was strong and steady although neither year matched the peak year of 2016 in terms of number of large deals and total transaction value. Premiumization, discussed so exhaustively in the past as the primary driver of M&A activity, is no longer news and has simply become the accepted reality of today’s industry. Essentially all of the brand transactions taking place today are in the over-$10 per bottle price segments, reflecting consumer buying trends, at least until the next downward economic cycle. The industry should be encouraged by the broadening of the buyer pool as evidenced by increasing PE activity, as well as growing international interest, particularly from European wine families and legacy brands seeking prestigious U.S. brands and assets. The Pacific Northwest will likely continue to be an important locus of activity based on the high quality of its wines and its favorable economics and growth potential compared to California. Although this M&A cycle continues to have momentum, the environment has definitely shifted toward a buyer’s market, in which acquirers are increasingly selective and are often taking longer to make decisions and commitments. The recent transactions of multiple family-owned legacy brands, in Napa Valley in particular, indicate that the marketplace and distribution landscape are becoming challenging even for the most iconic brands. For winery owners approaching a transition point, the good news is that, despite an unpredictable economic and political environment, it is still a favorable market for realizing value. WBM

E&J GALLO

Another industry giant, The Wine Group, expanded its presence in the Sangria category in August with the purchase of the Beso Del Sol brand. Beso Del Sol is a true Sangria sourced entirely in the Castilla-La Mancha region of Spain. The brand’s strengths include its exceptional quality, attractive alternative packaging and strong penetration in on-premise accounts. Mid-tier suppliers were also active in putting points on the acquisition scoreboard. Vintage Wine Estates kicked off the year with the January completed purchase of the Layer Cake and Cherry Pie brands, which will boost Vintage Wine Estates’ annual production volume by roughly one-half million cases. Huneeus Vintners, in addition to making the Northwest investment discussed earlier, increased its Napa Valley vineyard holdings in September with the purchase of vineyard properties in the Oakville AVA totaling approximately 80 acres from Clarke Swanson Jr., former owner of Swanson Vineyards. In August, Precept Wines, Washington’s secondlargest wine producer, acquired the private label business of California’s Truett-Hurst Inc. Truett-Hurst produced approximately 30 control brands for the likes of Kroger, Trader Joe’s and Total Wine & More. The combination increases the total size of Precept’s Grape & Grain private label business to over 1 million cases annually.

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2018 Y E A R

IN REVIEW

Top People Moves

Ted Baseler

Corey Beck

retirement | Ste. Michelle Wine Estates

CEO | The Family Coppola

Ted Baseler, president and CEO of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, ended his storied and acclaimed career with the company on October 1. The announcement capped a 34-year run with the company, including 17 years as president and CEO, during which his vision and leadership for Ste. Michelle, and the industry in general, fueled the evolution of the Washington wine industry and led to historic company and personal achievements. Baseler is well-known for his approach to building Ste. Michelle into a premium wine powerhouse, driven by a “String of Pearls” philosophy. He orchestrated Ste. Michelle’s surprise acquisition of the renowned Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars with the Antinori family in 2007. Baseler was active in community leadership. He served as the chairman of the Washington Wine Commission, chairman of the Napa-based Wine Market Council and director of the Washington Wine Institute. He also served on the Washington Business Roundtable and the Seattle Children’s Hospital board. His work included numerous projects that benefit the wine industry and community-at-large. He has been the chief advocate and leader of the project to build a world class enology and viticulture institution at WSU, later named the Ste. Michelle Wine Estates Wine Science Center. He also was the driving force behind the company’s development of scholarship programs for students in need, granting more than $3 million in scholarships in recent years. Jim Mortensen, parent company PMI’s senior vice president of human resources, has been appointed to succeed Baseler.

The Family Coppola promoted Corey Beck to CEO in February 2018. Beck, who most recently served as president and director of winemaking for The Family Coppola, has more than 20 years of experience in the wine industry. Beginning his career in viticulture at Napa Valley’s renowned Chateau Montelena, he joined The Family Coppola in 1998 where he rose from assistant winemaker to winemaker, ultimately to president and director of winemaking. A respected member of the Sonoma County community, Beck is a past president of the Sonoma County Vintners and is regularly involved in a variety of wine industry symposiums and advisory councils. “Corey has been an integral part of this company since joining nearly 20 years ago,” said Francis Ford Coppola. “His passion for winemaking and dedication to the staff are unmatched, and I’m proud to appoint him as CEO.” In this new expanded role, Beck will oversee Francis Ford Coppola Winery and Virginia Dare Winery in Geyserville and the newly launched Great Women Spirits. Café Zoetrope in San Francisco will also fall under Beck’s responsibilities.

28 December 2018 WBM

Chris Indelicato chairman | Wine Institute Chris Indelicato, president and CEO of Delicato Family Vineyards was elected Wine Institute Board Chairman for the 2018-2019 fiscal year. Other board officers elected include Hank Wetzel of Alexander Valley Vineyards in Healdsburg, first vice chairman; John Sutton of The Wine Group in Livermore, second vice chairman; Suzanne Groth of Groth Vineyards & Winery in Oakville, treasurer; and Rick Tigner of Jackson Family Wines in Santa Rosa, secretary. Bobby Koch is president and CEO of Wine Institute. Indelicato grew up in the wine business working alongside his father and uncles during harvest, crush, bottling and even pouring behind the counter of the family’s tasting room, which is located at the company headquarters in Manteca. After graduating from the University of Southern California, he started his career as a licensed certified public accountant. He joined Delicato Family Vineyards in 1994, working with his brother, Jay, on the viticulture and winery operations side, eventually serving as national accounts manager and, later, as chief financial officer. He has held the position of president and CEO since 2004. Delicato Family Vineyards is now a fourth-generation, family-owned company and has grown to rank among the top 10 wineries in the U.S. with high-performing brands, such as Bota Box, Gnarly Head, Noble Vines, Z. Alexander Brown and Black Stallion Estate Winery on the Silverado Trail. Recently, Delicato formed a strategic partnership with V2 Wine Group and was named the exclusive U.S. importer of Chilean wine Viña Santa Rita.

Mike Jaeger president and CEO | Cakebread Cellars In October, family-owned Cakebread Cellars named Mike Jaeger its new president and chief executive officer. Former president and CEO, Bruce Cakebread, remains on the winery’s board of directors, along with his brother, Dennis Cakebread, who will continue as chairman of the board. Dennis, who has long overseen sales and marketing efforts at the Rutherford, CA, winery will also relinquish his leadership of these roles. Bruce and Dennis, as owners, now focus their efforts on board oversight, being ambassadors for Cakebread Cellars and helping Jaeger’s transition into his role at the winery. Jaeger is an accomplished executive with deep experience in the wine industry. He began his career in marketing, adding sales, operations and general management roles to his extensive resume. For the past 20 years, Jaeger has led numerous wine businesses, both family-owned and public companies, including Dole Foods, Joseph Seagram & Sons, Trinchero Family Estates and Constellation Brands. Most recently, he was CEO at C. Mondavi & Family and served as chairman at Clos du Val Winery.

24 YEARS

OF EXECUTIVE WINE INDUSTRY REC RUITM ENT EXPERIENCE Benchmark Consulting is the leading resource for exceptional industry talent, career placements and understanding the needs of our clients. We offer organizational and leadership consulting, with personalized search processes. We are specialists in the Wine Industry, with focus on C-level, sales, marketing, and industry production. Our success is attributed to our integrated wine industry knowledge, personal attention to each client company, and proven business processes. 707.933.1500 www.benchmarkhr.com Benchmark Consulting

1030 Seminary St., Suite A-3 Napa, CA 94558

WBM December 2018 29

2018 Y E A R

IN REVIEW

Bill Newlands

Steven Spadaratto

CEO | Constellation Brands

CEO | Far Niente Wine Estates

Constellation Brands promoted Bill Newlands to president and chief operating officer in February and was promoted to CEO when Rob Sands announced his retirement in October. In his expanded role, Newlands has oversight and accountability for all operating aspects of the company and ultimately advancing Constellation Brands’ position as an industry leader. Newlands has more than 30 years of experience in the beverage alcohol industry. He joined Constellation Brands in 2015 as EVP, chief growth officer. In 2016, his role expanded to include leadership of the company’s Wine & Spirits Division, and in 2017 he became the company’s COO. Newlands previously served as president, North America, at Beam, Inc. Under his leadership, Beam became one of the fastest-growing companies in its category. Previous appointments include president, Beam Spirits U.S. (2008-2010); president, Beam Wine Estates (2005-2007); president and CEO, Allied Domecq Wines USA (2002-2005); CEO and board director, wine.com (1999-2001); managing director, U.S. and global marketing officer, LVMH Chandon Estates (1996-1999).

Longtime wine industry veteran Steven Spadarotto was appointed CEO of Far Niente Wine Estates, LLC, the family of luxury wineries that includes Far Niente, Nickel & Nickel, Dolce, Bella Union and EnRoute Winery, in April. Spadarotto has more than 30 years of industry experience, having held general management and senior executive roles with Jackson Family Farms, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates and, most recently, at Francis Ford Coppola Presents. CEO Dirk Hampson, a 36-year veteran of the company, remains chairman of the board where he will continue to provide winemaking oversight. In addition, Larry Maguire, president of Far Niente and a 35-year veteran of the company, was named vice chairman. Maguire will work closely with Spadaratto and Hampson as he continues to build upon his close relationships with the company’s partners. Spadaratto’s appointment to CEO was confirmed by GI Partners, the San Francisco-based private equity firm that invested in FNWE in 2016. “Steve brings a wealth of knowledge and professionalism in fine wine that is complementary to the proven team at FNWE. We look forward to working together as we continue to grow these special wineries and celebrated vineyards,” said David Mace, managing director, GI Partners.

Hugh Reimers president | Foley Family Wines After nine months as the chief administrative officer of Foley Family Wines of Santa Rosa, Hugh Reimers was promoted to president. Reimers is now in charges of the day-to-day operations for the company, which owns and produces 27 brands and 3,000 vineyard acres. Prior to his position at Foley, he served as COO of Jackson Family Wines, playing a key role in finding new properties and acquisition targets. He is expected to fill that same role at Foley Family Wines. Reimers joined Jackson Family Wines in August 2009 as vice president, production services, a position responsible for wine production and planning, grower relations, purchasing, farming and logistics. He was promoted to president of California production in May of 2010 and chief operating officer in 2011. Prior to joining Jackson Family Wines, Reimers was chief winemaker at Constellation Wines, responsible for overseeing wine quality and delivering financial expectations across the Constellation Brands portfolio. He has also served as vice president and general manager of several Constellation facilities where he was responsible for winemaking, bottling, logistics and distribution. Reimers is a native of Australia, where he received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Adelaide.

30 December 2018 WBM

Stuart Spencer executive director | Lodi Winegrape Commission The Lodi Winegrape Commission promoted Stuart Spencer from program manager, a position he has held since June 1, 1999, to executive director of the association, which represents more than 750 winegrape growers and 110,000 acres of vineyards, in April. During his 19 years of service to the Commission, Spencer has led many of the marketing, promotional and educational efforts for the Lodi winegrape industry. He has played a key role in developing the Lodi Wine & Visitor Center, the LODI RULES for Sustainable Winegrowing and the LoCA advertising campaign. In his new position at the Lodi Winegrape Commission, Spencer will oversee the Commission’s marketing, public relations, strategic planning and regional branding efforts, as well as grower and vintner relations. He will lead the Winegrape Commission team of 12, under the direction of the board of directors, and will be the primary spokesperson for the Lodi wine industry. Leading one of California’s most historic winegrowing regions, Spencer will oversee the Commission’s annual budget to market the Lodi region, facilitate grower education, viticultural research and expand awareness of the sustainable farming practices of the LODI RULES—a third-party-certified sustainable winegrowing program started by the Lodi Winegrape Commission in 2005.

Top People Moves Clarice Turner president | Joseph Phelps Vineyards Clarice Turnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership expertise and extensive global experience in the food and beverage industry were key in her appointment as president of family-owned Joseph Phelps Vineyards in May. Turner is a proven senior management executive with a successful track record of leading dynamic organizations through generational transformations. Her appointment signals a continued focus on maintaining family ownership and a tradition of uncompromising quality. Prior to joining Phelps, Turner founded and was CEO of Carneros Associates, a strategic advisory firm guiding vision, strategy and culture for businesses in transition. She has served as a senior management executive of best in class companies in the food and beverage industry, as well as gained meaningful experience with small- and medium-sized family businesses, always with the thread of wine present. She will remain an advisory board director for Delicato Family Vineyards, Culinary Institute of America Society of Fellows, Women of the Vine & Spirits and as Emeritus board director for the National Restaurant Association. Turner earned her MBA concentration in international business and a B.A. in geology from San Francisco State University.

Terry Wheatley president | Vintage Wine Estates Industry veteran Terry Wheatley has been appointed president of Vintage Wine Estates. Previously, Wheatley was executive vice president of sales and marketing, a role she has held since the purchase of Canopy Management, the wine company she co-founded in 2008, by Vintage Wine Estates, which sought to add national retail brands, social media expertise, buyer relationships and branding creativity to its portfolio. Since the acquisition, Pat Roney and Wheatley have led the company on a rapid round of purchases, including B.R. Cohn Winery, Swanson Vineyards, Delectus Winery, Clayhouse Wines, Firesteed Winery, Tamarack Cellars and more. Among her many accomplishments since joining Vintage Wine Estates, Wheatley is perhaps most proud of fostering a culture that champions women in the wine industry and corporate responsibility. Under her leadership, more than half of the executive leadership team are now female, with many women at director level and higher. Wheatley created an annual scholarship to the Wine Business MBA program at Sonoma State University to mentor and support the female wine industry leaders of tomorrow. Under the new organization, wholesale sales, exclusive brands, direct-toconsumer, including tasting rooms, wine clubs, e-commerce and telesales, human resources, marketing, company communications and social media report to Wheatley. Production and operations, finance and IT will continue to report directly to the CEO. WBM WBM December 2018 31

winemaking

2018 Barrel & Oak Survey Report Curtis Phillips

Overview of the Survey

Curtis Phillips, an editor for Wine Business Monthly since 2000, is a graduate of UC Davis, and has been a winemaker since 1984 and an agricultural consultant since 1979.

The most notable findings of the 2018 WBM Survey were: *Just under two-thirds of wineries expect to buy the same number of barrels, or fewer, than they did last year, with a higher proportion (50 percent) saying theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll buy the same number than last year. *Seventy-three percent of new barrel purchases are expected to be French oak, down 3 percent from last year. *Oak type and grain are viewed as being the most important attributes to consider when making purchasing decisions. *Mid-sized and large wineries rate tannin potential as more significant than forest of origin. *Winemakers are tending to use fewer different types of oak alternatives. *Most wineries are not using any type of barrel scanner, but about a third (35 percent) of mid-sized and large wineries use some form of barcode scanner to track their inventory.

CHART 1

Expected Barrel Purchases As noted in previous years, wineries seem to be influenced by the prior harvest a great deal when making barrel purchasing decisions. This usually manifests itself by winemakers overestimating their barrel requirements in the year following a larger than normal harvest and underestimating how many barrels they need in the year following a smaller than normal crush. Once again, just 37 percent of the respondents expected to increase the number of barrels purchased in 2018 over 2017, with half of the respondents (50 percent) noting no change in the number of barrels purchased. The number of respondents expecting to decrease their barrel purchases dropped slightly from 20 to 13 percent (C H A R T 1 ). Thus, the number of wineries expect to maintain or increase their new barrel purchases rose to 87 percent. This represents a significant improvement in the number of new barrel purchases when compared to last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s survey.

Increase

Will the number of barrels your winery purchases this year: By Year

Stay the same

Decrease

60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 2006 vs 2005

2007 vs 2006

Source: 2018 WBM Barrel & Oak Survey

32 December 2018 WBM

2008 vs 2007

2009 vs 2008

2010 vs 2009

2011 vs 2010

2012 vs 2011

2014 vs 2013

2015 vs 2014

2016 vs 2015

2017 vs 2016

2018 vs 2017

CHART 2

Will the number of barrels your winery purchases this year: By Size

Increase

Stay the same

Decrease

60% 50% 40% 30%

SCOTT SUMMERS

Barrels waiting to be purchased at Seguin Moreau in Napa, CA. 20% 10% 0% Small

Mid & Large

Source: 2018 WBM Barrel & Oak Survey

As noted above, the overall results are heavily weighted toward the smaller wineries simply because there are so many more of them in the U.S. wine industry. Respondents from mid-sized and large wineries were slightly less likely to say that they were increasing their barrel purchases and more likely to say that they are maintaining their barrel purchases at the same level as last year. Respondents from small wineries were slightly more likely to respond that they plan to increase their barrel purchases this year (C H A R T 2 ).

Crafting Partnerships At World Cooperage, we craft premium American and French oak barrels and partner with you to build comprehensive barrel programs you can trust, time and time again.

www.worldcooperage.com

WBM December 2018 33

2018 Barrel & Oak Survey Report

Barrel Purchasing: Oak Type Forecast French oak barrels remain the overwhelming favorite for new barrel purchases with an average response that 73 percent of new barrels will be made from French oak (C H A R T 3 ). This question is one where winery size had little influence this year. The WBM Barrel Survey tends to be heavily skewed toward small wineries, and one would expect that this result is merely an artifact of the preponderance of small wineries. As we can see, when the data is broken out by winery size, there was little difference in the responses from small versus mid-sized and large wineries (the results for mid-sized and large wineries are pooled). As with last year, large wineries are only very slightly more likely to be buying French oak barrels than small wineries and correspondingly less likely to be buying Eastern European oak barrels. This looks to be a continuation of the trend toward single oak types and, to a lesser extent, toast-levels, which we noted last year.

CHART 3 What is the percent ratio of barrels you are going to purchase this year? By size

French Oak

American Oak

Eastern European Oak

100% 90% 80%

Louis Latour

Cooperage

Hand Crafting Barrels Since 1898

70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Small Source: 2018 WBM Barrel & Oak Survey

Louis Latour Inc 25 Mitchell Boulevard Suite 7 San Rafael, CA 94903

Scott Bronson USA Sales Tel: (415) 479-4616 sbronson@louislatourinc.com

18, Rue des Tonneliers - B.P. 127 - 21204 Beaune, France www.louislatour.com

34 December 2018 WBM

Mid & Large

Overall Barrel Ratings The respondents were also asked to rate the different oak sources for several attributes (aroma/flavor, price, suitability for aging their wine) and to give an overall rating (C H A R T 4 ). As one can see from this chart, the respondents have been remarkably consistent over the past 13 years with the overall ratings for all barrel types, seeing the slightest of declines in recent years. When the data is broken out by winery size (C H A R T 5 ), we see that there is just a slight difference in the average ratings given by respondents from small wineries and those from mid-sized or large wineries. Winemakers from the larger wineries, however, are more likely to rate all oak sources more highly than those from small wineries. CHART 4 Please provide an overall rating for the following barrels: (1=negative, 5=positive) By Year

French Oak

American Oak

Eastern European Oak

5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 2005

2006

2008

2013

2014

2016

2018

Source: 2018 WBM Barrel & Oak Survey

3 companies to serve you

CHART 5 Please provide an overall rating for the following barrels: (1=negative, 5=positive) By Size

French Oak

American Oak

Eastern European Oak

5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 Small Source: 2018 WBM Barrel & Oak Survey

Mid & Large

Check out our website at NADALIE.COM

707 942 9301 info@nadalie.com nadalie.com

WBM December 2018 35

2018 Barrel & Oak Survey Report

Barrel Critical Attributes This year we asked winemakers to note which of four barrel attributes (oak type, forest, grain and tannin potential) informed their decisions to buy a particular barrel. As should expected, the respondents noted that oak type (French, American or Eastern European) was the most important attribute followed by wood grain. Winemakers from mid-sized and large wineries tended to respond that the tannin potential was more important than the forest of origin while those from small wineries tended to value the forest of origin more than the oak tannin potential (C H A R T 6 ). Traditionally, in addition to vendor-specific attributes, like cooperage and toasting regime, barrels are usually categorized by oak type or species (American oak - AKA Quercus alba, French oak - including both Q. petraea and Q. robur, or Eastern European oakâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;mostly Q. petraea), source forest and grain density. The majority of all wineries use oak type (AO, FO, EO) as a criterion in choosing barrels (makes sense). Large and small wineries are equally likely to include grain (coarse vs. fine; open vs. tight) as a criterion. However, large wineries are more likely to select oak based on the tannin potential while small wineries are about split between tannin potential and forest. As usual, there are a handful of iconoclasts that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t use any of the listed criteria.

CHART 6 What factors do you base your barrel purchasing decisions on? (check all that apply) By Size

Small Wineries

Mid - Large Wineries

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Type of Oak

Forest

Source: 2018 WBM Barrel & Oak Survey

36 December 2018 WBM

Grain

Tannin potential

None of these

Oak Alternatives Large and small wineries differ slightly in oak alternative use. Large wineries are much more likely to use more than two different types of oak alternatives while small wineries seem to be more likely to use two or fewer different oak alternatives, or none at all. There was a general trend toward using fewer different types of oak alternatives without there being much of an increase in the number of wineries reporting that they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t use them.

CHART 7 At what bottle price point do you consider moving from barrels to barrel alternatives? By Size

Small Wineries

Mid - Large Wineries

100% 90% 80%

Barrel Usage, Adjuncts and Alternatives As we can see in C H A R T 7 , the bottle price at which wineries consider moving from barrels to oak alternatives has been steadily increasing. As we get more results in the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Over $25â&#x20AC;? segment, we may need to redefine our top-end price point. This chart only represents a little less than half the respondents as 57 percent stated that they only use barrels. Five percent of the respondents noted that they only use oak alternatives. For the remaining 38 percent of the respondents, the important trend is the point at which the respondents would consider moving from using barrels to barrel alternatives. The number of respondents that list a bottle price in the $14 to $25 range continues to increase while those that put this transition down in the $7 to $10 range continue to decrease. These shifts indicate that the critical bottle price point has moved up from the $7 per bottle segment up to the $14-$24.99 band since 2003, but only for those wineries considering oak alternatives as a barrel substitute.

70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% We only We only use use barrels alternatives

Under $7

$7$9.99

$10$13.99

$14$24.99

Over $25

Source: 2018 WBM Barrel & Oak Survey

WBM December 2018 37

2018 Barrel & Oak Survey Report

CHART 8 What type of barrel scanning system do you use? By Size

Small Wineries

ORION:

Mid - Large Wineries

100%

THE NEW HORIZON

90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%

Orion is an artisan cooperage in partnership with Bayard Fox, Franck Monteau and Christophe Garcia, producing exceptional French oak barrels from the finest wood provenances, with full traceability. BAYARD FOX SELECTIONS

NoneI don’t use barrel scanning software

Bar code

RFID

Other

Source: 2018 WBM Barrel & Oak Survey

707.812.4554 • bayard@bayardfoxselections.com www.tonnellerieorion.com

Methodology HIGH-PERFORMANCE PROCESSING & WASHING SYSTEMS

TBC-2STD Two-Barrel Washer

Maximize Cleaning Minimize Water Use Durable Portable Ozone-capable Minimize Workplace Injuries

1650 Almar Parkway, Santa Rosa CA 95403 tombeard.com p: 707-573-3150 e: jmendoza@tombeard.com

38 December 2018 WBM

This year’s survey received 167 responses. Slightly less than half (49 percent) of the respondents produce fewer than 5,000 cases, about a third (32 percent) produce 5,000 to 24,999 cases, and the remaining 19 percent produce 25,000 or more cases. Due to the composition of the North American wine industry, the results are heavily skewed toward small wineries that produce fewer than 5,000 cases of wine per year. As a consequence, although the results describe the overall industry, large and mid-sized wineries may deviate significantly from the survey results without having much impact on the overall trends. About nine-tenths (89 percent) of the survey respondents reported their job function as winemaker, 50 percent president/GM, 38 percent as cellar/production, 31 percent vineyard-management/viticulture, 30 percent purchasing/finance, 28 percent sales/marketing, 26 percent tasting room and 1 percent “other” (respondents were able to choose more than one function). The purpose of the survey was to determine trends in the usage of oak barrels and barrel alternatives. Please note that the findings of this survey are meant to offer a general picture of wine industry barrel use on a per-winery basis. It is not a scientific study and should be used as a tool and point of reference for further inquiry. Thank you to all respondents who participated in this year’s survey.

Caveats Wine Business Monthly surveys are intended to focus on which winery practices are adopted throughout a highly fragmented wine industry. Despite there being around 9,654 wineries in North America, only a handful of wine companies account for more than three-quarters of the total wine produced. As a consequence, the results of the WBM Barrel Survey are heavily skewed in the opposite direction, toward small wineries producing fewer than 5,000 cases of wine per year (see Methodology above). Although the survey results describe the overall industry, large and mid-sized wineries may deviate significantly from the survey results without having much impact on the overall trends.

Barrel Inventory: Scanners The larger the winery, the more likely it is to use barrel tracking software. There was considerable difference between the responses from mid-sized and large wineries for this survey and the last time we asked this question. Unfortunately, we do not, as yet, have enough data to determine if this is a trend or if the responses for one or the other surveys were merely anomalous. It is not surprising that the larger the winery, the more likely it is to use barrel tracking software (C H A R T 8 ). Small wineries, which one would expect to have the fewest barrels, are the most likely to use manual data-entry rather than either form of scanner. WBM

Although we received a higher than usual number of responses from wineries producing more than 50,000 cases per year, we did not receive enough responses from wineries producing 500,000 or more to justify splitting out large wineries into their own category. As noted in previous surveys, for the particular case of barrel usage, large wineries tend to behave according to the size of their immediate business unit rather than according to the overall size of their parent company. For example, in terms of barrel usage, the Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville and the Franciscan Winery in St. Helena tend to behave more like other premium wineries in Napa than like all the Constellation Brands wineries taken as a group. This is despite the fact that winemakers at these wineries have much less of a free hand in vendor selection than independent winemakers would due to Constellationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s centralized purchasing system. Even large wineries that may have a barrelaged flagship brand tend to treat that brand in isolation from the rest of their production. The results are heavily skewed toward small wineries producing fewer than 5,000 cases of wine per year due to the structure of the North American wine industry. Although the results describe the overall industry, large and mid-sized wineries may deviate significantly from the survey results without having much impact on the overall trends.

WBM December 2018 39

winemaking INNOVATION+QUALITY

Submit a wine trial: www.winebusiness.com/winetrials

Winemaker Trial

Where Whole Clusters are Placed in Fermenter Determines Organoleptic Qualities Where you place whole clusters of grapes, Pinot Noir in this case, ostensibly will affect the perceived tannin extraction, cause potential volatile acidity development and perhaps lend a more carbonic quality that’s best avoided. Michael S. Lasky

W I N E R Y:

Adelsheim Vineyard

WINEMAKER: OBJECTIVE:

Gina Hennen

The objective of the trial was to explore the organoleptic

effect of whole clusters (13 percent total) placed at the top versus the bottom of a fermenter. Typically, we opt to put whole clusters on the bottom of the tank in order to avoid the potential for VA development, but occasionally, we get a bit more carbonic quality than we’d like. To explore alternatives, we set up this trial to better understand the ramifications of whole cluster placement. A block of Pinot Noir (Pommard/3309) was split into two identical fermenters. The first fermenter had 13 percent whole clusters on the bottom of the tank with destemmed fruit on top. The second fermenter had 13 percent whole clusters on the top of the tank with destemmed fruit below it. Each fermenter was treated identically after that. They were both inoculated after a five-day cold soak with Syrah yeast. The tanks received one to two punch-downs per day throughout fermentation. Fermentation curves were very similar, with mixed temps in the mid-70s° F and cap temps in the mid-to-low 80s° F. They were both pressed on the same day for a total of 15 days on skins. The wines settled in separate tanks for several days then went down to barrel. S U M M A R Y:

Lot 1: 13 percent whole cluster on bottom Lot 2: 13 percent whole cluster on top While it’s somewhat early to evaluate the wines, right now we prefer the whole cluster on the bottom version of the trial. It seems to have a more complete, standalone quality. We also prefer the perceived tannin extraction in the bottom whole cluster version; the top fermented version seems like there’s a bit more astringency. CONCLUSION:

40 December 2018 WBM

Michael S. Lasky is the former editor of AppellationAmerica.com and is the author of hundreds of articles for national magazines and newspapers.

ANALYSIS NAME

LOT 1

LOT 2

UNITS

free sulfur dioxide

mg/L

0.31

0.35

mg/L

total sulfur dioxide

mg/L

titratable acidity

5.6

5.7

g/L

3.67

3.68

volatile acidity (acetic)

0.81

0.86

g/L

<0.05

g/L

0.2

g/L

ethanol at 20°C

14.48

14.74

% vol

ethanol at 60°F

14.43

14.69

% vol

catechin

mg/L

tannin

328

335

mg/L

polymeric anthocyanins

mg/L

total anthocyanins

190

200

mg/L

catechin/tannin index

0.122

0.113

polymeric anthocyanins/tannin index

0.04

0.042

molecular sulfur dioxide

L-malic acid glucose + fructose

ETS LABORATORIES

Winemaker Trial: Where Whole Clusters are Placed in Fermenter Determines Organoleptic Qualities

Winemaker’s Postmortem What led to the creation of this trial?

How much fruit was ultimately involved?

Hennen: With this trial, specifically, we had two concerns. One was logistics.

Hennen: There were 2 tons total, split into identical 1-ton perimeters.

For our process, it’s a lot easier to put whole clusters on the top rather than the bottom, so we wanted to see the degree to which that made a difference should we find ourselves in the position of wanting to make our lives easier. But also, it was a question about extraction: the extraction of the cap is going to be a lot different if you have whole clusters on the top or the bottom. And so, the trial was a way for us to really explore what those differences are and what we liked or didn’t like about the two different styles.

Some of this fruit will end up in our single vineyard Ribbon Springs Pinot Noir.

You detected a bit more astringency with the whole clusters placed on top. What would be the cause of this? Hennen: I think it has a lot to do with the fermentation cap temperature. We

put the whole clusters on the top in the warmest part of the cap; and so when you hit peak fermentation temperature, you’re getting a lot of extraction from those tannins in the stem. I think if we were to do the approach again in the future, we would also adjust our cap management strategies. So, potentially, instead of doing punch-downs for cap management with whole punches on the top, we could do pump-overs judiciously to try to cool off that portion of the fermentation and also be a little bit gentler with the extraction.

What have you learned and how will you use this knowledge in future wine blending? Hennen: We’ve learned that there’s definitely a difference in where we place

the whole clusters, so for instance, if we are in the position of logistically needing to put whole clusters on the top because someone forgot to put those clusters into the tank and then filled it, we could feel reasonably confident that the wine is still going to be solid. But we would also look to mitigate the ensuing astringent tannins by way of adjusting our cap management.

Based on what you learned in the trial, would you do anything differently with your winemaking regime? Hennen: We won’t change our winemaking regime as a result of the trial

but what we will do is explore this whole cluster placement in greater detail. So, instead of setting it up as a discrete trial with one variable, we will look to change the whole process surrounding it. What we would do is put whole clusters on the bottom with punch-downs versus whole-cluster on top with a combination of pump-overs and punch-downs. WBM

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WINE BUSINESS MONTHLY

believes that trials are the embodiment of a winemaker’s pursuit of quality. Every harvest, winemakers around the country create their own winemaking trials in pursuit of the ﬁnest wine possible. But there has not been an easy way to share the results of these trials with other winemakers. Winemaker Bio Gina Hennen holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Reed College and an AAS in winemaking from Chemeketa Community College. Before transitioning to a career in winemaking, she worked as a semiconductor engineer for seven years in both Oregon and Dublin, Ireland. Desiring a career that no longer involved cubicles, she returned to Oregon in early 2006 to establish roots in the wine industry. Gina joined the Adelsheim cellar crew in the spring of 2007; she was promoted to cellar master that same year. In spring of 2011, she was again promoted, this time to assistant winemaker. In 2017 was named Adelsheim’s winemaker. She is active in Oregon’s wine community, serving on the OWB Research Committee, LIVE Winery Committee and the IPNC Program Committee. Gina is a trial presenter at both the IQ Conference and Oregon Wine Industry Symposium.

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WBM December 2018 43

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Case Studies:

Sanitation Best Practices for Large Wineries “Sanitation is like washing your dishes after you eat. You may not like it, but it’s key.” Kerana Todorov • Wineries continue to try to find ways to save water • Companies consider ultraviolet to sanitize tanks • Tanks cannot be sanitized if they are not cleaned first • Tartrate residue is sent off to be turned into cream of tartar • Water is recycled and used for irrigation

Kerana Todorov is a staff writer/news editor at Wine Business Monthly and winebusiness.com. She is originally from Geneva, Switzerland.

PHOTOS BY KERANA TODOROV

Cellar worker Eduardo “Eddy” Dagio cleans a 10,000-gallon tank at Kunde Family Winery in Kenwood, Sonoma County. Cellar workers use a Gamajet tank washer with a Waukesha 130 pump to circulate caustic cleaner followed by citric acid neutralizer and then Peracetic acid sanitizer.

vineyards, corn fields and dairy farms along Interstate 5 near Lodi, you’ll see Trinchero Family Estates’ Westside facility, the company’s biggest wine production plant, home to a fast-speed, entirely automated bottling facility and tanks big enough to store 365,345 gallons of wine. In a facility that produces as much as 15 million cases of wine per year, how do you keep up maintenance and sanitation? After all, many say, sanitation is key to good, quality wines. When it comes to their sanitation practices, one of Trinchero Family Estates’ goals is to use the least amount of caustic—a detergent—which, in turn, saves water to clean and sanitize its 630-plus tanks. Instead, the plant uses potassium-based cleaners, all to reduce the amount of salts. “We’re very conscious about water usage and chemical usage,” said Glenn Andrade, senior vice president, winemaking, at Trinchero Family Estates. In an ideal world, chemicals would not be needed. The company has tested steam sanitation, but that requires a lot of energy input. “That’s where it doesn’t make sense for us,” Andrade said. Work instructions indicate the recommended amounts of water and caustic to use based on the size of the tank and the amount of filth in it. They also include a list of materials required and work and safety protocols to follow and other information related to the task to be completed.

A S YOU DR I V E PA ST

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“They need to use a detergent to remove biofilms, and then secondly, they need to use some type of a sanitizer to knock the microbiological levels down to an acceptable point where you can introduce wine without the risk of having any contamination,” Andrade said. Workers enter the largest tanks to place a tripod supporting a hose for the Gamajet nozzle. A slider is used to place the Gamajet nozzle through a port in tanks up to 12,000 gallons. Water remains in the 120° F to 140° F range during the cleaning and sanitizing process, which runs anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours, depending on the size of the tank and how dirty it is. Tartrate is recovered from the tanks, usually around the jackets. Vinicas of Fresno then uses the tartrate to make cream of tartar. During the cleaning, the caustic flow is pumped through multiple screens contained in a cart to capture the tartrate. This is done to avoid the Gamajet nozzles. “The idea is maximum flow to get maximum exposure within the tank,” Andrade said. Workers use pH strips to make sure the caustic has been rinsed before sanitizing the tank with peroxyacetic acid. Hygiena swabs are then used to make sure the tanks are sanitized. The water used in the process is recycled on-site and used for irrigation. The pomace is set aside. Central Valley Ag Grinding trucks pick up the plant’s pomace as often as three times a week during harvest. The Oakdalebased company turns it into compost. Central Valley Ag Grinding also uses the plant’s diatomaceous earth from the winemaking process.

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Sanitation Best Practices for Large Wineries

The Science Behind the Protocols It’s important to note that there is a difference between cleaning and sanitizing, explained Dr. Randy Worobo, professor of food microbiology at Cornell University. “Cleaning is removing the organic residue from a surface while sanitizing is the disinfection of any microbial contamination that remains on the surface after cleaning.” Cleaning agents are detergents, solvent cleaners, acid cleaners or abrasive cleaners, Worobo said, but not all cleaning agents are right for all projects. Cleaning is just the first step in the process. “It is essential that you do a good job cleaning because you can’t sanitize a dirty surface,” Worobo stressed. “The reason for this is that many sanitizers are bound preferentially to organic matter, and once it is bound, it doesn’t have any germicidal activity.” Organic matter provides protection to microbial contamination from UV lights, he added. “The problem with large tanks is that you have such a large surface area that must be cleaned, and to save on chemical costs, spray balls at the top of the tank are usually used to try and cover the entire area,” he said. Common problems include build-up of organic material and surfaces in the tank that spray balls do not reach. Manual scrubbing is sometimes needed; OSHA safety procedures must be adhered to for closed/confined spaces, according to Worobo. Trinchero Family Estates’ Westside facility near Lodi produces most of the wine for the family-owned company. The winery’s biggest tanks can store more than 365,000 gallons of wine.

46 December 2018 WBM

Dr. Molly Kelly, enology extension educator with the Department of Food Science at Penn State, said various microorganisms may be different in tanks at different times, depending on the microbial status of the grapes— or finished wine. Yeasts and bacteria that can come in on the fruit include Acetobacter aceti, Lactobacillus spp. and Kloeckera apiculate, noted Kelly. Spoilage during fermentation may be due to bacteria and yeast such as Brettanomyces bruxellensis, acetic acid bacteria and a host of others, she said. “Typically, film yeast that grow on wine surfaces are a mixed population of Candida, Pichia, Saccharomyces and others,” she said. Factors that help organisms thrive include oxygen contact, temperature, ethanol content and sulfur dioxide levels, Kelly said. “It is important to realize that these organisms may be present and to implement an effective sanitation program that monitors for spoilage organisms.” Microbiological techniques employed to monitor for spoilage organisms include the membrane filter method for liquid samples and swabs that come with a sterile growth medium, according to Kelly. While a number of winery representatives contacted for this article have looked into UV sanitation as a way to save water, Worobo emphasized that there are some drawbacks to the method. “UV sanitation works if the surface is completely smooth and clean, and if it is broadcast on every part of the surface,” Worobo said. “Any amount of shadow, even micro-abrasions on surfaces, will provide protection from the

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Sanitation Best Practices for Large Wineries

Cellar worker Eduardo “Eddy” Dagio places a Gamajet tank washer inside a 10,000-gallon tank at Kunde Family Winery in Kenwood, Sonoma County. Dagio enters the tank after filling out a confined space permit to scrub stubborn stains and tartrate from the walls and ceilings. It takes anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to clean and sanitize a tank, depending on how dirty it is. Kunde’s biggest tanks are 40,000 gallons and 20,000 gallons.

disinfecting wavelengths of UV. The germicidal wavelength is 254 nm, so you want to make sure that your UV lamp has good output of this wavelength to maximize its germicidal activity,” he said. “The other issue is that the UV light can be blocked [such as by glass], so you want to make sure that your UV lamp isn’t shielded by a UV-blocking material.” In St. Helena, Beringer’s production facility processes fruit from a number of Treasury Wine Estates wineries in the Napa Valley and Sonoma. The company has decommissioned four of its six largest tanks and replaced them with 100 new, smaller tanks. These give winemakers a more controlled environment, said Brent Dodd, a spokesman for Treasury Wine Estates. The

48 December 2018 WBM

decommissioned tanks are used to collect up to 600,000 gallons of rain water. Altogether the company maintains about 400 production tanks in St. Helena. Tank cleaning at the winery is one of the tasks for 30 cellar workers out of roughly 100 employees at the site, according to Treasury Wine Estates. “Every day, you’re washing,” noted Salvador Bello, cellar manager at Beringer. “That’s one of the highest priorities that we have—after safety.” A spray balls with four nozzles attached to a hose resembling a giant sprinkler cleans and sanitizes each tank. About 80 to 140 gallons of water are needed to clean and sanitize a tank. “Sanitation is like washing your dishes after you eat. You may not like it, but it’s key,” Bello said.

Mark Garaventa, general manager at Rack & Riddle, a custom wine

company based in Healdsburg, cleans and sanitizes the tanks with Gamajet and a centrifugal pump. The company uses hot water, caustic and citric to clean and sanitize its tanks. Sanitation is checked with Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) swabs. Employees use pH strips to check for neutrality of acid/bases used during the process. Altogether the cleaning and sanitizing process takes about an hour per tank, Garaventa said. Jackson Family Wine Estates’ La Crema began using a BlueMorph ultraviolet unit about four years ago to save water, said Jim Sturgeon, director of operations at La Crema. The unit is primarily used to sanitize tanks up to 10,000 gallons.

BlueMorph founder and chief executive officer Alex Farren said the technology can be used for tanks up to 300,000 gallons in capacity. Garaventa at Rack & Riddle said his company is considering ultraviolet light and steam cleaning sanitation. Kunde Family Winery is also considering UV technology. “This would speed up the time it takes to sanitize, reduce chemicals and also cut the water usage by about a third,” said Chris Sorensen, Kunde’s cellar master. The winery, which produces 60,000 to 70,000 cases of wine a year, has tanks that range from 250 gallons to 20,000 gallons. Employees need about 20 minutes to an hour and up to 100 gallons of water to clean and sanitize the tanks, according to the winery. WBM

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WBM December 2018 49

winemaking

40 Years in Wine A Look Back Eric Stern

with time to reflect on my career, I recently had a small epiphany. It occurred while sharing a bottle of Moulinà-Vent with a dear friend of more than 50 years. The wine, dinner and conversation were harmonious, and I was reminded of my first harvest 40 years ago, back in 1978. I made two trips to France in ’78, one to mountain climb in Chamonix, the second to work in the grape harvest that fall. What follows connects the two trips and recounts my journey in wine. After summitting Mont Blanc on Bastille Day, July 14, my friend and I got off our train back to Paris in Mâcon and rented bikes to tour this wine region—the Mâconnaise. As a wine lover—an amateur in the true sense of the word—I had carried Hugh Johnson’s The World Atlas of Wine with me from my home in New Hampshire. The connections Johnson made between geography, maps and wine, and the intimate relationship of place to a wine’s quality was reinforced as we pedaled the back roads of this scenic region with its river-bottom land, forested hills, dramatic limestone formations and numerous vineyards. In the Atlas Johnson stated, “At 10 years the best Moulin-à-Vent can achieve the stature of a great red Burgundy,” a statement I got to verify through a chain of serendipitous events that year. Not wanting to climb a steep hill without the assurance of finding an open tasting cellar, I asked a young motorist if there was a place to try some wine up the hill. He assured me there was. Some minutes later, as we reached the promised cellar, the Frenchman’s car pulled up, and he invited us to his family’s home and cellar. Leaving our bikes parked along a vineyard wall, we climbed into his car and drove several miles to the Clos duVieux Domaine, his family’s estate in Moulin-à-Vent. After a number of respectable wines from various vintages, Jérôme, our new friend, brought out a ’69 Moulin-à-Vent. This wine was a wonder, every bit as profound and complex as Grand Cru Burgundy. After an hour or so of tasting and talking about his family’s wines, Jérôme took us back to our bikes, and we continued our journey back to Mâcon and our train to Paris and home. Still enthused by Jérôme’s ’69 Moulin-à-Vent, I wrote to ask if I might return to help in the harvest. He said sure, and I made plans to return as a vendangeur, or grape picker. I also bought a touring bike that I planned to ride from Paris down to the Beaujolais region, about 270 miles to the South. Aged Moulin-à-Vent and cycling in France had ignited a fire in me. On this trip another bit of serendipity occurred. In Paris I met an American writer, Pati Hill, who had an American ex-pat friend in Burgundy that she thought I would be interested in meeting. Her friend was Becky Wasserman—well-known in the Burgundy wine trade for her fine wine company that specializes in artisanal Burgundian producers, Becky Wasserman Selections. In 1978 she had not yet begun that business but was AS A RETIRED WINEMAKER

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importing French oak barrels for “innovative” California winemakers. (It is somewhat surprising to recall that the use of French oak in California winemaking was not commonplace 40 years ago. Just a few producers here, such as Dick Graff at Chalone and Brad Webb at Hanzell, were barrel fermenting in French oak.) I called the Wassermans from Paris, introduced myself and was invited to visit en route to Moulin-à-Vent later that week. While visiting Becky and her husband, Bart, I found out from Jérôme that the harvest was on hold until better weather. I was to wait out the weather a full week. This time frame coincided with the Wasserman’s already scheduled trip to the USA for business and family. After one dinner and a night as their guest, they decided that I was sufficiently trustworthy to leave in charge of their converted barn home in Bouilland and their young son, Paul. I could cook meals for Paul, guard the home and wait out the cool, rainy weather in their comfortable, dry home. Here, I harvested fresh produce from their garden, cooked up tasty meals and enjoyed the bounty of their well-stocked cellar. This happy arrangement also enabled their full-time employee, also named Paul, to sleep at home each night in the company of his own family, rather than as guardian and caregiver for young Paul. After an idyllic week caretaking the home and young Paul, the weather broke, and on Oct. 1, I left Bouilland for Moulin-à-Vent and my introduction to winemaking. That day was a Sunday, a partial rest day for the pickers and a traditional family lunch for Jérôme and relatives, who were gathered for the weekend from Lyon. While waiting on lunch, Jérôme introduced me to a neighbor who made some Pouilly Fuissé. We stood in the neighbor’s cellar and consumed a recent vintage from a single tastevin, passed around with each of us, in turn, guzzling the full tastevin. In no time the bottle was emptied. When the lunch was served, a grand paella with more wine, I felt more than a bit drunk and somehow managed to make polite conversation, none of which I can recall. After dessert, coffee and after dinner drinks, I was shown to a guest room in the Vieux Bourg, one of the oldest homes in the commune. The other vendangeurs, whom I had yet to meet, were housed in a barn, dormitory fashion. I enjoyed this ancient home’s comfortable luxury as the work would prove to be the hardest I had ever experienced. Each morning I would rise before dawn, hop on the bike and coast downhill to the barn to join my fellow pickers for breakfast: hot soup, coffee, bread with butter and jam. Then it was off to the vineyards to pick the head-trained vines of Gamay grapes. We’d have a 15-minute break, with wine, bread and cheese and chocolate squares, at about 10 a.m. and continue until lunch at noon. At about 1:30 it was back out to the vineyards and picking until dinner at about 6 p.m. or until a particular field was finished. I had no problems falling asleep by 8 p.m. every night after my short ride back up the hill to the Vieux Bourg.

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40 Years in Wine: A Look Back The full days left me exhausted physically, but intellectually and emotionally I was eager to learn more about wine and winemaking. A few evenings after dinner in the communal barn/dormitory, I visited the cellar and watched the winemaking process. The day’s pick was pitch-forked into open-topped tanks that hold a few tons. Yeast was introduced, and a wood lattice to hold down the eventual cap was put in place. Already, fermenting tanks were pumped over, or juice was run through a heat exchanger. The vigneron and his helper would be up until 2 a.m. working in the cellar. Due to the delayed start of the vintage and my pre-purchased airline ticket home, I could only stay a little more than a week; many steps of the winemaking process remained obscure. All I knew was that I wanted to learn more. Back in the states, the next chapter in my wine education was a wine appreciation class taught at Harvard University by Roger Orman. Roger worked for a fine wine importer and brought years of experience in the trade and his passion for wine to each lecture and tasting. Following his class, I began to work in wine sales, both retail and wholesale, and eventually worked as a sommelier for a fine restaurant in Cambridge called Panache that was considered by The New York Times among the top restaurants in the Boston area at the time. My predecessor at this job was Joshua Wesson, who went on to gain fame as a wine writer and wine educator. Over the course of the year, I was able to taste dozens of wines and attended professional tastings. I began to keep a notebook and wrote tasting notes, scoring the wines on my own 9-point scale. I was becoming immersed in wine. As an undergraduate, I had studied music at Boston University and the Juilliard School of Music. After three frustrating and painful years, I

52 December 2018 WBM

concluded that a performing career was beyond me, so I transferred to New York University and completed a degree in anthropology and geology. After university, I moved to New Hampshire where Juilliard friends had a farm and lived communally, performed music as the Apple Chamber Players and held summer workshops on the farm. This idyllic life-style suited me, and I also gained experience in non-profit music management that ultimately led me to a position in 1983 with the San Diego Symphony. But, I wasn’t diplomatic about my artistic, aesthetic judgments and tended to rub some people the wrong way; my New York arrogance was not appreciated. However, I did manage to find a woman to fall in love with at the Symphony. She worked in the PR department, and we began a relationship that led to marriage and her tough-love question sometime later: “What do you want to be when you grow up, Eric?” I replied, somewhat defensively, I’d long wanted to be a winemaker, but I was too old to go back to university to study and then apprentice in a new career. Carol just gave me that frustrated look of hers and asked, “Well, how old will you be next year?” Her cool logic undermined my feeble excuse, and I applied to winemaking schools. Fresno State accepted me for the fall term. My faculty advisor, Carlos Mueller, told me I needed to prepare for Fresno by enrolling in a junior college and taking an introductory chemistry class. When I had last studied chemistry, I’d used a slide rule to perform the routine math. Learning to use a pocket calculator was just one of the many hurdles I would need to surmount as a “reentry student” at age 40. After two intensive years, which included summer classes, I completed a second undergraduate major in enology at Fresno and was now eager to leave Fresno and enter the job market. It was 1987, nine years after my first harvest.

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Eager and willing to start at the bottom to gain experience, I sent off nearly 100 cover letters and resumés to prospective employers. The first job offer I had was for a seasonal position with Acacia in California’s Carneros District. The winemaker was Larry Brooks, whose Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines had garnered national acclaim. He proved to be an excellent mentor as was his assistant, Wade Mills, and enologist, Dave Lattin. I worked the bottling and harvest season at Acacia. When the season ended, I moved over to their sister winery, Carmenet, in Sonoma Valley, making Meritage wines and Sauvignon Blanc. I was given the title of enologist at Carmenet and performed all the routine lab analysis, in addition to the cellar work. Starting at the bottom of the pecking order in wine production could be frustrating, but I was eager to learn as much as possible, and I was lucky to be associated with high-quality wineries whose winemaking teams were highly skilled crafters of fine wine. I learned more in this apprenticeship year than I had at university in over two years. But I was ambitious and felt that I needed to move on to gain further experience and responsibilities. I chose to relocate for an assistant winemaker position in Long Island, NY. It did give me more responsibility, but the winery was anything but sound financially, something I was totally unaware of at the time of my hiring. The winemaker left after seven months, and I was left in charge of the wines in tank and barrel. Their vendors were owed from previous bottlings and refused to ship additional supplies of glass, corks and capsules until the outstanding invoices were paid. The wines stayed in tank and barrel. I was forced to leave when I stopped getting paid—another important lesson learned in the wine industry. We moved back to California where I was able to return to Acacia until I found a full-time position. A colleague from Sonoma who worked in marketing forwarded my resume to Landmark Vineyards then based in Windsor, and I was hired to be their assistant winemaker in 1989. I had no idea that this would be the beginning of a 22-year tenure. That first vintage was memorable for unseasonably early and heavy rain in September. Low sugars, high acids and rot compromised the wines. Tractors couldn’t get into the vineyards due to the saturated ground. Rot and mold were rampant. Many of the interventions we attempted were not beneficial. Even though I was only the assistant, the winemaker had little idea how to deal with the situation other than to buy white grape concentrate to boost the low sugar content of this rained on and rotted vintage. The following years could only get better. Subsequent vintages proved marginally better, but the brand was without caché in the marketplace, and financially, the winery was struggling. Ownership decided to make a change, my boss was fired, and I was eventually promoted to winemaker, despite my limited experience. I suggested that to change course, Landmark should hire an outside consultant. In 1993 we hired Helen Turley as a consultant. She and I changed the production protocols to better reflect our own philosophies and aesthetics, adopting more traditional French winemaking techniques, such as wholecluster pressing, indigenous fermentation in French oak barrels, complete malolactic fermentation and bottling with no filtration. It was a tall order. Landmark didn’t have the equipment to carry out such a program. I had to contract with other facilities, principally sparkling wine producers who were virtually finished with their harvests and possessed large tank presses, to whole-cluster press our fruit. The logistics were challenging. Many of the lots of shipped juice were over-settled at the custom crush facilities when trucking couldn’t be arranged in a timely manner. We had stuck fermentations in some of our lots. A second label was created to deal with those mistakes: Adobe Canyon Cellars.

Many lessons were learned the hard way that initial year. The following year we modified the crush pad to pump whole clusters to a new 80hL press with a large Moyno pump. This technology, employed by large-scale industrial winemaking facilities, created too many solids in our juice for barrel fermentation, and getting the percentage of light lees into the racked juice tanks left hundreds of gallons of lees to be recovered by lees pressing. This was not only tedious, it was antithetical to our goal of producing artisanal, barrel-fermented Chardonnay with clean, vineyard-specific flavors. Bigger presses and dumping of half-ton bins directly to press were the only solution to achieve low solids and eliminate lees filtration. Landmark’s owners made the investments we required. We sold the Moyno pump and bought a 150 hL Diemme press and hoppers to dump whole clusters direct to press. We also had a conveyor built to feed the smaller press. We could now process a truckload, 20 tons of Chardonnay, at a time. The wines improved as did our ability to adjust solids for barrel fermenting without yeast inoculation. The following year, 1994, I introduced Pinot Noir to our Chardonnay-only portfolio. It proved to be a particularly stellar year for Pinot. That first wine garnered a three-puff rating in the Connoisseurs’ Guide to California Wine. Landmark and I had come a long way from the abysmal vintage of 1989. The excellence of this vintage for Pinot also came with a lesson in humility: no subsequent vintage ever seemed to match the perfection of ’94. Over the next 16 harvests at Landmark, I gained greater experience and skill and benefited from frequent consultations with colleagues. The wine industry in California is somewhat unique in this respect: information and sharing of experience are freely offered when requested. But building new

relationships with the best growers was key to the greater success moving forward. I sought out these elusive, often already committed vineyards. Many were reluctant to sell to an upstart brand. As we garnered recognition, these barriers came down, and we were able to purchase grapes from prized vineyards. I believe that this is the only true “secret” in winemaking. Like cuisine, one needs to start with the finest ingredients. A few of the memorable achievements along the way were earning accolades from leading wine critics, including Robert Parker, Steven Tanzer and James Laube. Landmark’s signature wine, the Overlook Chardonnay (production averaging 18,000 to 20,000 cases), earned the prized Wine Spectator’s endorsement, being selected five times for their top 100 wines of the year. In addition, one of our Syrahs once made that listing. The best boasting rights came in 2000 with the selection of a Landmark Pinot Noir for inclusion on the menu for a dinner celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the White House at which all the living Presidents were invited to attend with their wives. I happened to be in Dijon, France at a symposium hosted by the University of Dijon when I heard about the dinner via a phone call to my wife, who also shared with me the great news of her first grandson’s birth that day. The past 40 years have flown by for me. I can truly say I was lucky to be in the right places at the right times and given the appropriate resources by the owners at Landmark to revitalize the winery. But my success also derived from hard work and dedication to the goal of producing distinctive wine from a particular place. It all began with a taste of a ’69 Moulin-à-Vent that had quietly rested for nearly a decade in that cool cellar in France. WBM

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grape growing

The 2018 Growing Season:

Just Another Great Vintage? This past season was smooth sailing compared to last year. Mark Greenspan Dr. Mark Greenspan has more than a quarter-century of scientific viticulture research and viticultural field experience. He specializes in irrigation and nutrition management, yield and canopy management, vi neyard climate and microclimate, vineyard design and vineyard technology. He is the founder of Advanced Viticulture, Inc. based in Windsor, California (www.advancedvit. com), providing consulting, technology, vineyard management and vineyard development for wineries, winemakers and wine growers devoted to producing premium wines. Please direct queries to mark@ advancedvit.com or 707-838-3805.

SCOTT SUMMERS

season like last year. Some of us might have fled the industry. This year Mama Nature threw us a steady round of fastballs right over the plate and I’m looking forward to seeing some truly fine wines out of this vintage. No vintage is perfect and, certainly, this one wasn’t, but perfect has no personality and frankly doesn’t give me much to write about. (Mind you, I’m writing this from the perspective mainly of the North Coast, where I do most of my work, and I’m also penning this in early October before the harvest has been completed.) If you need a refresher about 2017, we had drenching rains during the winter that stretched well into spring, making it difficult to slow down the vines’ vegetative growth. The high vigor, coupled with some iffy weather during bloom and fruit set, caused some spotty set, so yields were sub-par, if not highly variable. Then, we had the heat, starting with previews in June, a steady diet of heat spikes in July and August, and the mother of all heat spikes on Labor Day. The heat spikes wrought havoc with vine physiology, and ripening struggled to advance—and then the wind kicked up in October and fed a firestorm that devastated the entire region. From a wine industry view, that meant some grapes not being harvested due to either devastation or smoke taint. We all know that some nice wines were made in 2017, but I think we can agree we don’t want one of those years again. WE DIDN’T NEED ANOTHER

56 December 2018 WBM

Moderate Rainfall and Good Set Weather The 2018 season was a smooth one, and we’d probably think so even if we hadn’t been through the ordeal of last year. Rainfall was much closer to typical, and it was far drier than in 2017. The North Coast received ample rainfall to bring soil profiles to field capacity by budbreak, and the region received additional rainfall in April; and while substantial, it was not day after day of poor weather. We held our breath during May this year at the time of bloom and fruit set because, after a couple of years of poor set (with some extremely poor set in our not-too-distant past), we feared yet again for a substandard crop. Rather, we were blessed with weeks and weeks of mild weather, with only a short period of cloudy weather during May. So, fruit set was good overall, though there was a vineyard here and there where set was again poor. However, the 2018 vintage will be known as a heavy crop year: wait for the numbers to roll in after harvest. Not only was set good, but cluster counts were up. I saw numerous vineyards, mostly planted to Bordeaux varieties, with shoots having three clusters. I suppose some of the more production-oriented growers left all three on through harvest, but most growers I know knocked them back to no more than two clusters per shoot. I guess the extra crop was tough to resist after some leaner crop years.

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The 2018 Growing Season:

Just Another Great Vintage?

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Seasonal Growing Degree Days 2016

2017

2018

4100 3600

3,476 3,157

3100

3,243

2,747

2600

2,472

3,140 2,852

2,810

2,461

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100 Russian River Valley

Alexander Valley

Coombsville

Heat Summation (Degree Days) Temperature influences all things, and we have grown accustomed to using heat summation to quantify the temperature aspects of the growing season. Looking at the total heat summations for the season from 2016 through 2018 (a substantial portion of October 2018 was estimated in these charts because of the timing of this writing), we can see that this year was much cooler than 2017—no surprise (F I G U R E 1 ). Across three North Coast AVAs (Russian River, Alexander Valley and Coombsville) 2018’s heat summation was similar to that of 2016, and 200 to 300 degree-days cooler than the somewhat anomalous 2017 season. These heat summations for the year placed the respective AVAs into their expected ranges for their regional classifications by the Winkler scale: Russian River a high region I, Coombsville a mid-region II and Alexander Valley a mid-region III. (They were all about half a region hotter in 2017.) Looking at monthly heat summations using the hotter Alexander Valley region as the example (F I G U R E 2 ), the differences among the last three growing seasons didn’t really differentiate themselves until the summer months. While June was warmer in 2017 than in 2018, that was mainly due to a brief but intense heat event that punctuated the early month during 2017. Otherwise, heat accumulation was similar during June. July, as fruit entered

58 December 2018 WBM

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The 2018 Growing Season:

Just Another Great Vintage?

FIGURE 2

Growing Degree Days by Month for Alexander Valley 2016

2017

2018

800 700 600

Tr y

U t a

ie f i n

o Bo

# h t

173

500 400 300 200 100 April

May

June

July

August

September

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60 December 2018 WBM

veraison during the latter portion of that month, was far cooler in 2018 than the year prior yet slightly warmer than 2016. As fruit ripening usually commences in August, this season we saw relatively warm temperatures to begin the ripening cycle. Not as hot as 2017, that was mainly because 2018 lacked heat extremes. Yet it was quite warm, and early varieties, especially Pinot Noir, reached maturity relatively early in many vineyards. It was not uncommon for still wine Pinot Noir to be harvested in late August, though most was picked during September. Weather cooled in September, which stalled ripening a bit and was a welcome relief to growers and wineries who were fearful that ripe fruit would not be able to be taken due to tank space. Fortunately, the cooler September weather slowed things down and steadied the harvest. While October is still not in the books as of this writing (which is why it is not included in the chart), the beginning of the month featured some substantial rainfall—about 1 to almost 2 inches fell within a couple of days in the early month. We in the North Coast freak out about rain, which we don’t have to deal with like so many other growing regions. So, we saw sprayers on the road, out to protect what was still on the vine: Bordeaux varieties mainly, but also some Rhônes and just a smidge of stubborn Pinot Noir. The latter Pinot Noir was mainly on vineyards that suffered from virus diseases, and the rains did create issues with Botrytis bunch rot. Thankfully, most of the Pinot had been picked by the time it rained.

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The 2018 Growing Season: Just Another Great Vintage?

FIGURE 3

FIGURE 4

Hours above 100°F - Alexander Valley

Hours above 105°F - Alexander Valley

Hours per month above threshold temperature

2016

2017

2018

15 10

18 13

13 9

8 3

5 2 0

0 June

July

August

0 September

Less Extreme Weather is Good Weather We can deal with warm weather—the vines like it, and fruit matures quickly in both sugar and flavor. Vines hate variability and extreme heat events, like we had more than enough of in 2017, which hamper ripening and also cause acid degradation so that we don’t get flavor maturity at the optimal levels of Brix, pH and acidity. Last year was one heat wave after another. We can quantify the hours above temperature thresholds, and they are shown in the accompanying charts for 100° F and 105° F (F I G U R E S 3 A N D 4 , respectively).

0 June

0 July

August

September

The year 2017 stands out like a sore thumb, with hours and hours above 100° F during June through September (October was much milder) and also substantial hours above 105° F during those same months. It’s really temperatures above 105°F that cause issues with fruit maturation and leaf functioning. We saw the effects on ripening last year, and it wasn’t pretty. This year was a completely different story. While we did see some temperatures rise above 100°F in June and again in August, we saw almost no temperatures exceeding 105°F, even in the warm Alexander Valley. This is exactly the type of weather conducive to a good to great vintage. Warm temperatures without heat spikes: That’s the 2018 vintage.

SCOTT SUMMERS

62 December 2018 WBM

FIGURE 5

Average Diurnal Temperatures, August and September, Russian River 2016 2017 2018 90°F

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We can look not only at the daytime temperatures but at the nighttime temperatures as well. Night temperatures are also important because metabolism occurs in the vine and fruit in the absence of active photosynthesis. Warmer nighttime temperatures allow for fruit maturation to occur without sugar loading as long as temperatures remain above the baseline of 50°F and, of course, the further above that baseline, the more activity occurs. So, berry maturation can occur during the nighttime without sugars accumulating. That can be beneficial for fruit quality and especially for red varieties. However, higher nighttime metabolism also means that acids (malic acid) are metabolized more rapidly than otherwise, so we don’t want our night temperatures to be excessively warm either. Looking at a chart of average diurnal temperatures during the months of August and September (computed as averages of each time slot over that period of time, F I G U R E 5 ) , we see that for the Russian River Valley AVA, nighttime temperatures were cooler in 2018 than during the two previous growing seasons. That means that flavor, color and mouthfeel may have developed more slowly relative to Brix during 2018 than in previous years. During the daylight hours, 2018 diurnal temperatures were similar to those of 2016 and much cooler than in 2017.

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WBM December 2018 63

The 2018 Growing Season: Just Another Great Vintage?

Across the three regions being compared here, we see that Alexander Valley had much warmer daytime temperatures than the other two regions and that both Coombsville and Russian River had similar daytime temperatures (though shifted in their times of day, F I G U R E 6 ). However, Coombsville had much warmer nighttime temperatures than Russian River, which would have helped fruit to attain maturity and would be quite necessary given Coombsville growers’ later-ripening Bordeaux varieties. Note that Coombsville’s nighttime temperatures remained above the 50° F baseline throughout the night, on average.

Quality and Quantity?

So, 2018 was a bumper crop for most vineyards; and as a result, it was quite difficult to sell any unsold fruit, and many vineyards had extra fruit available because of contract limitations. This could have some short-term implications for grape pricing, forcing them downward, as wine tanks are full, which will lead to possible excesses of inventory. But I’m not a wine economist, so I hesitate to speculate. Even so, I suspect to see some softening of the grape market coming up. The good news, however, is that fruit is maturing nicely as I write this article in early October, and there is ample cause for optimism. Fruit is tasting good on the vine, Brix levels are not excessive at the time of flavor maturity, and acids seem to be in balance at the time of harvest also. While there is certainly disease out there caused by the rains, the weather warmed up, and breezes blew to dry up most infections, or so it seemed. Were there any strange phenomena this year? To be sure, the strangest thing I saw was that tissue potassium levels at veraison seemed to be extra high in vineyards that are usually high in K. This observation was made by others, including a colleague of mine who is a partner in an agricultural laboratory. I still cannot figure out why that could be but wonder if the high crop loads had anything to do with it. I really cannot figure out why, but another thing I did see just as unusual as the high veraison potassium levels: many vineyards showed extreme symptoms of potassium deficiency by harvest. Symptoms were commonly seen as extreme leaf scorching, and tissue testing of the worst vines confirmed that potassium was extremely deficient in those vines. That, I presume, was likely exacerbated by the heavy crop load as fruit is a sink for potassium. It will be interesting to see if juice and musts are generally lower or ® higher in potassium than usual. High Matrix SG herbicide makes controlling weeds easy. It provides potassium can be problematic in pre- and early post-emergent control of important weeds like fleabane, marestail, filaree, malva, willowweed, annual bluegrass wines, possibly leading to elevated and Italian ryegrass on all the key permanent crops. There are pH. Yet, while that is something of a no soil type or organic matter restrictions, and no dormant mystery and an unknown yet as to its or non-dormant cut-off dates. You can even apply Matrix to effect on wine quality, all else points young trees and grapevines that have been established for to a good vintage—maybe even a at least one full growing season. With Matrix, weed control is truly notable one. WBM so uncomplicated.

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64 December 2018 WBM

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grape growing

Irrigation Strategies

Maintain Natural Grapevine Mechanisms Through a Drought Thibaut Scholasch

Co-founder of Fruition Sciences, Thibaut Scholasch brings his technical and scientific expertise in viticulture and enology to the company. He conceived the conceptual framework for 360viti (ex Fruition Analytics) and selected the tools to be connected to the vineyard. Throughout this experience, he became an expert in controlling the effects of environmental stresses on vine physiology, fruit and wine quality, such as light, temperatures, nitrogen or water stresses on grape composition. He has worked as a winemaker and consulted for wineries all around the world (France, Chile, California, Australia, Argentina, Israel). Scholasch has a Ph.D. in vine physiology and a passion for understanding what drives vine health to make good wines.

and field observations along with scientific findings to discuss the effect of irrigation frequency on vineyard water use regulation. It is suggested that imposing high irrigation frequency is not always the most desirable strategy to reduce water deficit. High frequency irrigation can lead to more severe yield loss and increase sugar concentration before harvest due to fruit ripening disorders or heightened fruit sensitivity to shriveling. Such fruit responses related to water deficit management should be avoided particularly in a context of higher temperatures. The discussion leverages historical vineyard performances using continuous vine water status measurements in response to high irrigation frequency. Thanks to technological advances, new and more precise source of information can be used to improve future irrigation practices. Combined with recent scientific knowledge on vine water use regulation alongside field observations, it is possible to adopt irrigation strategies more respectful of grapevine natural mechanisms to cope with drought. T H I S A RT IC L E S H A R E S DATA

Abstract We discuss how irrigation frequency affects root architecture, vine water use regulation and ultimately fruit ripening dynamics. We report results from continuous vine water use measurements by using sap flow and obtained over various vineyards and multiple years to illustrate how irrigation frequency can impact water deficit profile between two watering events and during the season. Our data suggests that under more frequent irrigations, vine water use tends to drop more substantially once the effect of water applied disappears. However, under the same growing conditions, applying larger volumes less frequently leads to a more moderate vine water deficit profile over the season. In turn, applying longer intervals between irrigations can have positive effects on berry volume and berry sugar accumulation rate. We discuss some practical consequences related to irrigation volume and frequency and the need to systematically relate irrigation strategies to their effects on plant water use and fruit indices.

66 December 2018 WBM

Introduction In semi-arid regions and with warmer temperatures, irrigation is increasingly becoming a part of vineyard management practices. Whether in a newly developed vineyard or in an older vineyard that used to be dry-farmed, implementing irrigation will have a major effect on vineyard performances. The main effect of any irrigation is to increase vine water use. If there is a water deficit prior to irrigation, the vine water deficit level decreases after irrigation because of an increase in water use. The magnitude of the decrease in vine water deficit is proportional to climatic demand and to the rise in the amount of water use. However, irrigation also modifies root architecture while water deficit variations impact fruit composition and yield levels (Guilpart et al., 2014). Thus, monitoring irrigation effect on vine water use variations is critical to define an irrigation strategy adapted to production goals, climate and soil conditions, as well as plant material and architecture. Irrigation effects on vine water use can be measured either directly with sap flow sensors or indirectly with different methods, including water potential readings or environmental readings (like eddy covariance or surface renewal). By analyzing vine water use variations in response to different irrigation strategies, useful information can emerge to design an irrigation program adapted to vineyard-specific properties, particularly regarding the volume and frequency of water application. By comparing fruit ripening profile with yield obtained under contrasted irrigation strategies, vineyard managers and winemakers can improve vineyard performance. For more than 10 years and across vineyards located in semi-arid climates, we collected sap flow data to precisely evaluate irrigation effects on vine water use (Scholasch, 2018). Thus, leveraging sap flow data, we propose to shed a new light on the benefits that a moderate drought period imposed between two successive irrigations can have on vine production. We will first discuss irrigation effect on root profile before analyzing shortterm and long-term effects of irrigation frequency on seasonal vine water deficit variations. Second, we will discuss the consequences of irrigation frequency on fruit ripening profile and berry volume loss before harvesting by using case studies. Practical consequences of imposing longer intervals between two irrigations and moderate drought periods during the season are discussed to define an irrigation strategy that improves vineyard production.

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Irrigation Strategies Maintain Natural Grapevine Mechanisms Through a Drought

Irrigation Modifies Root Architecture Edwards et al., (2013) investigated the effect of different irrigation volumes on root dry mass over 75 cm of soil depth. They found that total root dry mass is the highest under well-watered conditions and lowest under the prolonged drought treatment where less water was applied. However, the fraction of total root mass within the first 25 cm represented more than 55 percent in the well-watered treatment and 30 percent in the treatment where prolonged drought was imposed pre-veraison. Figure 1 shows the total amount of root dry mass measured in the top 25 cm of soil (estimated from a grid of nine soil cores per unit area).

Root dry biomass (tons/Ha)

FIGURE 1

Top soil 0 cm to 25 cm depth

Short Intervals Between Irrigation Can Induce More Severe Water Deficit 2.

Deeper soil horizon 25 cm to 75 cm depth

10 5

To investigate the effect of water application distribution on vine water use, we analyzed the effects of different drought intervals imposed between irrigations. Using sap flow sensors, we monitored vine transpiration response to short and large irrigation intervals between two irrigations and over the season. A) RESPONSE BETWEEN TWO IRRIGATIONS

Over the same season, a same volume of water is applied via one irrigation (18 mm) or via three smaller irrigations (6 mm each) in the same vineyard. Figure 2 shows vine water use profiles obtained during an irrigation study in Napa Valley, with Cabernet Sauvignon. After the same total amount of water was applied, the vine transpiration level is 50 percent lower (0.6 mm per day) in the treatment with small irrigations compared to one large irrigation (1.2 mm per day). The steepness of vine water use decline after irrigation is more pronounced when small irrigations are applied. After a 6 mm water application, transpiration is reduced substantially only a few days after irrigation After an 18 mm water application, transpiration is reduced gradually over the course of more than 10 days.

0 Well watered

Prolonged drought

Well watered

Prolonged drought

Trends in root dry mass distribution along soil profile in response to irrigation: Left, in the top soil horizon (0-25 cm); Right, in the 25 to 75 cm soil horizon (adapted from Edwards et al, 2013)

FIGURE 2

Irrigation Small: 6 mm

left and right show that the root distribution along the root profile is more uniform when less water is applied. Under the well-watered treatment, as soil is more abundantly rewetted, a larger and shallower root system develops. FIGURE 1

Conclusion:

Root architecture can be modified in response to the frequency and volume of irrigation. Thus, irrigation strategy affects the size and distribution of root absorption sites along the soil profile. When root mass and root absorption sites are more concentrated in the topsoil (below the irrigation dripper), vine water supply becomes more dependent upon soil moisture content variations that occur in the topsoil layer. To understand how the modification of root absorption site distribution along the soil profile affects vine water use, we compared the effect of short and long intervals between irrigations on vine water use and berry ripening.

68 December 2018 WBM

Transpiration (mm.d-1)

FIGURE 1:

Large: 18 mm

3 2 1 0

236

FIGURE 2:

240

Day of year

244

248

Vine transpiration in response to large and small irrigations (adapted from Scholasch et al., 2009)

Conclusion:

In the conditions of the experiment, following a small irrigation, vine water use declines rapidly. However, following a large irrigation, vine water use declines slowly. After 11 days, the vine transpiration rate is reduced when irrigation is more frequent, even if the same total amount of water is applied over the period. When longer periods of drought are imposed between irrigations, vine water use efficiency is improved, and the irrigation effect can last longer.

B) SEASONAL RESPONSE

Conclusions

Because changing irrigation strategy can modify root mass distribution, the effects of converting irrigation strategy from short to longer drought intervals can span several years. We investigated the effect of imposing a longer drought period over three consecutive years in the same vineyard located in Napa Valley, with cv. Cabernet Sauvignon. The treatment objective is to change irrigation strategy from frequent (every three to seven days) to less frequent irrigations. To ensure increased intervals between two irrigations, we did not increase the severity of water deficit in between, and sap flow and water deficit index variations were continuously monitored in real time and collected over the same vines for three seasons. To analyze vine water use variations in response to changing environmental conditions, a water deficit index (WDI) is created:

Small: 6 mm 18 mm Applying water less frequently reducesLarge: the severity of seasonal water deficit Increasing the drought period between irrigations contributes to improving vine water deficit regulation. As a result, when irrigation intervals increase, seasonal water deficit gets less severe.

T is actual vine transpiration from sap flow sensors; ETref is computed from a nearby weather station by using Penman Monteithâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s equation. Kcb is the basal crop coefficient according to the nomenclature of the dual coefficient approach, reported by Allen, et al. (1998). The basal crop coefficient is computed as:

FIGURE 3

100 Water Deficit Index (%)

WDI = T / Kcb *ETref

Irrigation

4 3 2

1 2

Kcb = Tm/ETref

5 3 4

8 7

15 14

9 10 11

Total water = 75 mm Volume : 5 mm 15 events (year 1)

May 10

Sept 10

Irrigation F I G U R E 3 : Water deficit index variations Small: 6 mm Large: 18 mm

in response to

decreasing irrigation frequency between year 1 (5 mm per irrigation) and year 2 (8 mm per irrigation). Each number on the graph corresponds to one irrigation event.

FIGURE 4

100 Water Deficit Index (%)

where Tm is maximal transpiration measured under cultural conditions. Models that simulate seasonal changes in basal crop coefficient are used and adjusted according to site-specific data. In practice, when WDI is at 100 percent, a vine is transpiring at its maximal level whereas when WDI is at 0 percent, the vine is no longer transpiring. Time intervals between two irrigations were increased by adding larger amounts of water and tracking sap flow and WDI to determine when the next irrigation should be triggered. The amount of water applied was gradually increased from 5 mm per irrigation (year 1), to 8 mm (year 2), to 8 to 12 mm (year 3). The total amount of water applied over the season was 75 mm for year 1, 72 mm for year 2 and 76 mm for year 3. A same WDI threshold of 40 percent was used to trigger irrigation in years 1 and 2. A higher threshold level was used (55 percent) in year 3 to further decreases the water deficit intensity. As larger water volumes are applied, intervals between irrigations became larger. F I G U R E 3 shows seasonal WDI profile recorded in year 1 and 2. During year 1, irrigation is applied every three to seven days and, during year 2, every 10 to 15 days. As a result, in year 2, WDI reaches higher values after each irrigation, the irrigation effect duration increases, and the seasonal water deficit is less severe compared to year 1. Between June and September, the average WDI is under 50 percent in year 1 and around 55 percent in year 2. F I G U R E 4 compares the WDI seasonal dynamics recorded in year 1 and year 3. While the same amount of water is applied for both seasons, the lowest level of water deficit is recorded in year 3 with the average seasonal WDI higher than 60 percent. Applying larger irrigation volumes for two consecutive years improved vine water use regulation, and the seasonal water deficit is more moderate. A larger water volume applied less frequently extended the period length with moderate water use. It may also have increased the depth of root absorption sites. These changes in vine water use regulation and root architecture may contribute to maintaining a lower water deficit (i.e., a higher seasonal WDI value).

Total water = 72 mm Volume : 8 mm 9 events (year 2)

Total water = 76 mm Volume : 8 and 12 mm 7 events (year 3)

4 5

50 13

1 2

May 10

5 3 4

8 7

15 14

9 10 11 12

Total water = 75 mm Volume : 5 mm 15 events (year 1)

Sept 10

Water deficit index variations in response to decreasing irrigation frequency between

FIGURE 4.

year 1 (5 mm per irrigation) and year 3 (8 to 12 mm per irrigation). Each number on the graph corresponds to one irrigation event.

WBM December 2018 69

Irrigation Strategies Maintain Natural Grapevine Mechanisms Through a Drought

Short Irrigation Intervals Can Increase the Risk Ripening Disorders 3.

Berry volume reduction is mainly caused by berry pulp water loss (Keller, 2010). Thus, when berry transpiration and xylem outflow exceed xylem inflow, water deficit post-veraison can lead to a loss of berry volume (Delrot et al, 2014). Furthermore, when water deficit gets too severe during ripening, berry sugar accumulation can be reduced due to lower photosynthetic activity. Thus, after veraison, water deficit should remain moderate; otherwise, it can negatively affect berry ripening processes. As such, beyond their impact on seasonal vine water deficit, consequences of increased irrigation intervals have been analyzed on berry ripening profiles for the same experiment described in F I G U R E S 3 and 4 . Over a same area of 50 vines, centered on sap flow-equipped vines, four berries per cluster were collected weekly. We discuss berry volume and sugar accumulation profile in response to different irrigation strategies.

OBSERVATIONS AT A SINGLE VINEYARD SCALE

In the same three-year experiment, berry mass and berry sugar amount were collected. Berry mass and berry volume are linearly correlated (Gray and Coombe, 2009), and we use berry weight as a proxy for berry volume. F I G U R E 5 A shows that under short irrigation intervals (year 1), berry volume accumulation is disrupted and delayed. Shortly before harvest, shriveling symptoms caused a berry volume loss. In contrast, when longer irrigation intervals are applied and a more moderate water deficit is observed, the berry volume accumulation profile is smooth, reaches a peak and maintains its value until harvest (Year 2 and 3). F I G U R E 5 B shows that under short irrigation intervals, berry sugar accumulation stops momentarily around 1,200 degree-days, probably because water deficit was too severe. Under longer irrigation intervals, sugar accumulation is smooth until it reaches its maximum value (Year 2 and 3). Conclusions

Under short irrigation intervals, seasonal water deficit can be more severe. As a consequence, berry volume decreases, and sugar accumulation is discontinuous. Severe water deficit reduces photosynthetic activity and the transportation of sugars, which, in turn, induces berry ripening disorders. Under large irrigation intervals, seasonal water deficit is more moderate, berry volume and sugar amount per berry are higher, and the ripening profile is smoother. Short intervals between irrigations can increase the risk of berry shrivelling between two irrigations and before harvest. Significant variations in vine water deficit can disrupt the accumulation of berry volume and sugar per berry and can also induce sudden berry volume loss as observed year 1.

FIGURE 5B

FIGURE 5A Year 1 15 irrigations

Year 2 9 irrigations

Year 1 15 irrigations

Year 3 7 irrigations

Year 2 9 irrigations

Year 3 7 irrigations

1.0

Sugar per berry (mg)

Berry weight (g)

200

0.6

1000

FIGURE 5A:

1200

1400

Effect of irrigation intervals on berry weight profile (source: Fruition Sciences)

70 December 2018 WBM

1000

FIGURE 5B:

1200

1400

Effect of irrigation intervals on berry sugar accumulation profile (source: Fruition Sciences)

OBSERVATIONS AT A REGIONAL SCALE

We have observed that longer intervals between irrigations can decrease the severity of seasonal water deficit with positive impact on yield and fruit maturation. We tested the hypothesis over a large scale experiment. The goal of the experiment is to investigate the amount of water savings and the consequences on fruit composition when longer intervals between irrigations are imposed. We focused on three California regions: Sonoma, Napa and Paso Robles. In each vineyard, short interval irrigations were compared to long interval irrigations side by side. At one vineyard the treatment was applied for three consecutive years (sites H-JT). Sap flow sensors were used to trigger irrigation alerts under the long interval irrigations. The short interval irrigations were applied according to traditional irrigation methods. The study was funded by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Central Arizona Project. F I G U R E 6 reports the amount of irrigation events for each treatment, depending on site-specific conditions. Over the season, we observed 5 to 25 irrigation events when short irrigation intervals are applied: 0 to 4 irrigation events when larger volumes and intervals are applied. Seasonal irrigation volume varies between 27 and 157 mm under short intervals and between 0 and 76 mm under large intervals as reported in Figure 6. Across all sites, the total amount of seasonal irrigation is lower when larger volumes and longer intervals are applied. This result is in agreement with longer drought intervals contributing to a more gradual vine water deficit regulation.

Considering the effect of irrigation frequency on seasonal water deficit and berry volume variations, we also investigated how irrigation frequency impacted yield. F I G U R E 7 shows the effect of irrigation strategy on yield collected at harvest. Average yield is higher when longer drought intervals are applied between irrigation, probably because berry volume is better maintained after reaching its maximum value. In contrast, when short irrigation intervals are applied, berry volume loss pre harvest is greater, causing a lower yield. No differences were observed in the total amount of sugar per berry between the two strategies (data not shown). This result is consistent with the sugar accumulation rate being less sensitive to water deficit as reported in the literature (Sadras and Petrie, 2011; Delrot et al., 2014). Conclusions

Despite site-specific differences in the seasonal amount of irrigation water needed, strategies that favor longer intervals between irrigations reduce the total amount of water applied. On average, in this experiment, 50 percent of water saving is observed when long intervals are imposed compared to short intervals. Longer periods of drought between irrigations improve vine water use regulation mechanisms, which, in turn, decrease berry water loss pre-harvest and help maintain a higher yield.

FIGURE 7

Short intervals

(Left): number of irrigation events applied over the season for each treatment. F I G U R E 6 B : (Right): seasonal irrigation volume applied for each treatment (adapted from Scholasch, 2015)

FIGURE 6A:

Short intervals

FIGURE 7:

H-JT 2014

H-JT 2013

BV-JP

NP-M

Yield per treatment (tons/hectare)

NP-K

H-JT 2014

H-JT 2013

H-JT 2012

PR-A A

BV-JP

0 NP-M

0 NP-K

PR-H

H-JT 2014

H-JT 2013

H-JT 2012

BV-JP

100

NP-M

NP-K

PR-H

150(mm)

PR-A

Irrigation volume applied for each treatment

PR-H

Number of irrigation events applied for each treatment

Long intervals

PR-A

Long intervals

H-JT 2012

FIGURES 6A & 6B

Yield per treatment (adapted from Scholasch, 2015)

150 Large intervals

Large intervals Short intervals

100

Long intervals Short intervals

0 PR-A

PR-H

NP-K

NP-M

BV-JP

H-JT 2012 H-JT 2013 H-JT 2014

PR-A

PR-H

NP-K

NP-M

BV-JP

H-JT 2012 H-JT 2013 H-JT 2014

Yield (tons/Hectare)

Irrigaiton ( mm)

Number of irrigaiton events

Short intervals

WBM December 2018 71

Irrigation Strategies Maintain Natural Grapevine Mechanisms Through a Drought

How Can Drought Periods Between Irrigations Promote Better Water Use and Ripening Conditions? 4.

Vine water use response to irrigation is mediated by hydraulic but also chemical signals sent from drying roots to the shoot (Comstock, 2002). An important chemical signal is the root-sourced hormone abscisic acid (ABA) involved in stomata regulation and subsequent vine water use regulation and transported via the xylem (Davies et al., 2005). When root tips are subjected to soil drought, higher ABA levels are observed in the sap of field-grown vines as reported in Figure 8, adapted from Rodrigues et al. (2008).

FIGURE 8 Non irrigated

Full irrigated

ABA (mmol.m-3)

1.5

the irrigation period. In fact, after two years, the wetter treatment shows a reduced water use over the whole season, which is similar to our results. The authors hypothesized that higher transpiration rates lead to faster depletion of soil water, which, in turn, can lead to lower water use after irrigation. The practical implication is that under warmer conditions, sap flow is reduced post-irrigation. Charrier et al. (2018) used long-term observations in Napa and Bordeaux to reveal that vines never reach their lethal water-potential thresholds under seasonal droughts. Their results confirm a vineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to cope with reduced water use without risking its hydraulic integrity. However, even if a vine can resist severe drought, it is not desirable for berry ripening. Thus, defining exactly how long intervals should be between irrigations should consider not only the effects on seasonal water deficit but also the effects on berry chemical composition and mechanical properties. New results suggest that other benefits to prolonged drought between irrigation may exist. Cooley et al. (2017) reported a higher level of berry skin resistance to mechanical deformation when drought is imposed between two irrigations. The authors hypothesized that a period of drought imposed prior to veraison induces changes in berry cell wall composition, leading to greater mechanical resistance. Authors further observed that berry skin compositional changes induced by prolonged drought also led to an easier color extraction in red wine, which is desirable for winemakers.

.05 10:00

18:00 Hour of the day

Diurnal changes in concentration of abscisic acid (ABA) in the xylem sap field-grown at mid-ripening (August 22) Adapted from Rodrigues et al. (2008)

FIGURE 8:

Those results suggest that over the season longer drought periods between irrigations may increase sap ABA concentration, which in turn promotes a more gradual down regulation of vine water use. In contrast, imposing shorter drought period between irrigations may lower sap ABA concentration. In turn, vine water use is not down-regulated as gradually as soil dries down. After reaching a high level after irrigation, vine transpiration rate brutally declines as soon as root available water gets limiting. Consequently, when irrigation volumes and intervals are shorter, vine water deficit level may vary more brutally in between. Bonada et al (2018) have measured vine transpiration with sap flow in an experiment combining two thermal and two water regimes. Similar to our results, the authors reported that after irrigation, lower sap flow is observed under the wet treatment. Furthermore, while warming increased sap flow, seasonal sap flow in wet and heated vines was reduced along the season to a similar level to that in dry treatments. Their results confirm that under warmer conditions, increased sap flow in wet vines is observed only during

72 December 2018 WBM

Conclusions

In practical terms, our results point to a similar trend: imposing longer intervals between two irrigations enhances the mechanisms of vine water deficit regulation and probably promotes a more uniform root mass distribution along the soil profile. In turn, a higher berry volume can be maintained until harvest and more uniform fruit ripening conditions are observed. Within the same season and over multiple seasons, field results show that water deficit level is more easily managed and remain more moderate as larger volumes and longer drought intervals are imposed. In contrast small volumes and small intervals between irrigations can result in more extreme water deficit variations, which are harder to manage in a context of warmer temperatures. Short periods of severe water deficit between two irrigations are more likely to occur. Over the season water deficit can be more severe which can impact negatively fruit ripening conditions and reduce yield. In a context of warmer temperatures and water scarcity, short periods of severe water deficit should be avoided to reduce risk of yield loss pre harvest. Moreover, under high temperatures, the negative impact of severe water deficit periods is worsened due to a synergistic effect between heat stress and water stress (Carvalho, et al., 2016). Ultimately, understanding yield and fruit composition responses to longer intervals between irrigations can be achieved by monitoring vine water deficit variations along berry volume variations and fruit ripening profile. By tracking vineyard responses at key locations, irrigation strategies can be improved while considering site-specific conditions and production objectives. WBM

References Allen, R.G., Pereira, L.S., Raes, D., Smith, M., (1998). Crop evapotranspiration. Guidelines for computing crop water requirements. FAO Irrigation and Drainage, paper no. 56. FAO, Rome. Bonada M.,Buesa I.,Moran M., Sadras V. (2018) , Interactive effects of warming and water deficit on Shiraz vine transpiration in the Barossa Valley, Australia, OENO One, 52, 2, 117-133 Carvalho, L. C., Coito, J. L., Gonçalves, E. F., Chaves, M. M., Amâncio, S. and De Kok, L. J. (2016), Differential physiological response of the grapevine varieties Touriga Nacional and Trincadeira to combined heat, drought and light stresses. Plant Biol J, 18: 101-111. doi:10.1111/plb.12410 Charrier, G., Delzon, S., Domec, J.-C., Zhang, L., Delmas, C. E. L., Merlin, I., Corso, D., King, A., Ojeda, H., Ollat, N., Prieto, J. A., Scholach, T., Skinner, P., Van Leeuwen, C., Gambetta, G. A. (2018). Drought will not leave your glass empty: Low risk of hydraulic failure revealed by long-term drought observations in world’s top wine regions. Science Advances, 4 (1), 1-9. , DOI : 10.1126/sciadv. aao6969 Chaves, M. M., Zarrouk, O., Francisco, R., Costa, J. M., Santos, T., Regalado, A. P., … Lopes, C. M. (2010). Grapevine under deficit irrigation: hints from physiological and molecular data. Annals of Botany, 105(5), 661–676. http://doi.org/10.1093/ aob/mcq030 Comstock JP (2002). Hydraulic and chemical signalling in the control of stomatal conductance and transpiration, Journal of Experimental Botany. 53:195–200. Cooley, N. M., Clingeleffer, P. R., and Walker, R. R. (2017) Effect of water deficits and season on berry development and composition of Cabernet Sauvignon (Vitis vinifera L.) grown in a hot climate. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research, 23: 260–272. doi: 10.1111/ajgw.12274. Davies W.J., Kudoyarova G., Hartung W. (2005). Long-distance ABA signalling and its relation to other signalling pathways in the detection of soil drying and the mediation of the plant response to drought. Journal of Plant Growth Regulation. 24:285–295. Delrot S., Gambetta G., Goutouly J.-P. (2014), Effets du de?ficit hydrique sur les flux d’eau et la teneur en sucres dans les baies de raisin”, Innovations Agronomiques 38 (2014), 33-47 43 Edwards, E. and Clingeleffer, P. (2013), Long-term effects of deficit irrigation. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research, 19: 261-276. doi:10.1111/ ajgw.12027 Gray, J. & Coombe, B.G. (2009). Variation in Shiraz berry size originates before fruitset but harvest is a point of resynchronisation for berry development after flowering. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research. 15, 156-165. Guilpart N., Metay A., Gary C. (2014). Grapevine bud fertility and number of berries per bunch are determined by water and nitrogen stress around flowering in the previous year. European Journal of Agronomy 54, 9-20. Keller M., (2010). The science of grapevines. Anatomy and Physiology. Academic Press, Oxford, 377 p. Rodrigues ML, Santos T, Rodrigues AP, (2008) Hydraulic and chemical signalling in the regulation of stomatal conductance and plant water use of field grapevines growing under deficit irrigation. Functional Plant Biology. 2008;35:565–579. Sadras V., Petrie P., (2011) Quantifying the onset, rate and duration of sugar accumulation in berries from commercial vineyards in contrasting climates of Australia. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research, 17: 190-198. Scholasch, T. , Mazens, M., ,Lebon, E., Misson,L., Pellegrino, A., Lecoeur,J. (2009). Combined Effect of Soil and Air Moisture Deficits on Vine Transpiration cv. Cabernet Sauvignon (Vitis vinifera L.) ; Proceedings of the 16th International GiESCO Symposium : July 12-15, 2009 Scholasch, T. (2009) : Comparative study of traditional vs plant sensor based irrigation; consequences on water savings. pp 56-60, proceeding of the 19th international GiESCO meeting, May 31- June 5th ,2015, Pech rouge - Montpellier Scholasch, T. (2018) : Using sap flow data to improve irrigation in vineyard: a 10 year review, X International Workshop on Sap Flow, Acta Horticulturae (in press, 2018)

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WBM December 2018 73

e n i w r o s e i r e n i w f o Profiles l e r e n i W s e n i w f o s iewChanging RevThe h T and Growing e n i w h t i w d e r paiWriter Landscape FoodWine n o i g e r e n i w f o g n i winemak al information n o i t a c u d or e p a r g , g n i k a m e n i w regions, s and news W t n e v e l a Loc sales & marketing

2018 American Wine Writer Survey:

Tom Wark

Tom Wark is the owner of Wark Communications, a wine industry public relations firm that has worked with wineries, wine media companies, wine technology and other industry entities since 1990. He is one of the founders of the Wine Bloggers Conference, as well as the American Wine Blog Awards. Since 2004, he has published FERMENTATION: The Daily Wine Blog. He can be reached at tom@warkcommunications.com

transformed to include wine social media communications, but here’s the dirty little secret: The vast majority of quality wine information that is shared on social media platforms originates with professional wine writers. This is a reminder of two things: the wine media matters as much as ever, and social media is a content distribution system, not a content generation system. T O D AY,

WINE

COM M U N IC AT ION

HAS

What wine-related subject matter do you most commonly cover? (Choose up to three) ANSWER CHOICES

RESPONSE PERCENT

Profiles of wineries or wine personalities

68%

Reviews of wines

59%

Wine-related travel

45%

Food paired with wine

43%

The terroir and winemaking of wine regions

39%

How-to or educational information (varietals, regions, winemaking, grape growing)

32%

Wine related news

28%

Local wine-related events and news

26%

Wine business

23%

Business, viticulture, winemaking information for the wine trade

22%

Introductory wine education for consumers

22%

74 December 2018 WBM

It is the first fact that motivated me to undertake the 2018 American Wine Writer Survey, an investigation into who makes up the wine media, how they work and what they think. The survey was conducted mid-year 2018 and is the fourth such survey I’ve conducted, beginning in 1994 and followed up in 2004, 2010 and now 2018. Let me get to the heart of the matter right up front. Since that first survey was conducted in 1994, the wine media has changed drastically while at the same time remained remarkably similar. What’s changed and will continue to change is who is doing the writing and the format in which they are doing it. What has not changed is how the wine media carries out their work and what they write about. The subject matter covered by wine writers is a pretty stable thing: wine remains fermented grape juice. How is it made? Where is it made? Who is making it? What does it taste like? Where can you get it? These questions, according to the 2018 Wine Writer Survey, remain the focus of the wine writer’s work and are likely to continue to be the subject of the wine media’s pursuit for decades to come. The survey showed that the most common subject matter covered by wine writers were profiles of wineries or people, reviews of wine, wine travel, food and wine pairing, and wine regions. This is nearly identical to what respondents said in the 2004 wine writer survey. Yet as the 2018 American Wine Writer Survey showed, the people doing the writing are changing.

s e i t i l a n o e pers l e v a r t d e lat d n a r i o r he ter o t w o H ns , s l a t e i r a v n g n i w o r g e p s s e n i s u b e Win The Demographics

I landed my first wine PR job in 1990. After being assigned an office and meeting my new colleagues, I was immediately handed a stack of paper held together with a paper clip. It was the firm’s media list. I was told to never show it to anyone and not to lose it. It held about 400 names, along with affiliations, addresses, phone numbers and fax numbers (no emails). Over the past 25-plus years, I’ve added and subtracted names, added mobile numbers, email addresses, social media handles, blog URLs and removed fax numbers. Today, the list is roughly 1,000 people.

What is your gender? ANSWER CHOICES

RESPONSE PERCENT

Male

55%

Female

45%

What is your age? ANSWER CHOICES

RESPONSE PERCENT

60 or over

36%

50 - 59

27%

40 -49

25%

30 - 39

21 -29

Perhaps the most important change to my media list is the gender of the people on the list. Today, my list is nearly 50/50 male and female. In 1990, the list was dominated by men—about 85 percent. The 2018 American Wine Writer Survey confirms this gender transformation in wine writing with 45 percent of the respondents being female. More importantly, the younger the respondent to the recent survey, the more likely they were to be female. Seventy percent of respondents under the age of 40 were female. Only 25 percent of writers 60 years of age or older were female. The future of wine writing is female. That future is speeding toward us quickly. Thirty-six percent of respondents to the survey are 60 years of age or older. As these older writers move toward retirement, they are far more likely to be replaced by women.

WBM December 2018 75

Profiles of win The Changing and Growing Wine Writer Landscape

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Wine Blogging and Social Media

Wine blogging has become mainstream, and it is a significant mistake to dismiss wine bloggers or not count them among the “wine media.” In 2018, one-third of respondents said their writing was most commonly published on a personal blog, compared to 29 percent in 2010. In 2004, it made no sense to even offer this option in the survey. However, the 2018 survey also revealed that 65 percent of respondents had seen their work appear on a personal blog, even if it wasn’t the most common place for their writing to appear.

In which of the following formats has your wine-related writing or reporting been published? (choose all that apply)

Your wine.

ANSWER CHOICES

Our bottles. What an

excellent pairing.

aacwine.com

RESPONSE PERCENT

Wine-related publication (online or print)

79%

Personal Blog

65%

Newspaper

49%

Radio

24%

Podcast

22%

Television

18%

There are characteristics to those who primarily write for their own blog. Today, wine bloggers are younger than the average wine writer, are twice as likely to cover food and wine pairings in their writing, are likely to derive almost no income from wine writing, are slightly more likely to be female and almost never use the 100-point rating scale when reviewing wines. The truth about those who primarily write on blogs is that they are the AAA league of wine writing, making them the future of wine writing. I would be shocked if in the next 10 years and beyond, those who land the plum wine writer and wine editor jobs didn’t start out maintaining or contributing to a wine blog.

What is the most useful type of wine information you receive from publicists/marketers? (Choose up to three) All American Containers, a Veritiv company WINDSOR, CA • SAN LEANDRO, CA • SIMI VALLEY, CA KALAMA, WA • PLANO, TX • BELLE VERNON, PA • TAMPA, FL MIAMI, FL • ATLANTA, GA • BRANCHBURG, NJ

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76 December 2018 WBM

ANSWER CHOICES

RESPONSE PERCENT

Wine samples

69%

Wine related travel or location/AVA news

41%

Wine business trends

34%

Wine event related

31%

Agriculture/viticulture/terroir related

30%

New wineries/retailers/distributors/importers

21%

Samples of wine-related accessories

17%

New wine-related services for consumers

14%

Personnel changes in the wine industry

14%

Wine related political news or statements

12%

Wine competition or awards announcements

10%

Wine-related technology

Finance related wine information

Other

neries or wine personalities While the 2018 survey covers how writers work and how they interact with the industry, little about the responses here changed from previous surveys. The survey shows they generally receive lots of press releases that few find very useful. This finding reflects similar results from past surveys as does the finding that wine writers overwhelming want one specific thing from marketers who contact them: Wine samples.

How useful is the average wine-related press release that you receive? ANSWER CHOICES

One difference from past Wine Writer Surveys is the degree to which writers rely on social media. Sixty-seven percent of respondents said Facebook was a useful tool in their work as a writer. Fifty-five percent cited Twitter as useful, and 50 percent cited Instagram as an important tool in their work. It’s notable that those who cited Instagram, as a useful tool in their work, were far more likely to be women.

Which of the following social media tools/services are most useful to you in your work writing/reporting on wine? (Choose up to two)

RESPONSE PERCENT

Extremely useful

Very useful

Somewhat useful

49%

Rarely useful

39%

Never useful

ANSWER CHOICES

RESPONSE PERCENT

Facebook

67%

Twitter

55%

Instagram

50%

Linked-In

15%

YouTube

13%

Other (please specify)

12%

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WBM December 2018 77

he terroir and winemaking o The Changing and Growing Wine Writer Landscape

On the Issues

In the 2018 survey, as with past surveys, I asked the writers to weigh in on various issues of concern to the wine industry and wine consumers. One thing stood out more than any other: wine writers are concerned about climate change. When asked to describe their views on climate change, 70 percent of respondents said they believe it will “fundamentally change viticulture worldwide.” Only 1 percent of respondents said it is unlikely to have much impact. Moreover, when asked to choose between six topics to describe what they believed was most concerning to those they write for, i.e., consumers, 25 percent cited environmental issues. On the issue of natural wine, a category that only emerged since the 2010 Wine Writer Survey, writers are split on its meaning. Only 17 percent described it as an “important” category of wine, 20 percent said it was a necessary approach to address over-manipulation, 32 percent said it will have little impact on winemaking or with consumers, and 13 percent agreed natural wine was a deceptive wine category largely about marketing. Finally, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, I wanted some insight into what wine writers believed about sexism in the wine industry. Nearly half of

the respondents (45 percent) agree that sexism exists but is less important than previously. However, 32 percent of respondents believed sexism is “deeply embedded in the industry.” Four percent believe it plays no role at all in the wine industry. Notably, among those who saw sexism as deeply embedded in the wine industry, the gender breakdown was nearly equal—with 53 percent women and 47 percent male. However, these same folks tended to be much younger than those with a less critical view of the impact of sexism in wine. Fifty-three percent of those saying sexism is embedded in the industry were under 50 while only 27 percent of those with a more moderate take on the subject were under 50.

Which of the following statements best describes your view of sexism in the wine industry? ANSWER CHOICES

RESPONSE PERCENT

Sexism exists but is less important and impactful today than it once was

45%

Sexism is deeply embedded in the wine industry.

32%

No opinion

16%

Sexism plays little to no role in the wine industry

Other

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78 December 2018 WBM

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of wine regions The Future of Wine Writing and Wine Writers

A fairly intimate portrait of the wine writing community, from its demographics to how it works and to what it believes, can be gleaned by examining all the results from the 2018 survey. However, in the end, one result stands out to me more than others: 60 percent of respondents said they would not recommend wine writing as a career. Interestingly, those more likely to take a negative view of wine writing as a career are those with more experience. They tend to be older, male, more highly educated and have been writing longer than those with a more positive view of the profession. What’s interesting is that the negative view of wine writing as a career is not a function of the respondents’ income generated by wine writing. Of all respondents to the survey, only 28 percent report earning half or more of their annual income from wine writing. Similarly, 24 percent of those opposed to recommending wine writing as a career derive 50 percent or more of their annual income from wine writing. Moreover, when asked which issues most concern them as wine writers, there was no significant difference in the responses between those who recommended and those who did not recommend wine writing. Among all writers, the overwhelming concern is low or decreasing pay and a lack of or decreasing number of viable media outlets.

Which of the following issues are most important to you as a wine writer/reporter? (Choose up to two) ANSWER CHOICES

RESPONSE PERCENT

Low or decreasing pay/salary for services

45%

Lack of, or decreasing number of, viable media publishing wine-related material

44%

Indifferent, incompetent, or insufficient response from marketers/publicists or subjects of coverage

33%

The high or increasing costs of covering wine or the wine industry 18% Other

12%

The future of wine writing and the American wine writer depends largely on two things: The popularity of wine and the resources publishers have to pay for prose. Regardless of the health of the journalism and writing sector, less attention will be paid to a subject in which fewer people have a serious interest. Over the past decade, we have seen wine columns in newspapers be dropped by editors when budgets needed cutting. The emergence of legal cannabis, the interest in a broader array of libations by the Millennial generation and the widening gap in income and wealth inequality could all be threats to continued and increasing interest in wine. It’s also true that fewer good writers will choose to focus on wine if pay and media outlets decrease as more and more stress is placed on the profitability of journalism. I’ve spent almost half my life working with wine writers as a professional wine publicist, and I’ve been involved in the wine blogging world, as a blogger and promoter or wine blogging, for 15 years. From this perspective, my view of the future of wine writing is positive. Wine writers are by and large extraordinarily curious and passionate people, who understand wine as a cultural phenomenon as much as a simple libation. Wine will not change, nor will the character of those who choose to devote themselves to communicating about wine. WBM

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WBM December 2018 79

sales & marketing

The Growing U .S ./China Tariff War Taking its Toll on Glass Industry Now that an estimated 70 percent of the United States wine industry’s glass bottles are sourced from China, the real and threatened 10 to 25 percent tariff on Chinese glass imposed by the U.S. Commerce Department has caused budgetary concerns for glass distributors and their winery clients. Michael S. Lasky Michael S. Lasky is the former editor of AppellationAmerica.com and is the author of hundreds of articles for national magazines and newspapers.

Editor’s note: The placement of new and retaliatory tariffs is ongoing, from both countries; but as of press time, the facts and figures reported in this article are correct. SCOTT SUMMERS

had his way, all Chinese imports would face U.S. tariffs to fight the perceived U.S./China trade imbalance. Up to now, import taxes on foreign steel and aluminum ricocheted, and the Chinese government has responded by placing 10 to 25 percent tariffs on selected products, including farm crops (soybeans, wheat and pork) and, oh yes, wine. Although U.S. wine exports to China increased 14 percent in value to $38.4 million for the first six months of this year, compared to the same time last year, China’s initial 15 percent tariff has put a noticeable dent in the volume of wine sold to China, according to The Wine Institute. By Oct. 1, 2018, additional tariffs cumulatively totaled a whopping 79 percent on U.S. wines entering China. The combined tariffs would be, in the words of one Napa winemaker, “nearly the death knell of exports of high-end wines to China. We had a 500-plus case order ready to be shipped to our main Chinese importer this past spring and it was cancelled,” Honig Vineyard and Winery owner-winemaker Michael I F P R E S I D E N T D O N A L D J. T R U M P

80 December 2018 WBM

Honig told Wine Business Monthly. “The reason they gave us was that they

didn’t want to incur the increase.” Honig’s Cabernet wholesales for about $25, but with wholesaler and retailer mark-ups the price to Chinese consumers reaches $100 per bottle. An extra 15 percent charge would be enough to snuff most of the sales. “No one wants to overpay,” Honig said. “If all they’re looking at is two different bottles side-by-side and we are competing with untaxed wine from Australia and Chile, that’s a big competitive disadvantage.” Another Napa vintner, Dwayne Wade, has also been forced out of the previously lucrative Chinese market because of the increasing tariffs. His D Wade Cellars had some $600,000 in sales to Chinese consumers, about 85 percent of his winery’s total in 2017. This market is gone, along with the marketing momentum the winery had in China. As The Wine Institute notes, China will be the second largest market for wine after the U.S.—but only if a tariff war doesn’t kill it.

“Of course, this hurts our income but just temporarily since we can always reroute this inventory to our wine club, retail room or domestic market. While this becomes only a delayed loss of income, the bigger issuing facing us, along with other wineries, is the 10 percent tariff imposed on Chinese glass imports on Sept. 24, 2018 [and the threatened 25 percent tariff in January 2019]. We source all our bottles from China, so a 25 percent—or even 10 percent—rise in glass prices is a huge increase we would have to absorb or pass along,” said Honig.

Cheaper Chinese Glass Gets Expensive but No Domestic Supply to Replace It The challenge embedded in the tariff on glass for Honig, D Wade Cellars and most other wineries is that there is not nearly enough domestic glass production to back-fill Chinese glass orders. Honig summed up the glass tariff problem facing American wineries: “We would love to get our bottles from American-owned glass producers, but we have no ability to buy domestic glass to replace the Chinese glass. There haven’t been any U.S. glass manufacturing facilities built in years, so again, I understand that there’s a trade imbalance, but the problem is there’s no one that can produce that glass domestically for us. These arbitrary tariffs are not helping the domestic producers in the U.S. because there aren’t any domestic producers to back-fill this business,” he said. Added Erica Harrop, CEO and founder of Global Package LLC, “I think a lot of the wine industry is used to the flexibility that the Chinese market provides, in part because we don’t have near the domestic capacity to fill the pipeline. “I don’t know what the industry is going to do if we jack these prices up,” she added. “It becomes extremely disruptive because customers are not going to want to order, and then, at the last minute, wineries need the glass, and we will be back to the situation we faced in 2007 again. That’s the reason the Asian market even entered our market: we didn’t have the domestic production capacity—and we still don’t have it now.” There are a trio of North American wineglass bottle producers, O-I, Ardagh and Saverglass.

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The Growing U.S./China Tariff War Taking its Toll on Glass Industry

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In an email to WBM, Carson Wright, manager, national account services, for Ardagh Direction Glass, North America, noted: “It’s a big deal for the wine industry from a cost perspective given that here is a large amount of wineries that currently use imported Chinese wine bottles. This, of course, would help domestic manufacturers as domestic glass is currently priced on par with Chinese import glass when purchasing glass directly from the manufacturer. This only happened within the last two years through direct sales channels, like Ardagh Direct and O-I Packaging Solutions.” French-owned Saverglass recently invested $120 million in the state of Jalisco, Mexico for the construction of a glass and decoration plant, which 10/24/18 2:39 PM Saverglass can increase high-end bottle opened in June 2018. Although production by 120 million units a year, boosting overall annual production to 720 million bottles over time, this capacity precludes back-filling glass orders for those wineries and glass brokers displaced by Chinese glass tariffs. Though, as Régis Maillet, director of marketing for Saverglass Group, told WBM through his spokesperson, “The tariffs on Chinese glass aren’t relevant to Saverglass as their focus is to manufacture high-end bottles.” The Glass Packaging Institute (GPI), speaking for all forms of glass containers, entered the fray by actually supporting the tariffs, citing the longstanding and growing trade imbalance. But reversing their argument, the GPI stated, “Since 2005, 11 U.S. glass container plants have closed, which collectively employed over 3,650 Americans. This represents roughly 25.4 percent of the industry’s current hourly workforce of 14,350. Chinese glass container imports have placed additional pressure on domestic glass container production. Last year, China accounted for roughly half of all empty, unfilled glass containers imported into the U.S. [This includes all forms of glass containers, not just wine bottles.] The U.S. is the largest export market for Chinese glass containers.” Accordingly, the GPI submits that “an added cost for Chinese glass containers may help level the playing field.”

82 December 2018 WBM

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What began as a focused tariff assault on the Chinese aluminum and steel trade imbalance has quickly expanded with a tit-for-tat battle of products carefully selected to produce the most political harm in each country. Small- and medium-sized wineries (by case production) will feel the effects of a 10 to 25 percent increase in bottle prices while larger wineries and multi-winery corporations can better juggle the financial and production logistics to weather any hefty price increases. For example, Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) has a global reach and can adjust sourcing of its glass bottles. “As with all of our regions, TWE monitors changes to government policies that may directly or indirectly impact the business,” said TWE spokesperson Brent Dodd. “It’s important to note that we’re a truly global wine company, and we have a strong domestic business in the U.S. that is now well-positioned for growth. “In China, we have successful Australian, French and American portfolios of brands, and again are well-placed to capitalize on opportunities in this market. The volume of glass TWE sources now from China constitutes a very small percentage of total U.S. requirements. Any impact would therefore be negligible,” Dodd concluded. On the other hand, small wineries, dependent on a panoply of glass distributors and brokers mainly reliant on Chinese-sourced bottles, will be left with the Hobson’s choice of either eating the 25 percent increase to maintain existing wine prices or raising prices and risking possible lost sales. Honig also pointed out that “Chinese manufacturers don’t really see thisESEC_Annuncio OF USA 08 2018 tr.indd is a problem for them—the domestic market for Chinese glass is growing, so they have an outlet. They don’t have to sell to the U.S. They can sell to other companies that are already in their backyard. We’re not helping the domestic producers in the U.S. because there really are no domestic glass producers to take over this business,” he added. “It’s really a dumb idea, and I get it: there’re other glass products that maybe you can impact and help with this trade imbalance, which certainly exists, but taxing glass bottles for wine? Those are not the products you go after. Wine bottles, as compared to other glass—jars, soda pop, baby food and so on—are a very small part of what’s produced in glass.” TricorBraun WinePak has been monitoring the situation and communicating with its customers since the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced the potential for tariffs in late July. According to Andrew Boltene, senior vice president of TricorBraun WinePak, “We are doing everything we can, through our global supply chain, to ensure our customers receive the best pricing possible, such as investigating alternative sourcing options and providing customers with access to non-tariff capacity.” Boltene added, “Our glass sourcing team has been investigating opportunities to leverage our existing business, including pushing our Chinese suppliers to absorb as much of the burden of the tariff costs as possible to minimize the increases passed on to our customers. However, given that the tariff is driving an inflationary market, we expect we’ll see bottle costs continue to rise.” WBM

WBM December 2018 83

sales & marketing

Retail Sales Analysis:

Off-Premise Wine Sales Up 0.8 Percent Off-premise total table wine sales increased 0.8 percent from the same period of the previous year in the four weeks ending Aug. 11, 2018, according to Nielsen-tracked data. In the 52 weeks ending Aug. 11, wine sales increased 1.6 percent. EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S NOTE: Nielsen

has recently adjusted how its data is displayed, and you may notice that a number of categories have changed. The biggest change is to the price tiers. Nielsen has also chosen to share data sorted by state of origin.

0.7 percent while imported wine sales increased 1 percent in the four weeks ending Aug. 11. In case volume during that same period, domestic case volume decreased 1.8 percent and imported case volume decreased 0.3 percent. The states with the most growth were Oregon, Washington and Texas. Sales of Oregon wines were up 13.7 percent in value and 14 percent in volume; Washington wine sales were up 2.9 percent in value and up 3 percent in volume and Texas wines were up 0.7 percent in value and down 1.8 percent in volume in the four weeks ending Aug. 11. The Portuguese, New Zealand and French wine categories saw the most growth: Portuguese wines are up 7.9 percent in sales and up 4.7 percent in volume; New Zealand wines are up 7.3 percent in sales and 6.2 percent in volume and French wines are up 9.6 percent in sales and 11 percent in volume; Sales and case volume for imported wines from Argentina, Chile, Italy, Spain and South Africa decreased in the four weeks ending Aug. 11. Sales for wines in the ultra-premium glass, $15 to $19.99 price point segment had the most growth, increasing 9.2 percent in sales and 9.9 percent in volume in the four weeks ending Aug. 11. The remaining premium price point categories had fair growth in the four weeks ending Aug. 11: the premium, $8 to $10.99 segment grew 0.3 percent in sales and decreased 2.3 percent in volume; the super-premium, $11 to $14.99 segment increased 6 percent in sales and 6.4 percent in volume; the luxury, $20 to $24.99 segment grew 7.6 percent in sales and 7.3 percent in volume; and the super-luxury, more than $25 segment grew 3.5 percent in sales and 2.1 percent in volume. Sales and case volume for wines priced $7.99 and below dropped. DOMESTIC WINE SALES INCREASED

84 December 2018 WBM

By Varietal RosĂŠ table wine, as a category, saw a 31.5 percent increase in sales and a 37.7 percent increase in volume in the four weeks ending Aug. 11. The category holds a 5.7 percent market share in sales and 4 percent market share in volume. Red blended table wine is up 2.7 percent in sales and 1.5 percent in volume, and white blended table wine is down 5.2 percent in sales and 4.1 percent in volume. Chardonnay was the largest selling varietal by case value and volume on the market, holding an 18.9 percent market share in sales and a 19.6 percent share in volume in the four weeks ending Aug. 11. During that period, Chardonnay sales were down 0.5 percent and volume decreased 2.3 percent. Cabernet Sauvignon increased 2.2 percent in sales and decreased 0.8 percent in volume. Cabernet Sauvignon was the second-largest selling varietal by value and volume on the market in the four weeks ending Aug. 11, representing 16.4 percent of all wine sales value and 13.9 percent of case volume. Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris were the only varietal categories with growth. Sauvignon Blanc grew 4.9 percent in sales and 2.8 percent in volume, and Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris grew 0.1 percent in sales and 1.5 percent in volume. Sales and volume for Malbec, Merlot, Muscat/Moscato, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Shiraz/Syrah, White Zinfandel and Zinfandel have all decreased in the four weeks ending Aug. 11. WBM

Nielsen Table Wine Category Segments

MARK ET:

Total US xAOC+Conv+Military+Liquor Plus

Dollar Value

PRICE TIERS BY CONTAINERS IMPORTED DOMESTIC TYPES

Avg Equivalent Price Per 750ML

Latest 52 Wks - W/E 08/11/18

Latest 4 Wks - W/E 08/12/18

Latest 52 Wks W/E 08/12/18

Latest 4 Wks W/E 08/12/18

Latest 52 Wks - W/E 08/12/18

Latest 4 Wks - W/E 08/12/18

Latest 52 Wks - W/E 08/12/18

Latest 4 Wks - W/E 08/12/18

14,224,922,950

1,023,765,760

2.9

0.8

163,803,401

11,785,514

0.9

-1.4

7.12

7.24

1,333,249,059

101,825,404

8.6

3.2

32,492,932

2,517,762

4.2

1.2

3.25

3.37

$0-$3.99

581,353,804

42,983,145

-2.2

-2.3

21,326,775

1,520,507

-2.8

-2.5

2.35

2.36

$4+

751,270,970

58,760,851

20.7

7.5

11,162,803

995,995

20.7

7.3

4.95

4.92

Value Glass $0-$3.99

737,379,625

52,156,249

-3.7

-4.4

19,398,379

1,330,732

-3.5

-4.4

3.27

3,346,578,990

235,850,067

-4.5

-6.2

53,572,056

3,575,429

-3.6

-6.6

5.51

5.50

13,060,980,635

928,463,564

2.3

0.3

131,961,811

9,235,388

0.0

-2.3

8.15

8.38

Super Premium Glass $11-$14.99

2,609,681,082

193,993,910

8.4

6.0

16,191,877

1,283,989

7.4

6.4

12.59

Ultra Premium Glass $15-$19.99

1,254,129,217

90,324,356

9.7

9.2

5,626,681

440,107

8.9

9.9

17.03

17.10

Luxury Glass $20-$24.99

569,750,005

42,962,935

8.2

7.6

2,079,644

163,825

6.5

7.3

21.58

21.85

Super Luxury Glass $25+

701,037,452

44,661,491

8.7

3.5

1,414,178

94,605

6.3

2.1

38.92

39.33

IMPORTED

3,772,531,756

279,837,543

2.6

1.0

40,750,992

2,978,011

0.5

-0.3

7.61

7.83

ITALY

1,186,619,254

81,984,424

4.1

-0.9

10,751,031

740,016

2.8

-2.9

9.13

9.23

AUSTRALIA

727,106,299

51,102,073

-2.0

3.2

12,156,353

861,620

-1.9

0.4

4.86

4.94

FRANCE

440,163,721

43,403,197

16.7

9.6

2,598,115

279,531

14.2

11.0

12.79

12.94

CHILE

264,235,857

17,888,993

-4.6

-7.7

4,035,098

268,886

-2.7

-7.0

5.70

5.54

SPAIN

166,391,668

11,395,082

-1.9

-1.8

2,111,653

147,083

-2.1

-1.7

6.68

6.46

85,515,573

5,851,127

-5.8

-5.2

857,826

78,589

-6.5

35.0

8.76

6.20

NEW ZEALAND

450,806,766

38,587,098

11.8

7.3

3,050,502

278,724

10.6

6.2

11.43

11.53

ARGENTINA

357,508,790

22,627,867

-4.7

-9.6

4,340,937

258,468

-5.9

-10.5

7.41

7.29

SOUTH AFRICA

25,530,576

1,845,154

-5.3

-13.4

244,200

15,936

-7.0

-12.2

9.60

9.65

PORTUGAL

37,497,372

3,270,441

9.5

7.9

398,956

36,704

7.3

4.7

7.28

7.42

DOMESTIC

10,452,391,194

743,928,217

3.1

0.7

123,052,409

8,807,502

1.1

-1.8

6.96

7.04

9,429,462,854

669,161,700

2.9

0.5

114,436,054

8,180,439

1.0

-2.0

6.76

6.82

WASHINGTON

608,490,599

45,313,887

1.8

2.9

5,103,763

384,747

0.5

3.0

9.89

9.81

OREGON

Popular Glass $4-$7.99 Premium Glass $8-$10.99

GERMANY

CALIFORNIA

VARIETALS

Equivalent Volume % Chg YA

Equivalent Volume

Latest 4 Wks W/E 08/11/18

BOX

182,170,155

13,949,930

18.2

13.7

813,016

73,244

18.5

14.0

16.16

15.87

TEXAS

31,985,756

2,289,504

-5.3

0.7

436,832

28,662

-8.6

-1.8

6.44

6.66

NEW YORK

36,910,940

2,565,023

3.3

-1.3

540,038

33,080

-3.2

-3.8

5.65

6.46

NORTH CAROLINA

39,849,445

2,780,601

9.1

-0.4

418,317

29,261

9.7

0.4

7.92

INDIANA

23,595,772

1,569,114

7.1

-0.9

274,920

17,616

3.9

-0.1

7.19

7.42

MICHIGAN

22,198,400

1,471,229

-2.2

-5.6

243,061

15,385

-5.2

-6.8

7.66

7.97

RED

7,355,169,661

473,319,152

2.5

-0.4

76,087,831

4,936,375

0.3

-2.9

7.96

7.99

WHITE

5,832,091,333

450,294,594

2.1

-0.3

72,199,107

5,485,652

1.1

-1.6

6.72

6.84

PINK

1,035,744,704

100,115,984

12.7

12.9

15,485,135

1,363,059

3.1

5.1

4.87

6.12

TOTAL CHARDONNAY

2,548,374,964

193,973,126

1.3

-0.5

30,909,924

2,311,941

0.1

-2.3

6.87

6.99

TOTAL CABERNET SAUVIGNON

2,576,448,710

168,173,770

4.8

2.2

24,313,618

1,633,957

2.5

-0.8

8.52

8.58

TOTAL PINOT GRIGIO/PINOT GRIS

1,306,392,746

102,864,885

2.9

0.1

17,026,987

1,368,258

3.8

1.5

6.36

6.27

TOTAL PINOT NOIR

1,060,559,103

69,164,089

4.7

-0.1

8,418,350

551,107

2.6

-3.0

10.30

10.46

TOTAL MERLOT

768,455,266

49,701,931

-4.9

-7.3

11,543,566

714,437

-5.6

-7.9

5.90

5.80

TOTAL SAUV BLANC/FUME

912,242,805

77,158,057

8.6

4.9

7,827,831

678,307

7.3

2.8

9.24

9.48

TOTAL MUSCAT/MOSCATO

663,929,591

45,939,452

3.5

-2.9

10,249,651

710,588

4.0

-3.9

5.41

5.39

TOTAL WHITE ZINFANDEL

299,923,878

21,158,050

-5.3

-8.0

6,583,720

432,714

-5.6

-8.4

4.06

4.08

TOTAL MALBEC

274,445,277

16,742,841

-2.9

-10.4

2,788,800

161,298

-2.2

-11.1

8.79

8.65

TOTAL RIESLING

253,986,613

17,709,572

-2.6

-5.4

2,919,406

198,898

-2.2

-5.5

7.56

7.42

TOTAL ZINFANDEL

229,412,940

14,825,080

-5.0

-2.3

1,794,429

107,906

-8.2

-5.4

10.98

11.45

TOTAL SHIRAZ/SYRAH

157,532,071

9,978,122

-9.3

-7.3

1,998,077

117,380

-10.2

-10.1

6.80

7.08

WHITE BLENDS (ex. 4/5L)

233,879,670

17,621,963

-2.9

-5.2

2,923,434

213,202

-2.9

-4.1

6.95

6.89

1,831,564,523

115,795,484

5.7

2.7

16,593,828

1,098,263

4.0

1.5

8.81

8.78

441,628,431

57,998,743

60.9

31.5

2,466,127

475,988

45.3

37.7

9.96

10.15

10,190,131,398

726,123,740

3.5

1.6

82,664,503

5,878,848

1.2

-0.7

10.04

10.29

2,179,817,622

154,129,494

-1.7

-5.2

39,279,940

2,688,350

-1.4

-5.3

4.80

4.78

67,708,162

4,550,331

-12.1

-8.7

2,006,096

120,303

-12.1

-10.2

3.10

3.15 2.59

RED BLENDS (ex. 4/5L + CHIANTI) ROSE BLEND 750ML GLASS SIZES

Week Ending August 11, 2018

Latest 52 Wks W/E 08/11/18 TOTAL TABLE WINE

BOX SIZES

Dollar Value % Chg YA

PER I O D :

1.5L 3L 4L

87,727,815

6,055,113

-5.7

-7.6

3,106,313

194,946

-6.6

-9.5

2.52

187ML

119,553,841

9,317,365

-2.1

1.7

1,484,198

116,561

-1.2

0.0

6.65

6.66

375ML

16,872,375

1,255,662

19.5

1.4

63,618

4,777

16.1

1.1

21.62

21.92

ex. 4/5L

834,539,344

64,940,010

16.7

6.7

13,566,920

1,164,065

15.1

6.1

4.62

4.65

27,155,880

2,283,982

15.4

6.4

402,394

34,955

15.2

4.3

5.39

5.45

1L 1.5L

14,297,758

1,098,568

19.1

1.4

229,618

17,965

18.1

2.9

5.18

5.10

610,836,733

46,597,277

15.7

4.6

10,799,536

907,288

14.3

4.6

4.28

498,708,677

36,885,081

-1.5

-2.5

18,925,988

1,353,689

-2.5

-2.7

2.26

2.27

TETRA

209,420,097

17,292,288

20.0

14.3

2,521,253

239,390

18.4

13.0

5.99

6.02

Source: Nielsen

WBM December 2018 85

technology & business

Study:

Leadership in the Wine Industry and the Role of Women Barbara Insel and Alicia Hoepfner Barbara Insel is the founder and CEO of Insel & Co, the successor company to Stonebridge Research Group LLC, a leading wine business strategy and economics firm.

Alicia Hoepfner found her way into the wine industry with bachelor degrees in biology and economics from Santa Clara University. She then took time working in healthcare before going to UC Davis for her Masters of Science in Viticulture and Enology. She graduated in 2017 and worked in Chile before returning to Napa Valley. Currently, you’ll find her in the Napa Valley working as an Enologist.

wine industry have wondered when the day will come when a woman in this business will just be called a winemaker—and not “A Woman Winemaker?” In 2017, our quietly under-the-radar group of about 80 women1 in management in the wine industry decided that if we were ever to reach that mythical time when it won’t matter in this business what gender you happen to be, we needed real data. You can’t improve what you don’t measure, right? As a first step, we looked at employed staff, not owner-operators or co-proprietors. We limited our sample to producers of 10,000 cases2 or more. With data aggregates from the TTB, we identified the number of producers within broad size categories in each of California’s major wine regions. The wineries were asked to identify the individuals who hold their top management jobs. In total,106 wineries, 47.9 percent of the apparent universe of 206 producers in this category, responded and identified3 1,083 executives. The sample was reasonably distributed among regions and producer size groupings.

• Women in the wine industry are concentrated in staff roles, remaining substantially under-represented in the line roles that lead to top management.

MANY WOMEN IN THE

• These staff roles also tend to be lower-paying, as shown in T A B L E below.

º Women are particularly under-represented in sales, operations and viticulture while over-represented in HR, marketing and direct-toconsumer sales. Women are somewhat under-represented in top financial roles. º Few women are CEOs or COOs, although there have been a few notable recent hires. º In parallel, men may be under-represented in HR, marketing and direct to consumer sales among small- to mid-size companies, although men are often the leads in marketing and HR in the largest companies. º As wineries grow larger, the percentage of women in management tends to decline. (Although there is small upward movement for wineries between 30,000 and 100,000 cases, they remain predominantly in staff positions.)

Findings Women held only 38.1 percent of overall leadership roles in the wine industry. While a clear improvement over what would have been found a generation, or even a decade, ago, the industry can do better.

86 December 2018 WBM

º Napa has the smallest disparity between men and women in management of the five regional groupings, whereas the multiregion and Central Coast producers have larger discrepancies.

Founded in 2009, Red Cabs (Wine is red, a Cabinet is like a Forum, message: don’t try to name a group in late night emails)

10,000 case production was considered the minimal size at which wineries are likely to hire professional managers and have formal management structures, as further discussed in Methodology section pages 98-99.

CMY

Leadership in the Wine Industry and the Role of Women

Thus, female executives tend to be concentrated in staff roles rather than the line management roles that lead to top management positions. Some of these disparities are particularly surprising. For example, women have only 6.6 percent of the lead roles in viticulture and are only 26.6 percent of winemakers, although in the last 15 years women received a median of 42 percent of such degrees at UC Davis.4 Even acknowledging that some viticulture leaders have 20 to 30 years of experience in the field, the share of women overall in leading roles is surprisingly low. Women have been over-represented in staff positions for decades but marked improvement in the pattern has been achieved by many other industries in recent years. It is surprising to find such sharp distinctions continuing in the wine industry. TA B L E 1 .

Compensation Implications There is no systematic compensation data by gender in the industry. For some indications, we turned to the Wine Business Monthly Salary Survey, 2016, conducted by Western Management Group. The survey found that, as shown in T A B L E 2 below, women tend to be concentrated in the lowerpaid job functions. Salaries from Wine Business Monthly, 2016 Salary Survey Report, along with percentage of women by function

TA B L E 2 .

Function

Executives classified by function

Function

Average Salary

% Women

DTC

$63,708

60%

Viticulture

$92,234

Female

Male

Total

% Female

420

683

1103

38%

HR Director

$132,807

85%

Finance

$135,555

49%

Marketing

100

148

68%

Winemaking

$156,371

26%

DTC

60%

Marketing

$168,874

68%

Legal

53%

General Manager

$178,415

29%

Sales and Marketing

50%

Sales

$251,403

24%

Finance

49%

CEO

$306,364

13%

CFO

39%

29%

Winemaking

109

148

26%

Sales

159

208

24%

Operations

23%

COO

19%

15%

CEO

13%

Viticulture

Total

The chart below shows this correlation between function and compensation. Correlation between the percent of women and percent of men by salary Source: 2016 WBM Salary Survey Report FIGURE 2.

• % Female • HR Director

Commitments were made to only report data for aggregated categories, with specific individual and winery names remaining confidential.

The actual data from UC Davis, one of the pre-eminent viticulture and enology programs in the U.S., is as follows: 2002: 44 percent; 2003: 35 percent; 2004: 44 percent; 2005: 38 percent; 2006: 40 percent; 2007: 48 percent; 2008: 24 percent; 2009: 43 percent; 2010: 42 percent; 2011: 47 percent; 2012: 46 percent; 2013: 33 percent; 2014: 41 percent; 2015: 49 percent; 2016 58 percent. The lowest is 24 percent in 2009 to the highest last year of 58 percent. The median is 43 percent and the average over a 15 year period is 42 percent.

“Sales and Marketing” refers to companies where the two roles are combined under one executive.

Finance

•

Winemaking

25%

•

• • GM

•

•CEO

Sales Viticulture

$100,000

$150,000

$200,000

$250,000

$300,000

Western Management Group conducts a multi-industry marketing function salary survey that does consider gender. The 2017 study found that as women move up in management in all industries, they make less money than males. The study also found fewer men in marketing positions at entry and middle management levels although men predominate at executive levels, with accompanying wage disparity. As management level increases, the salary gap between men and women executives also increases until women earn 77 percent of male compensation for similar positions at senior levels. 6

88 December 2018 WBM

• Marketing

DTC • 50%

0% 3

r^2 = 0.131

100%

75%

Only 27 respondents had in-house lead executive-level staff for IT, but of those who did, 14.8 percent were female. Also, only 16 respondents had a COO executive, of whom only 18.8 percent are women. Women are making progress as the top in-house lawyers (53.3 percent women), but only 15 wineries had such executives.

Trendline for % Female

Marketing Compensation Survey. 2017. “Gender Compensation Analysis.” Western Management Group.

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Leadership in the Wine Industry and the Role of Women

Winery Leadership by Winery Size indicates that the presence of women in leadership roles declines as the size of the winery increases. F I G U R E 4 presents the pattern visually. Functional disparities also grow as winery size grows. Thus, womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s opportunities to lead viticulture, winemaking, sales and, to some extent, operations decline as wineries grow larger. Although there is a small increase the total number of women in management in the 100,000 to 500,000 case category, the significant functional disparity remains. TA B L E 3

TA B L E 3 .

Executive roles by winery size

Winery Size

Leadership in Wineries that Produce 10,000 to 29,999 Cases

For wineries that produce 10,000 to 29,999 cases, women represent 100 percent of the marketing force with 12 executives. However, only 6.7 percent of viticulture leads are women, which is indicative of the entire industry. There are a large number of winemakers in this size category, but only 28.6 percent of the winemakers are women. TA B L E 4 .

Executives Producing 10,000 to 29,999 Cases

Function

Female

Male

Total

% Female

Total

159

43%

Marketing

100%

Female

Male

% Female

COO

100%

10,000 to 29,999

43%

Legal

100%

30,000 to 99,999

101

162

38%

78%

100,000 to 499,999

122

43%

Finance

77%

500,000 to 1 million

102

35%

CFO

71%

Over 1 million

105

207

34%

DTC

67%

Sales and Marketing

43%

Sales

33%

Winemaking

29%

CEO

17%

Viticulture

Operations

FIGURE 4.

Executive roles by winery size Female

Male

250 200 150 100 50 0 10,000 to 29,999

30,000 to 99,999

90 December 2018 WBM

100,000 to 499,999

500,000 to 1 million

Over 1 million

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Leadership in the Wine Industry and the Role of Women

Leadership in Wineries Producing 30,000 to 99,999 Cases

Women represent 90.5 percent of HR executives and 76.9 percent of marketing executives for wineries that produce 30,000 to 99,999 cases. The discrepancy in women’s presence among sales executives and CEOs is also evident for this case production category. In the 30,000 to 99,999 case category, we find the lowest presence of female winemakers, at 18.4 percent of the total.

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Executives producing 30,000 to 99,999 cases

Function

Female

Male

Total

% Female

Total

101

162

263

38%

COO

100%

Legal

100%

91%

Marketing

77%

DTC

58%

Sales and Marketing

50%

CFO

44%

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Finance

43%

40%

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Sales

25%

CEO

19%

Winemaking

18%

Operations

14%

Viticulture

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Leadership for Wineries Producing 100,000 to 499,999 Cases

For wineries that produce 100,000 to 499,999 cases annually, women are 92.9 percent of HR executives and 81.3 percent of finance executives. CEO, COO and legal roles are all dominated by men; however, the sample sizes are small. This size category has the highest percent of women winemakers, at 34.2 percent.

T A B L E 6 .

Executives producing 100,000 to 499,999 cases Female

Male

Total

% Female

Total

122

213

43%

93%

Finance

81%

DTC

76%

Marketing

71%

Sales and Marketing

60%

42%

Winemaking

34%

Sales

29%

CFO

20%

Operations

20%

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Function

Leadership in Wineries Producing 500,000 to 999,999 Cases

With an increase in case production of 500,000 to 999,999 cases, the number of female CEOs increases to 25 percent. Despite large numbers of sales executives in this size category, only 37 percent are female—but women do claim 50 percent of the operations positions.

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Executive roles in wineries producing 500,000 to 999,999 cases T A B L E 7 .

Function

Female

Male

Total

% Female

102

156

35%

100%

Legal

100%

Marketing

64%

Finance

50%

Operations

50%

Sales

37%

DTC

33%

CEO

25%

Winemaking

22%

CFO

17%

Viticulture

13%

COO

Total

Legal

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Leadership in Wineries Producing More Than 1 Million Cases

All the CEOs in this segment are male. HR management is less dominated by women at 73.9 percent, and 20 percent of viticulture management is female. Only 12 percent of the executives in sales management, the largest single function, are female. Women have significant presence only in HR, marketing and direct-to-consumer sales and, to a lesser extent, law and finance. Executive Roles in wineries producing more than 1 million cases T A B L E 8 .

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Female

Male

Total

% Female

105

207

312

34%

74%

Marketing

59%

DTC

57%

Legal

50%

CFO

40%

Winemaking

29%

Finance

27%

Operations

22%

Viticulture

20%

Sales

12%

11%

CEO

COO

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WBM December 2018 93

Leadership in the Wine Industry and the Role of Women

Winery Leadership by Region

Leadership in Central Coast Wineries

In each of the five regional categories7 of this study, men were found in higher numbers than women in leadership roles. Napa shows the smallest discrepancy, whereas the multi-region and Central Coast have larger discrepancies. The multi-regional category includes many large production wineries, explaining its larger total number of executives.

Almost 37 percent of the executive roles on the Central Coast are held by women, with particular presence in direct to consumer and marketing. Women are only 18.8 percent of sales executives and 12.5 percent of the CEOs.

TA B L E 1 0 .

Executives in Central Coast wineries Female

Male

Total

% Female

Total

149

37%

Number of women and men in executive roles producing in Central Coast, Multi-Region Wineries, Napa, Sonoma and Other Wineries of California

Legal

100%

Marketing

91%

DTC

83%

Function

80%

TA B L E 9 .

Function

Female

Male

Total

% Female

Total

420

683

1103

38%

Finance

70%

Napa

134

230

42%

Sales and Marketing

50%

Sonoma

137

39%

CFO

33%

Other

37%

31%

Central Coast

149

37%

Winemaking

24%

Multi-Region

188

324

512

37%

Sales

19%

CEO

13%

COO

Operations

Viticulture

Number of women and men in executive roles producing in Central Coast, Multi-Region Wineries, Napa, Sonoma and Other Wineries of California FIGURE 10.

Female

Male

400 Winery Leadership in Sonoma County

300

All of the HR executives in Sonoma wineries are female, as are 76.9 percent of marketing executives and 71.4 percent of direct to consumer executives— however, women hold 50 percent of the operations and COO positions. Furthermore, only 7.1 percent of CEOs and GMs, 6.7 percent of winemakers and 16.7 percent of viticulturists are women.

200

100

TA B L E 1 1 .

Executives in Sonoma wineries

Function

Male

Total

% Female

137

38.70%

100%

Marketing

77%

DTC

71%

Finance

50%

Operations

50%

COO

50%

Sales and Marketing

33%

29%

Sales

28%

CFO

25%

Viticulture

17%

CEO

Winemaking

Viticulture

Total

0 Napa

Female

Sonoma

Other

Central Coast

Multi-Region

The regional categories are Napa, Sonoma, Central Coast, “Other” and Multi-Region Producers.

94 December 2018 WBM

Winery Leadership in Napa County

Nearly 42 percent of winery executives in Napa County are female8, the best performance among California’s wine regions. Napa County also has the largest percentage of female CEOs at 24 percent and female winemakers at 35.1 percent. However, women are not well represented in viticulture, at just 5.9 percent of viticulture leads in the sample. T A B L E 1 2 .

Executives in Napa wineries

Function

Female

Male

Total

% Female

Total

134

230

42%

80%

Marketing

78%

CFO

57%

Finance

54%

DTC

50%

Sales and Marketing

50%

Winemaking

35%

Sales

29%

25%

CEO

24%

Operations

20%

Viticulture

COO

Legal

Winery Leadership in the “Other” Regional Category

The “Other” regional category, which includes all California wine regions other than Napa, Sonoma, the Central Coast and multi-regional wineries, has relatively few wineries that produce more than 10,000 cases. Despite the smaller sample size (75 executives), the same trends are seen. Women are 100 percent of HR executives, 71.4 percent of marketing executives and a majority of financial executives. Women are only 9.1 percent of CEOs and 11.1 percent of viticulture leads. T A B L E 1 3 .

Executives in Other Regions

Function

Female

Male

Total

% Female

37%

100%

COO

100%

Finance

75%

Marketing

71%

CFO

67%

DTC

50%

Legal

50%

40%

Sales

33%

Viticulture

11%

Winemaking

10%

CEO

Operations

Sales and Marketing

Total

Some key hires occurred too late to be included in the Napa data. McKinsey & Company,“ Women in the Workplace, 2016.” Washington, DC: McKinsey & Company for Lean In.

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WBM December 2018 95

Leadership in the Wine Industry and the Role of Women

Leadership in “Multi-Regional” Wineries

The multi-region wineries group, which includes many large production wineries, have the most executives. Of the 512 executives, 36.7 percent are female. Women are found in HR (82.4 percent) and marketing (60.0 percent) and are sparse in IT, viticulture and as CEO. TA B L E 1 4 .

Executives in Multi-region wineries

Function

Female

Male

Total

% Female

188

324

512

37%

82%

Sales and Marketing

67%

Marketing

60%

Legal

55%

DTC

52%

Finance

42%

Winemaking

30%

CFO

25%

Operations

23%

22%

Sales

100

127

21%

CEO

Viticulture

Total

COO

Wine Industry Findings on Leadership by Job Function are Consistent with Multi-Industry Studies These wine industry findings are consistent with those of McKinsey’s 2016 “Women in the Workplace”9 study of 132 companies across industries for the Lean In organization. McKinsey found that “despite modest progress since 2015, women remain underrepresented in the corporate pipeline.” In particular, McKinsey reported that, “at senior levels, we see women shift from line to staff roles while the percentage of men in line roles remains about the same. So by the time women reach the SVP level, they hold a mere 20 percent of line roles. This hurts their odds of getting the top job because the vast majority of CEOs come from line positions. In 2015, 90 percent of new CEOs were promoted or hired from line roles, and 100 percent of them were men.”

96 December 2018 WBM

Would Findings Be Different If We Included Smaller Producers? Or Owner-Operators? The vast majority of California’s 5,000-plus wine producers are quite small, and the names of many women who own or partner in such smaller producers quickly come to mind. We are all aware of women who, perhaps frustrated by the challenge of rising in larger companies or enthusiastic about the possibility of entrepreneurship, have developed their own wine companies, whether virtual/negoçiant brands or full brick-and-mortar operations. One challenge that the entrepreneurship route is likely to present for women is the sheer capital requirement of developing and operating a wine business, from the cost of acquiring and developing vineyards to building the facility to financing inventories, barrel purchases, etc. The barriers to women raising significant entrepreneurial capital are well-documented. Wives and daughters also have assumed management of several wineries. The next step is to assemble systematic data to evaluate how large a share female leaders represent in these segments of the industry.

Is California Different? California does have a more developed wine industry than many other parts of the country—but that would not, in itself, argue that it would have less women among management staff. In fact, it would suggest that its larger number of more established producers would provide more opportunities to women. However, it is possible that the sheer abundance of talent in the California market may make progress more challenging for women. Other regions, facing a scarcity of skilled, trained winery management expertise, may provide more opportunities for women—but this is just speculation without data at this point.

To What Extent Does the ThreeTier System Constrain Female Leadership in the U.S. Wine Industry? Does the three-tier system itself present a challenge to women assuming management roles in this industry? To what extent is the wine wholesale tier itself a challenge? A Canadian analyst commented that Canadian wineries appear to have more women in leadership roles. Was this a result of Canada’s provincial control of wholesale and retail sales channels? Is it simply easier to get wine into the market? Are the Provincial Liquor Control Boards more accessible, more welcoming, to female producers than the U.S. wholesale tier, still a well-known “boys’ club?” Having just one client, Canadian producers don’t need to build the sales force, the sales and marketing contractors and the networks of brokers, or to spend weeks on the road, drastically cutting operating costs. Although building a winery, developing vineyards and aging wine still demand capital,

the structure of the market may reduce barriers to women assuming management roles. Canada’s market is not typical of most markets internationally, but few have a three-tier system as complex as that in the U.S. Although the wholesale tier is gradually opening up to women, to what extent does it continue to represent a barrier to women gaining leadership roles in the industry?

This is Why We Did This Research! We adapt below some of the McKinsey findings to recommendations to reduce bias and improve diversity in winery hiring and promotion. Recruitment

Recommendations and Conclusions The McKinsey report identified some key issues that affect women’s careers. To what extent do these issues impact our industry? We know that at least one of these observations is valid: “Women are also less than half as likely as men to say they see a lot of people like them in senior management.” That situation inevitably has consequences for women’s work experiences and opportunities, such as: • Women and men are not having the same experiences at work. • Women get less access to the people and opportunities that advance careers and are disadvantaged in many of their daily interactions. • Compared to men, women are less likely to think they have equal opportunities for growth and development—and more likely to think their gender will play a role in missing out on a raise, promotion, or chance to get ahead. • Entry level women face more barriers to advancement than men at every level and senior-level women. They are the least likely to report they’ve gotten a challenging assignment and participated in an important development or training opportunity. In addition, women early in their careers are the least likely to believe they have equal opportunities for growth and development. • Women and men both view sponsorship by senior leaders as essential for success. Yet women report fewer substantive interactions with senior leaders than their male counterparts do—and this gap widens as women and men advance. • In the same vein, women are less likely to say that a senior leader outside their direct management chain has helped them get a promotion or challenging new assignment. We know that diversity issues are complex, and gender issues can be deeply personal. “Employees who don’t prioritize gender diversity point to concerns about favoritism and de-emphasizing individual performance, and men are more likely to point to both. Perhaps the case for gender diversity is not reaching employees, or they worry they’ll be disadvantaged by diversity programs that aren’t fair. However, it’s worth noting that if the workplace was inclusive and fair now, the corporate pipeline would more closely mirror the general population.” “Transparency is also critical, yet fewer than a third of companies disclose any gender metrics to employees, and a mere 4 percent share them. Giving employees more information will help them better understand the state of women in their companies and what’s working—and what’s not—in their efforts to reach gender equality.”

• Requiring a diverse slate of candidates when filling positions, blind resume reviews and reviewing job descriptions for biased language will all reduce bias. Such practices need to be adapted to both new hires and internal promotions. • Do the recruiters and executive search firms you work with recognize your diversity objectives? Are they motivated to find female candidates for roles not traditionally filled by women? • McKinsey reported that, in its multi-industry research, “fewer than 10 percent of employees say that personnel decisions are regularly evaluated for gender bias.” Opportunities for Training or Advancement

• Has your company built a clear management pipeline so that all employees understand how to advance? Are access to these opportunities for growth and promotion equitably available? • Creating management development programs for all employees, including training opportunities and opportunities for challenging assignments, involving employees in these programs—and then evaluating their implementation—has an impact in building strong management teams. • Some may recognize that well-managed large companies, such as GE, are well known for such policies, which are key to building deep, diverse bench strength and succession plans. • McKinsey reported that, among the 132 diverse companies it surveyed, “27 percent of employees say they rely on themselves for information on improving gender diversity, or identifying a challenging assignment, or an important development or training opportunity.” Compensation

• Although many in the industry participate in a well-publicized salary survey, that survey does not track or report gender. Including such information would be a significant contribution to improved transparency in the industry. • The wine industry is not alone in this disparity. McKinsey reported that, “although 91 percent of companies track gender representation by level, only 58 percent track salary differences by gender.” Inherent or Implicit Bias by Job Function

Is bias inherent in the perception and hiring for certain roles? We have heard suggestions that it is not surprising that top sales positions are largely male, given the culture and composition of the liquor wholesale industry. Is that really true—and insurmountable? If women can operate effectively in such traditionally male-oriented cultures as automation and construction, to mention two, why shouldn’t they be able to deal with liquor wholesalers? The same question applies to winery operations—interacting with many suppliers who themselves have learned to welcome women executives in their ranks—to say nothing of viticulture and winemaking. It has been suggested

WBM December 2018 97

Leadership in the Wine Industry and the Role of Women

that it would be difficult for women to manage mostly male, immigrant farm workers—but an increasing number of those workers are women, who might be more comfortable with other women as managers. This is not just a wine producer question as almost no vineyard management companies are run by women. This is certainly not a skill or training issue as women now claim a rising share of advanced viticulture degrees. A Women’s Problem or a Company Problem?

Several companies have been working on this issue by providing leadership training and coaches to help their female employees to “lean in.” But even Lean In has found, and the McKinsey report documents, that placing the burden on the female staff, concluding the issue is primarily one of women’s attitudes and behaviors, is a vast over-simplification and often counter-productive. If the company’s prevailing culture and incentives, including management and middle management behavior, do not adjust, changing individual behavior may just create frustration. Wine is a traditional industry, as are agriculture and liquor, its two major siblings. Each face major challenges in dealing with this issue. All need to look thoughtfully at some long-held habits, conventions and attitudes. There was a wonderful question in a recent New York Times Magazine story9: “What if the world we think we know is only a tiny, myopic fraction of it? What if the things we believe we understand are nothing but learned patterns?” Imagine the possibilities. Fortunately, the opportunities and the talent are abundant. WBM

Methodology In this first year of research, we chose to focus on California producers, drawing data from a representative sample of wineries, segmented by production size and region. The research team was aware, from long experience in the industry, that any attempt to obtain data from a purely random sample would be unsuccessful as few responses would be obtained without personal requests.

Sample Selection Winery Size Segments

To select a representative sample of wineries by size, we divided up wineries into five segments: • 10,000 to 29,999 cases • 30,000 to 99,999 cases • 100,000 to 499,999 cases • 500,000 to 999,999 cases • Over 1 million cases We chose 10,000 cases as the floor since wineries smaller than that size are unlikely to hire professional management (with the exception of some very high-end “cult” producers). Since winery production size is seldom public data and zoning permit data may not be complete, we consulted multiple sources, including the wineries themselves, to categorize the wineries by case production. We knew that the vast majority of California’s 3,018 operating wineries are small, producing less than 30,000 gallons of wine (12,000 cases). We were, however, surprised to realize from this research how few wineries were larger than 10,000 cases. We were able to identify just 219 such wineries. For this analysis, we considered winery “groups”—owners of multiple wineries—as single, unified entities. We were able to obtain information from 106 wineries, or 46 percent of the total potential universe of producers, distributed among five regional groupings, described below. FIGURE16.

Sample Wineries by Case Size

50% 45% 40% 35%

Definition of Leadership Roles

We defined lead or “senior executive” as • Director or senior director • Vice president or senior vice president • C-level: CEO, CFO, COO, CTO

30% 25%

Winery Departments Considered

20%

We requested information on the lead management positions/senior executives in the following areas:

15%

• Business (CEO and/or GM) • Marketing • Sales • Direct-to-consumer (DTC) • Production and/or Winemaking • Viticulture • Finance • Information Technology (IT) • Human Resources (HR) • Legal • Other 9

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/magazine/charles-king-superagentdiverse-hollywood.html. 10/8/17

98 December 2018 WBM

10% 5% 0% 10,000 to 29,999

30,000 to 99,999

100,000 to 499,999 Case Volume

500,000 to 999,999

More than 1 million

Regional Groupings

The Final Sample

To ensure our sample reflected the distribution of California’s wineries by region, we obtained a report from the TTB on wine production and the number of operating wineries, by California county10 for 2016, from which we built T A B L E 1 4 below. However, conferring with the regional associations and multiple producers in each region, we found that for several regions, few wineries produced more than 10,000 cases, skewing our ultimate sample. We created a regional category we called “Other Regions” into which we grouped these counties. Thus, we had five regional groupings, shown below:

The team knew from experience that, although a fully random sample within the size and regional criteria would be ideal, few wineries would provide information, particularly staffing information, to blind contacts. The universe of eligible wineries was small enough that we could not afford to risk the usual low level (10 to 20 percent) of responses to such an approach. Thus, once the potential sample was identified, the team made a systematic outreach effort, through the Red Cabs network and other relationships, to reach through personal contact, as many wineries within the potential universe as possible—and succeeded in reaching nearly half the potential universe, for a robust sample. This effort over two months produced the study’s findings from 106 wineries. The composition of this group is summarized in Table 15 below.

• Napa County • Sonoma County • Central Coast, including Paso Robles, Santa Barbara and Monterey • Multi-Regional Producers (producers that own operating wineries in multiple regions) • “Other” Regions: all counties not included in categories above TA B L E 1 4 .

Number of wineries in sample in each region

50%

Number of wineries, at each case production level, in each region TA B L E 1 5 .

18 16 14

45%

40%

35%

30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

Napa County

Sonoma County

Central Coast*

Multi-regional Producers

Other Regions

Region & Case Volume

10,000 to 29,999

30,000 to 99,999

100,000 to 499,999

500,000 to 999,999

More than 1 million

* includes Paso Robles, Santa Barbara and Monterey Napa County

Sonoma County

Central Coast* Region

* includes Paso Robles, Santa Barbara and Monterey

Multi-regional Producers

Other Regions

The “zero” categories indicates that no wineries were found in the specific size segment in that regional group. Note that several larger producers that might have been found in specific regions are included in the “Multi-Regional” group. About This Report

TTB Wine Production All County Update. 2016

This report was produced by Barbara Insel and Alicia Hoepfner, from research conducted by Alicia Hoepfner and Lisa Goff, with assistance from Barbara Insel. We are grateful to Silicon Valley Bank and Celia Welch Consulting for their support of this research and to the 106 wineries and the many colleagues, Red Cabs members and other executives who helped in this effort. WBM December 2018 99

technology & business

As Wineries Utilize More Data in Sales Programs, How Do They Determine Which Data Matters? Experts at this year’s Wine Industry Technology Symposium advised the best use of data is to avoid overloading. Michael S. Lasky

Michael S. Lasky is the former editor of AppellationAmerica.com and is the author of hundreds of articles for national magazines and newspapers.

is actually a really exciting time as far as data and analytics go and being able to cobble together different sources. Ten years ago, frankly, that really wasn’t a possibility, or it was super clunky to do so. You would spend all your time just getting data out of the system and then trying to report on that. Now it’s much more about if you can get data into one centralized place,” declared Brian Lechner, vice president, group client director, at Nielsen Research. Lechner was addressing an overflow crowd of attendees at Wine Business Monthly’s 2018 Wine Industry Technology Symposium (WITS). He was one in a quartet of data experts focusing on, yes, The Data That Matters. Joining him were Ian Monat, senior business performance analyst at Moet Hennessy; Kristina Gerren, manager of sales and marketing analytics at Foley Family Wines and Andrew Milanez, vice president at Zepponi & Company. “I think the industry’s going to pivot much less so in the future from reporting to sending targeted alerts to people, saying here’s what you need to go do with this information,” predicted Lechner. “I think that’s actually going to be the most powerful evolution we’ve seen probably in the past 20 years. This is about the democratization of data and what that will allow companies of all sizes to do in terms of making or buying those capabilities and deploying them to their general management or their field reps to make their results that much more actionable and drive better outcomes.” The panel approached how we get data and then how the wine industry uses it—and how to use it effectively—by breaking it down to data’s various purposes: benchmarking, integrating data from several sources, reporting and distributing data and forecasting. The relevance of escalating social media was also broached [See sidebar: Does Social Media Matter for Data?]. “I ’D S AY T H AT T H I S

WINE INDUSTRY

TECHNOLOGY SYMPOSIUM

“The key to solid benchmarking really is to identify your niche. As the wine industry has grown so significantly over the last couple of decades, there are now tons of wine suppliers; there are tons of brands out there. Unfortunately, we can’t all be number one in terms of volume and revenue, right? You really have to narrow down your market niche and look at parameters other than just price segment and varietal,” explained Gerren. As a premium plus-priced wine company, Foley can’t compete with a mass-produced $10 Chardonnay. “It’s really about identifying the metrics where we excel. Especially as our industry becomes more and more competitive, there are additional nuggets that we can pull out of the various syndicated data sources that help us to tell more unique stories about why some companies are more successful and benchmark ourselves against these competitors,” noted Gerren. Milanez at Zepponi and Co. added, “The way that we use benchmarking is really to understand the value of clients and what they might fetch if they go to sell in the market rather than internal metrics. How do you find the right competitive set to benchmark yourself against?” To determine that set, Zepponi breaks it down not just by price point or varietal, but by more nuanced aspects, including path to market, demographic focus and more. The next step in the benchmarking process is to drill down and find the real driver of growth. Milanez said it was important to see whether the growth comes from volume or price.

The Wine Industry Technology Symposium (WITS) is a conference for winery professionals who implement technology solutions or analyze sales data. This includes IT professionals, marketing managers and DTC managers, as well as general managers, financial managers and winery owners. More information can be found at www.wbwits.com.

WINE BUSINESS MONTHLY would like to thank the following sponsors

100 December 2018 WBM

Using Your Data to Benchmark Can Reveal the Vitality of Your Business

On the volume side, you can use data to see if volume growth is coming from core SKUs or by line extensions. “If all of your growth is coming from line extensions and your core SKUs are not growing at heathy rates, obviously, that has a real impact on the outlook for the business. It’s certainly nice to have the ability to extend brand portfolios through line extensions, but at the same time, if that’s the only source of growth, that can be a worrying kind of flag for potential buyers,” Milanez said. Even Nielsen, which specializes in data, needs to collect external data for its own benchmarking. As Lechner pointed out, “It helps us to work with other partners to provide a more rounded view in our industry overview presentations. And so we can get to information on what’s selling in channels that we don’t track or what’s selling in DTC. So it really does take a village to be able to manage this information in the business holistically to get a complete picture of what’s going on in the industry.”

Avoiding Data Overload: Limiting Data Can Be More Effective Milanez warned, “One of the problems with having so much data available now is that there’s a danger of information overload.” He said there are maybe three to five points that actually matter as to what’s going to drive interest. “We’re focused less on disseminating information to 10 different internal departments, but particularly, when you’re talking further up the chain and need to drive a call to action, it’s helpful to have less information rather than more. Really isolate what you think are the key findings,” he said. Foley’s Gerren said that it’s really about determining what data sources are going to give you the most bang for your buck. “We work in a relatively small team at Foley. We only have so much bandwidth to analyze the data that we have. We could go out and double our budget tomorrow and buy a whole bunch of data, but we don’t have the bandwidth to really utilize that data and get the return out of that investment. I think the data budget really depends on the size of your company as a supplier, the bandwidth of the team that will be analyzing it and the other tools that you have in place to nudge that budget to make those data points work for you,” Gerren said.

LIQUID OAK TANNINS FRUIT ENHANCER FRESH HARVEST BARREL EXTRACT TERROIR VANILLA PEACH VANILLA MOCHA FRUIT ENHANCER PLUS

Does Social Media Matter for Data? Data is emerging as a powerful weapon in the increasingly competitive battle for the wine consumer. The question posed before the data panel experts was, from a winery perspective or an M&A viewpoint, does social media play any impact at all? The consensus was it depends in part on your demographic and the business channels you play in. “I think it certainly has relevance, but it’s more on that kind of emerging category of Millennial consumers and where they’re deriving interest in,” said Milanez. “Over the next 10 years, it will probably be more and more relevant as the demographics in the market shift. But as of right now, we don’t see any material impact in the M&A market per se.” Added Foley’s Gerren: “On the wholesale channel, we’re not really utilizing social all that heavily right now. Of course, it plays a role in all of our lives at this point because we’re so technology-tethered, but they definitely are looking at it much differently on the direct-to-consumer side of the business, but it’s not a metric or a data source in terms of our department. Besides, it’s sort of a fickle group of people and a difficult thing to measure. Does it play a role in our business? Yes. Will that role grow over the next few years? I’m sure. But we’re going to have to figure out what the best way is to really analyze that data and track it. It’s not the easiest thing to grab hold of right now,” concluded Gerren.

WBM December 2018 101

As Wineries Utilize More Data in Sales Programs, How Do They Determine Which Data Matters?

Data Can Help Forecast Developing Sales Trends So what kind of predictive trends can we get from past and current data? According to Nielsen Research’s Brian Lechner, “There are some instructive trends that you can see from previous scan data, and it’s interesting to know, or to keep your eye on, whether something is more a trend or whether something is more of a fad.” Knowing this, what is Lechner’s advice to wineries? “I think you should be aware of where there is acceleration in the category: why it’s happening, whether it’s just retailers dedicating more space, or consumers really seem to be responding, whether the velocities are the same on a per-SKU basis, and whether or not it makes sense for your company to participate in those. Based on those historical views, you can get a sense of how big a sales trend is going to be. You can do some historical data analysis to help you frame for your company what’s the right way to try to tackle that.” Added Foley’s Kristina Gerren, “I think the key is if a winery has the ability to use past data to identify whether something is going to be a continuing, long-term trend or if it’s truly just a fad. The difficulty facing the wine industry, in particular, is that it’s not always easy or quick to make supply changes. If you see a trend across a particular category, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can jump on that bandwagon and start producing that product right away. That’s because from a supply perspective, it’s not always physically possible for us to do so within a timeframe that still allows you to take advantage of that trend.” Advised Zepponi’s Andrew Milanez, “Keep an eye on your competitors very closely. And if they’re launching products into new, unexpected markets, see how they do. And see whether or not there’s an opportunity for you there because you may be able to jump on early. While you might not be the first one in the market, you may be there soon enough to capture a large share of the dollars just because you’re paying attention and other people aren’t.”

102 December 2018 WBM

Data Central: Directing All Data Sources Into a Single Bank Creates Effectiveness

COLD STAB IS OVER

A centralized repository of data available to all departments in a company, no matter what its size, is one way to both tame data and exploit the data you collect to the fullest. This point is well-taken by Foley’s Gerren. “We have several different data sources streaming into one centralized system, which has been really great for our company because it keeps everybody speaking the same language. It helps streamline our reporting processes. Our shipment data feeds into there, our depletion data feeds into there. We purchased a data-cleansing service [see below] to go along with our depletion data that helps us to manage our tr.indd chain business. We also have it linked up to The Winemaker’s DatabaseEnartisUSA_Zenith_WBM , which is used on the production side.” This centralization of data lets Foley combine these data sources and play them against each other. It gives Foley an opportunity to, at least on the sales side, paint the full picture of its sales business. “We can look at what we were shipping out to our distributors, and right next to that, we can see what retail accounts our distributors have depleted those products to. It just gives us a lot more visibility in a centralized location, making it a lot easier for us to distribute the correct information to the right people,” Gerren elaborated. As part of this data pool, Foley purchased a data cleansing tool from Nielsen called TDLinx. While the company uses it for all its accounts, Gerren explained, “The biggest impact is definitely for the chains team because the ownership structures within these large chain corporations is so confusing at times—and you look at large companies, like Kroger, they own so many different banners and its buyers are different, depending on what banner you’re looking at. TDLinx basically manages an internal data warehouse that provides us with cleansed information as far as which retail locations fall under which of those banners.” Gerren is particularly excited about how the centralized data bank makes reporting friendlier on mobile devices. “Our mobile app is used heavily by our sales guys out in the field. Of course, we have reports that they can print and bring with them, but the app gives them the ability to have data in real-time, in front of them, on their iPad or on their mobile device when they’re sitting in a room with a distributor or with a retail account. This makes it as easy as possible for them to answer whatever questions come up, during their meetings, without them having to spend tons of time pulling the information and putting these reports together. Because their time is better served selling wine, right? Whatever we can do on our side to make the data as easy for them to get as possible is our big goal.” WBM

21/08/18 10:37

Legal Counsel to the Beverage Industry • Applications for ABC and TTB licenses • Distribution agreements & direct shipping advice for all states • ABC and TTB Business Practice Counseling • Accusation, Defense and Protest Hearing Representation • Regulatory clearance of promotions, point-of-sale material, labels and advertising ATTORNEYS: John Hinman Lynne Carmichael Beth Aboulafia Rebecca Stamey-White Suzanne DeGalan Sara Mann Erin Kelleher Alana Joyce John W. Edwards II Barbara Snider

260 California Street, Suite 700 San Francisco CA 94111 Telephone 415.362.1215 Facsimile 415.362.1494

beveragelaw.com

WBM December 2018 103

advertiser index Thank you to all of our advertisers! Company

web address

A Bright Idea

www.abrightideaonline.com

Acrolon Technologies, Inc.

www.acrolon.com

Ager Tank & Equipment Co.

www.agertank.com

Algor

www.algorgroup.com

All American Containers

www.aacwine.com

page

Company

web address

Heffernan Insurance Brokers

www.heffins.com/business-insurance/ vintners-and-gr

Hinman & Carmichael, LLP

www.beveragelaw.com

Infaco USA

www.infaco-usa.com

Innerstave, LLC

www.innerstave.com

Louis Latour, Inc.

www.louislatour.com

M A Silva USA

www.masilva.com

page 92 103

American AgCredit, CoBank, Farm Credit West, Northwest Farm Credit Services

www.farmcreditalliance.com

American Vineyard Foundation

www.avf.org

Nadalié USA

www.nadalie.com

Amorim Cork America

www.amorimca.com

North County Properties

www.northcountyproperties-ncp.com

APCOR - Portuguese Cork Association

www.realcork.org

Oenofrance USA, LLC

www.oenofrance.com

ARS/SWASH Sanitizing Equipment

www.swashequipment.com

101

OrderPort Winery Solutions

www.orderport.net

ATPGroup

www.atpgroup.com

7, 55

P&L Specialties

www.pnlspecialties.com

www.pgimref.com/agloans

Baicor LC

www.baicor.com

PGIM Real Estate Finance, Agricultural Finance

Barrel Builders, Inc.

www.barrelbuilders.com

Portocork America

www.portocork.com

Benchmark Consulting

www.benchmarkhr.com

Premier Wine Cask

www.premierwinecask.com

Bergin Screen Printing and Etching

www.berginglass.com

Prospero Equipment Corp.

www.prosperoequipment.com

Bin to Bottle Winery

www.bintobottle.com

Santa Rosa Stainless Steel

www.srss.com

Bouchard Cooperages

www.bouchardcooperages.com

Saverglass, Inc.

www.saverglass.com/en

BSG Wine

www.bsgwine.com

101

Scott Laboratories, Inc.

www.scottlab.com

Bucher Vaslin North America

www.bvnorthamerica.com

Sonoma Cast Stone

www.concretewinetanks.com

Carlsen & Associates

www.carlsenassociates.com

Spokane Industries

www.spokaneindustries.com

Castoro Bottling Co.

www.castorobottling.com

St. Patrick’s of Texas

www.stpats.com

C-Line Express

www.c-linexp.com

103

StaVin, Inc.

www.stavin.com

Cloud Co. (Cloud-Sellers)

www.cloudinc.com

Terravant Wine Co.

www.terravant.com

Cork Supply USA

www.corksupply.com

Tom Beard Co

www.tombeard.com

Criveller Group

www.criveller.com

Tonnellerie Orion

www.tonnellerieorion.com

Della Toffola USA, Ltd.

www.dellatoffola.us

Tonnellerie Quintessence

www.tonnelleriequintessence.com

Dow Agrosciences

www.dowagro.com

Unified Wine & Grape Symposium

www.unifiedsymposium.org

Duarte Nursery, Inc.

www.duartenursery.com

Vintner Vault

www.thevintnervault.com

Eaton

www.eaton.com/wine

Vinventions USA

www.vinventions.com

4-5

Electro-Steam Generator Corp.

www.electrosteam.com

103

Waterloo Container Co.

www.waterloocontainer.com

Enartis

www.enartis.com

103

Watermark Labels

www.watermarklabels.com

ETS Laboratories

www.etslabs.com

WBM Events

www.wbmevents.com

Euro-Machines, Inc.

www.euromachinesusa.com

Westec Tank & Equipment

www.westectank.com

Free Flow Wines

www.freeflowwines.com

Wine Institute

www.wineinstitute.org

G3 Enterprises

www.g3enterprises.com

107

Winejobs.com

www.winejobs.com

Ganau America, Inc.

www.ganauamerica.com

108

Garton Tractor, Inc.

www.gartontractor.com

Global Package, LLC

www.globalpackage.net

Wines & Vines Directory & Buyer’s Guide Wines & Vines Packaging Conference

Gusmer Enterprises

www.gusmerwine.com

GW Kent, Inc.

www.gwkent.com

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102

www.winesandvines.com

www.wvpack.com

Winetech, LLC

www.winetech.us

Wonderful Nurseries

www.wonderfulnurseries.com

World Cooperage

www.worldcooperage.com

winemaker of the month

Brandon deLeuze winemaker/partner, ZD Wines, Rutherford and Carneros, CA

During my first wine marketing class at Cal Poly in the early 2000s, the professor would frequently reference WBM articles and shared that he thought WBM was the industry’s best publication. At that time I noticed it was the industry’s largest publication as it barely fit into my backpack. Over the years I have referenced WBM countless times and make sure it is always on the break room dining table for everyone at ZD to enjoy. I loved seeing my friend Towle Merritt on the cover of Top Leaders 2018. TIM KENNEDY

NAME AND TITLE: Brandon

deLeuze, winemaker/partner

ZD Wines, Rutherford and Carneros, CA Founded in 1969, ZD Wines is owned and operated by the deLeuze Family. This year they celebrate 50 years of winemaking, with the second and third generations of the deLeuze family carrying on the family legacy. WINERY NAME AND LOCATION:

ANNUAL CASE PRODUCTION: 30,000 PLANTED ACRES: 40

started working alongside my dad and grandpa in our cellar when I was 11, fell in love with the work and never looked back. I was one of the first graduates from the Wine and Viticulture program at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Afterwards, I continued my education on the Central Coast, working in vineyard management for Pacific Vineyard

Company and in the cellar at Eberle Winery. I started working full-time for ZD in 2006 and received my Wine Intensive EMBA from Sonoma State University in 2015. I feel so fortunate to be able to maintain the fantastic style of our wines that was established long ago, while continuing ZD’s legacy of innovation. WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR BIGGEST PROFESSIONAL CHALLENGE? While

I have always been at home in the cellar working with my hands, I continue to try to find my comfort zone as a public speaker and brand representative. A large glass of Pinot Noir has been helpful.

CAREER BACKGROUND: I

VARIETALS THAT YOUR WINERY IS KNOWN FOR: Chardonnay

is our flagship, Carneros Pinot Noir, Napa Cabernet Sauvignon and a pinnacle wine called Abacus. We are proud to work with only certified organic fruit.

WBM December 2018 105

jake lorenzo

routine. Every Sunday he attended the 5:30 AM Fisherman’s Mass at his church in New Orleans. He’d stop by Haydel’s Bakery for a dozen jelly donuts to bring home for the family. Placing the box on the kitchen table, he’d climb into bed for some more sleep. Waking a couple hours later, he looked forward to a steaming cup of chicory coffee and munching a delicious Haydel’s jelly donut. This particular morning Hartman tried to remain calm. “It’s been three weeks now,” he declared to the counter clerk at Haydel’s. “There’s hardly any jelly in the donuts. We never had this problem before.” “I don’t know what to tell you Mr. Hartman,” the clerk explained, “I’ve been filling your donuts myself, since you first complained. If I put any more jelly in these donuts, they will explode.” H. Gordon Hartman took his box of donuts and went home. He placed the box on the kitchen table and went to bed, but he couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned angrily in his bed, finally giving up on sleep and heading down to the kitchen for coffee. He saw his four-year-old son, Eric holding a donut in both hands and sucking the jelly out of it. Eric rubbed the donut in sugar and carefully placed it back in the box. Then he picked up another donut and sucked the jelly out of it. Hartman grabbed his son from the chair and walked him to the bakery. He told Eric, “I’ve been complaining about the donuts here for three weeks, young man, and it wasn’t their fault. It was yours. You have to go in there and confess what you have done.” So, Eric, still dressed in his onesies, padded into the bakery and sobbed his confession to the clerk. The clerk was so moved by Eric’s confession that he handed him a jelly donut, which Eric happily ate on the way home. H. GORDON HARTMAN LOVED

The wind howled with gusts up to 40 miles per hour making this detective uneasy with memories of last year. Riding down the hill, Artman commented on the howling winds and the blackened devastation. “It must have been horrifying,” he said. It was horrifying Jake Lorenzo thought, but not as dreadful as slowly losing your sight. Eric Artman Hartman has not been sitting idly by waiting to go blind. Since 2000 he has actively worked to develop the Choroideremia Research Foundation (CRF) serving as Executive Director before moving to his current position as Director of Advocacy. He is the public face of the CRF acting as liaison for international groups, pharmaceutical companies, and government regulators. He wears out canes the way cartoonists wear out pencils, because he travels all over the world making presentations and keeping abreast of scientific research that may help future generations of Choroideremia patients. Keeping abreast of research, networking with medical people and listening to lectures about complicated science involves a lot of time in airports and hotels. Artman will tell you that both airports and hotels have bars and restaurants, and he enjoys visiting them. He is from New Orleans, after all. He likes his Old Fashioned cocktails and he likes drinking wine. He says Jake Lorenzo taught him all he knows about wine. I doubt that, but I confess he has been an apt pupil. The CRF is making progress. One particularly promising theory involves cell replacement therapy. It has become possible to generate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) directly from adult cells. Scientists can literally grow cells in a petri dish and then inject them directly into the eye where the hope is that these new cells will reintroduce functional stem cells to replace the damaged ones. In fact, Eric Artman Hartman’s iPSCs are one of only two cell lines publicly available for research. Artman has continued to paint despite his ever-narrowing field of vision, but it is becoming more difficult. Instead of plein-air painting done outdoors and reproducing the actual visual conditions at the time, he is taking photos on his cell phone and then doing his painting in his home studio using the photos and hoping his brain can fill in the missing peripherals. Artman is a lesson in positivity. He travels the world visiting old friends and making new ones. He loves to eat good food and drink fine wine. He never turns down an Old Fashioned. Late one night, after a multi-course dinner and several bottles of wine, Artman told me, “The fires were worse than I imagined, but so was Hurricane Katrina. Whatever the disaster, it takes time. You will be able to move on, but that unsettling anxiety never goes away.” It is too late to restore Artman’s sight, but scientists are optimistic about cell replacement therapy. There is a good chance that research being done using Artman’s iPSCs will lead to a cure for Choroideremia. Artman takes pride that in the future when children and their parents are given the diagnosis, the doctor might be able to say, “but there is a cure.” If so, it will come directly from Eric Artman Hartman. This is a good thing, but Jake Lorenzo can’t predict what the effect will be on those cured children when it comes to their unexplained, insatiable craving for jelly donuts. WBM

Artman is a lesson in positivity. He travels the world visiting old friends and making new ones. He loves to eat good food and drink fine wine. He never turns down an Old Fashioned. Jake Lorenzo loves it when a mystery is solved, even if I’m not the one to solve it. I told the story because Eric “Artman” Hartman is visiting during this one-year anniversary of the Wine Country Fires. After Hurricane Katrina, we brought Artman to stay with us for three months. He helped us make wine and he painted a series of vineyard scenes, most of which were sold at an exhibition here in Sonoma. That money gave Artman a start at rebuilding his life when he returned to New Orleans. His life has not been easy. Artman suffers from Choroideremia (CHM), a condition characterized by progressive vision loss. The disease causes a gradual loss of vision, starting with childhood night blindness, followed by peripheral vision loss. Everyone who gets Choroideremia will eventually develop blindness. It’s not a comfortable affliction for anyone, especially an artist. Artman asked me to take him up in the hills, so he could get an idea of the fire damage. We drove up Moon Mountain Road all the way through Monte Rosso Vineyard to Carmenet Winery. Scorched trees and hills spread all around us with only the green vineyards to break up blackened landscape.

106 December 2018 WBM

ILLUSTRATION BY BOB JOHNSON

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