1/8/09 Wine Meeting

Wine Meeting. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Each year at about this time the Washington wine grape growers are taking stock of the recent harvest and planning their strategies for the 2009 growing season. It is a good time to get some good, fresh ideas. SCHARLAU: The annual convention for the Washington Wine Grape Growers will be held Feb. 4, 5 & 6 again in Kennewick at the Three Rivers Convention Center and the Toyota Center. This years theme is "Quality from Vine to Vintage" and we rally just have 2 ½ days of solid, packed educational opportunities for wine growers across actually the whole northwest. That's Vicky Scharlau with the Wine Grape Growers Association and according to Scharlau the schedule is so full of great presentations; they had to make a major change. SCHARLAU: This year's programs were so spectacular that we actually dropped our general session. Because we just had too many unique topic areas that we just didn't have time in the day to do that so we focused on specific topics of interest to the industry and just dropped the concept of having a big picture, long term, visionary general session. Again this would be a great time to get some new information that you will find useful as you get into the next growing season which will be here before you know it. SCHARLAU: They can go to wawgg.org. We also have sessions this year, two sessions that will be in Spanish. Sort of an intro level as well as a management level class so we're hoping that both of those again fill up and sell out. We also focus on leaf roll management and even a session on grape based distilling. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.