Richard (Rich) Smith, founder of Valley Farm Management, Paraiso Vineyards and Smith Family Wines in California’s Santa Lucia Highlands wine region, was first and foremost a family man, and also a successful grape grower, winery owner and respected colleague. He was a highly effective, collegial and tireless leader whose significant and selfless contributions of time, energy and funds helped to shape public policy and scientific research to advance the American grape and wine industry. He passed away in December 2015.

Three of the organizations Rich helped to establish—NGRA, WineAmerica and Winegrape Growers of America (WGA)—annually join with the Smith Family to bestow the Rich Smith Distinguished Service Award. It recognizes an industry representative who exemplifies the passion, commitment and collaboration Rich was known for and who has had a similarly positive impact on the industry. For each organization, it is our highest and most coveted award.

Know a colleague who emulates Rich’s exceptional leadership? Nominate him or her by November 16, 2022.

Fred T. Franzia, CEO of Bronco Wine Company, passed away this month, on September 13; he was 79. Fred was a founder and long-time Board member and Chair, until just last year, of the American Vineyard Foundation (AVF), an NGRA member-organization. As the AVF attested upon his departure from the Board of Directors, “Fred and other influential industry leaders joined together to form the AVF with the vision of creating an innovative, collaborative funding model for the wine industry in support of viticulture and enology research.”

Known for the company’s Charles Shaw brand, a.k.a. “Two Buck Chuck,” Fred believed that “wine should be enjoyed and consumed on every American Table,” said the company’s announcement of his passing. Fred’s family will hold a private celebration of life. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to local charities, listed at link above.

At Bronco, Fred will be succeeded by Daniel J. Leonard as President/CEO.

A new report commissioned and released this month by the Breakthrough Institute, called “Growing Green: The Environmental Benefits of Public Agricultural Research & Development,” examines the arc of public agricultural R&D, finding that it has had significant climate and environmental benefits. Consider this illustration from the study: “As farm yields increased over the 20th century, less land was required to produce the same quantity of food, fiber and other agricultural products. For example, if U.S. corn yields had remained stagnant from 1961 to 2020, corn farmers would have needed additional land the size of France to produce the same total amount of corn in 2020. Although yield gains in that period were partially due to greater use of fertilizer, fuel and other energy-intensive farm inputs, the carbon footprint of key agricultural goods declined.”

The study projects that doubling public U.S. agricultural R&D spending (to roughly $3.4 billion annually) to agencies like the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service would reduce global emissions by 213 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent per year, or more than a third of current U.S. agricultural emissions. “This mitigation,” report authors say, “would cost about $12 per ton of abated emissions, less than many other climate policies, while generating other benefits such as increased domestic agricultural production and lower prices.”

The Fresno-Merced Future of Food Innovation Coalition, or F3, was one of 21 regional proposals selected to receive grants from the federal government’s $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge. It won $65.1 million to foster greater innovation in agricultural technology and promote marketing opportunities for small-scale farmers in the central San Joaquin Valley, the largest viticultural area in the U.S. Specifically, the award will help launch a world-class Climate-Smart Food and Ag Tech Engineering Cluster that develops advanced, sustainable food production and food manufacturing focused on cross-disciplinary engineering capabilities in digitalization and data science, mechatronics, equipment and systems integration. It will bolster the efforts of researchers at the University of California-Merced and Fresno State along with farmers across Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced and Tulare counties.

To reinvigorate the state’s wine industry following challenges like labor shortages, climate events and the COVID-19 pandemic, the New Mexico state Legislature this month launched the New Mexico Vineyard Restoration Fund. Managed by the New Mexico Wine & Grape Growers Association, the fund provides $950,000 to New Mexico wineries and vineyards for the reimbursement of purchased rootstock or vines to replace lost vines as a result of unavoidable event or to expand the planting of vines for the future growth and viability of the New Mexico wine and grape industry. The 2022 planting season application deadline is October 31, 2022.

Wine Enthusiast magazine has nominated three scientists—Anita Oberholster (UC Davis), Tom Collins (Washington State University) and Elizabeth Tomasino (Oregon State University)—for its 23rd Annual Wine Star Awards. The team’s nomination in the category of Innovator of the Year calls wildfires “the biggest threat to modern winemaking in the western United States,” and cites Anita, Tom and Elizabeth’s “numerous breakthroughs in understanding and managing the effects of wildfire smoke in grapes and wine” and communicating their findings to the industry, media and consumers. The award recipients will be announced in January 2023, but these three are already winners in our book!

The American Society for Enology and Viticulture (ASEV) is now accepting nominations for these annual awards:

Nominations for both awards are due November 1, 2022. Recipients will be honored at ASEV’s 2023 Annual Conference.

The USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) seeks industry relevance reviewers for its 2023 grant program. SCRI provides nearly $80 million of funding each year for research and extension initiatives to address the critical needs of specialty crop industries, including grape and wine. The total time commitment is 10 to 20 hours between mid-February and late March 2023. Volunteer as a reviewer and have a say in which proposals meet the most urgent industry needs and should be considered for funding! If interested, contact National Program Leader Jessica Shade by October 15, 2022.

USDA-NIFA is seeking applications from eligible institutions interested in serving the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program as either a Regional Host Institution (one in each of the four regions) or as the program’s National Reporting, Coordinating and Communications Office (NRCCO). Selected institutions are expected to serve in the role for fiscal years 2023 through 2032. See the Request for Applications for details. Deadline to apply is November 14, 2022.

Wine Business Monthly Editor in Chief Cyril Penn shared insights from the joint ASEV-NGRA field day in the Salinas Valley “showcasing how data-driven approaches and precision technologies can improve business.” He notes that, as labor is increasingly unavailable or expensive, and AI, robots and other tech deployed in orchard and row crops become relevant to vineyards, growers will turn to solutions that reduce labor pressure without impacting yield or quality. “There may be ways to do it that we’re not really even thinking about right now,” he quotes NGRA and ASEV Board member Keith Striegler, who helped to organize the event. (Story starts on page 50.)

September 27, 2022 | Wine Enthusiast

New research funded by USDA's Agricultural Research Service provides a new tool to predict where large wildfires are likely to occur in the 60+ million acres of the Great Basin in the Western U.S. With probability estimates of wildfire risk based on vegetative data from remote sensing technology, the system can help fire managers efficiently deploy fire-fighting resources and communities prepare for fire season.

September 7, 2022 | Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

Although the selections developed at the University of Minnesota and other U.S. university grape breeding programs “have long been shunned by traditional winemakers, the grapes grown here may help winemaking worldwide survive climate change,” given their cold-hardiness, disease-resistance and good flavor. Since its inception in the 1970s, the U of M has released “12 ‘keeper’ grapes; a 13th is awaiting patent.”

Organic Napa Valley grapegrower Mark Neal is growing whites and reds together on “stacked” trellises in a “stay against climate change.” His Dual Varietal Trellis System creates “natural umbrellas” by letting the red grapes and their leaves hang on an upper wire as a protective shield for the white grapes, which are more susceptible to sunburn. It not only provides shade but irrigates two vines at once, reducing water use. See also this video from CBS Bay Area.

In this short clip, Nataliya Shcherbatyuk, a postdoctoral researcher at WSU, shares the objectives of her part of the NGRA-initiated HiRes Vineyard Nutrition SCRI project. She is re-evaluating existing protocols for nutrition sampling; supporting the development of non-destructive tools to sense, monitor and evaluate vine nutrition; and determining the amount of nutrients lost at the end of the season. She says, “I believe the results of my project will really support the industry.” We agree!

Perennial, grafted plants like grapevines offer a powerful experimental system for studying how genetically distinct root systems influence the composition of shoot systems. In this “root to shoot” project, over multiple years and phenologocial stages, a team led by the Danforth Center’s Allison Miller analyzed more than 7,000 Chambourcin leaves on vines ungrafted and grafted to three rootstocks, finding that the rootstock and above-ground environment interact with year, phenological stage and leaf age to alter leaf composition.

August 18, 2022 | Plant Physiology

A team of scientists has identified “Elite” and “Super Elite” genetic trait combinations for drought tolerance in grapevine. They also simulated the drought-related performance of existing Vitis genotypes in global wine regions, predicting they’ll maintain productivity till 2050 in Spain; 2070 in France; and 2080 in CA (specifically, Paso Robles). Taken together, the research points to the need for “speed-breeding” to develop new cultivars in preparation for climate change.

At a recent UCCE-UC Davis webinar called “The Art and Science of Vineyard Grazing,” Ph.D. candidate and agroecology researcher Kelsey Brewer shared results of a 10-year study of four different North Coast (CA) vineyard sites. He found that, under sheep grazing, total soil organic carbon and C flux increased; microbial biomass, nitrogen and phosphorous were higher in grazed plots; and vineyard soil structure was not impacted.

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