Getting Ready for the Wine Conference

Getting Ready for the Wine Conference. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

There are a lot of meetings at this time of year and one of them is all about grapes and one of my favorite subjects, wine according to Vicky Scharlau, Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers

SCHARLAU: The theme for the 2010 annual meeting is “Assessing Your Portfolio.” So really what the education committee is intending to to talk about the state of the grape is you will. So we’re really looking into where the economy is now but how that impacts what’s going on in grape growing.

The annual meeting and trade show is once again at the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick and Scharlau says is really a good place for all industry people to connect.

SCHARLAU: Well I think the beneficiaries of anyone who attends is the brand new, I just bought wine grape acreage, I’m putting wine grapes in the ground, all the way to those that have been in the industry for 25, 30, 35 years both on the growing and the winery side.

The meeting runs this week Wednesday, Thursday and Friday but there are some early sessions tomorrow as well.

SCHARLAU: You know this meeting even 15 year ago probably could have fit in two rooms and last year we had over 1300 people so very quickly it got to be the size where you couldn’t all just meet and everybody got to talk to everybody else and talk about the issues of this particular harvest or this particular crush.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.