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November 2018 WINES&VINES 21 WINE INDUSTRY NEWS CALIFORNIA Rootstock expert Jim Wolpert dies James A. Wolpert died Oct. 14 at his home. He was 67. Wolpert was a former chair of the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California, Davis and a longtime extension specialist in viticulture who "spent a good part of his career conveying mission-critical information to the grape and wine industry," recalled the department's current chair David Block in a state- ment released by the school. "As a researcher, Jim focused on root- stock evaluation, as well as scion clonal trials, including the important Heritage Zinfandel clones that he planted at Oakville," Block said. "For us here in the department, however, Jim will be most remembered for getting us to where we are today as a department, both figuratively and quite literally, as he was instrumen- tal, as chair, in creating the vision for the Robert Mondavi Institute." Lake County names executive director The Lake County Winery Associa- tion appointed Helena Welsh as the group's new executive director. Welsh will be responsible for overseeing the association's activities, increasing membership and promoting tourism. Prior to taking the position with the winery association, Welsh served as a board member for the Valley Fire Rebuild Expo and board treasurer for the Summit Recreation and Social Club. After graduating from California State University, Sacramento with a degree in business administration Welsh moved to Lake County and is raising her family in Cobb. New winemaker at CK Mondavi C. Mondavi & Family hired Randy Herron as the head winemaker for its CK Mondavi & Family wine brand. Herron comes to the company with 22 years of winemaking experience and his most recent position was at Bryan, Texas-based Messina Hof Winery, where he served as senior winemaker and operations manager for more than six years. Prior to that, Herron spent seven years at Casella Family Brands in Australia. J. Lohr promotes Steve Peck J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines pro- moted Steve Peck, who's been with the company since 2007, from red wine winemaker to director of winemaking. In his new role, Peck will be responsible for leading the family-owned-and-operated win- ery's winemaking program at its Paso Robles and Monterey County wineries. Peck is taking over the position from Jeff Meier, who has been with J. Lohr since 1984 and has been COO, president and di- rector of winemaking since 2013. With Peck's promotion, Meier will focus exclusively on his role as president and COO, according to a statement from the winery. ZD Wines promotes winemaking team ZD Wines promoted winemaker Chris Pisani to senior winemaker and associate winemaker Brandon deLeuze to winemaker. Pisani has been a winemaker at ZD since 1996 and in his new role he is responsible for leading the pro- duction of ZD's wines. DeLeuze started working full-time for ZD in 2006 and received his MBA from Sonoma State University in 2015. Regional News Steve Peck