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22 WINES&VINES December 2015 WINE INDUSTRY NEWS CALIFORNIA New director of vineyards Star Lane Vineyard and Dierberg Vine- yard in Santa Barbara hired Josh Rubin as the new director of vineyards for the winery and vineyards owned by the Dier- berg family. Rubin holds a master's de- gree in viticulture and enology from the Uni- versity of California, Davis, and previously worked at Luis Vuit- ton Moet Hennessey, E. & J. Gallo Winery and Joel Gott Wines. Cal Poly names department head Benoit Lecat is the new department head for California Polytechnic State University's Wine & Viticulture Depart- ment. Lecat previ- ously worked at the Burgundy School of Business in Dijon, France, and holds two master's degrees and a doctorate de- gree in management and marketing from the Louvain School of Management in Belgium. He is charged with helping to raise funds to pay for the department's planned Center for Wine & Viticulture. Niner goes all solar Niner Wine Estates in Paso Robles installed a new solar array that provides all of the power needed for its production winery, tasting room and restaurant. San Luis Obispo-based REC Solar installed the array, which consists of a bank of panels set in the ground and roof-mounted panels. The system is expected to produce more than 600,000 MWh per year. New president at Peju Abdulla Vural is the new president of Peju Province Winery in Rutherford. Vural has nearly 30 years of ex- perience in the luxury hospitality industry and is the first presi- dent of Peju since the winery was founded in 1983. Vural began his career in hospital- ity with Marriott Inter- national before joining The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., where he was promoted to re- gional vice president of operations, Amer- ica's vice president of operations and most recently general manager of The Ritz- Carlton, Bachelor Gulch, in Colorado. Promotions at Jackson Rick Tigner has been promoted from presi- dent to chief execu- tive officer of Jackson Family Wines, and Hugh Reimers was promoted to the post of president. Tigner has been with Jack- son Family Wines for 25 years and had been president since 2010. Reimers joined the company in 2009 and most recently served as chief oper- ating officer. Clos du Bois hires director of winemaking Melissa Stackhouse is the new director of winemaking at Clos du Bois winery in Geyserville. Stack- house is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, De- partment of Viticulture & Enology and previ- ously worked at La Crema, J Vineyards & Winery and Jack- son Family Wines. NORTHWEST Hedges hires asst. winemaker Matt Rule is the new assistant winemaker at Hedges Family Estate winery in Ben- ton City, Wash. Prior Hedges, Rule was the winemaker for the commercial winery at California State Uni- versity, Fresno, and taught a wine produc- tion class. New winemaker at Doubleback Josh McDaniels has been promoted to winemaker at Double- back winery in Walla Regional News Benoit Lecat Melissa Stackhouse Let your wines speak directly to their target markets through premier packaging. Select from our premium bottles or custom design the ideal bottle, pewter label or other packaging solution to promote and sell your fagship wines. East Coast usa@estal.info 305 443-7451 West Coast info@globalpackage.net 707 224-5670 A Package Speaks a Thousand Words GP144368