Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/619725
January 2016 WINES&VINES 51 2016 UNIFIED SYMPOSIUM manny@boutes.com Kathleen Inman of Inman Family Wines and Brooks Painter of Castello di Amorosa. The second winemaking session, "Bottling Preparation: Best Practices," features a very specialized group of presenters. Shakib Ali, bottling manager at 100,000-case LangeTwins Winery & Vineyards, will share his secrets for keeping things running smoothly at his facility, which offers custom-crush services for clients. Another panelist, Zoran Ljepovic, is the direc- tor of quality assurance for 14.6 million-case wine producer Constellation Brands. His duties include managing the bottling facilities at 685,000-case Robert Mondavi Winery and 3.4 million-case Clos du Bois. Panelists will discuss tips for filling kegs as well as employing mobile bottling services. For business operations and vineyard work- ers, a session about the labor pool promises to cover not only the challenge of employing sea- sonal labor around harvest but also how to attract and retain well-qualified candidates for full-time positions. According to Collins, the speakers include a winery owner, human re- sources professional and staffing provider to discuss recruiting for different areas of the wine business. Gilian Handelman, director of education and communications at Jackson Family Wines, will lead a panel about how wineries are re- sponding to changes in consumer preferences and consumption trends. Day three The final day of Unified starts with a general session titled "The Industry of Tomorrow." Pan- elists include representatives from the fields of finance, market research, academia and tech- nology. Lulie Halstead, CEO of Wine Intelli- gence, studies the effects of trends and marketing on wine sales. She and the rest of the panel will offer predictions for the future of the wine industry and how it will translate into wine sales. Collins said the diverse group of speakers could "help us understand where the industry might be over the next five to 10 years." Back-to-back sessions about grapegrowing and bottling will be conducted in Spanish, with researchers discussing ways to efficiently uti- lize resources. Winery personnel will speak about bottling processes including blending and filtering as well as the benefits of different closures and how they affect finished wines. Educational afternoon sessions are return- ing on the third day of the 2016 conference, with two sessions about water management. A grapegrowing session will cover ways to achieve viticulture goals through irrigation, and a joint winemaking and business session will reveal how various agriculture-based companies are dealing with climate change and water regula- tions. Cheri Chastain, sustainability manager for Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., will discuss her company's storm water-recovery systems and wastewater-treatment facilities. For marketing specialists, a diverse group of winery professionals will discuss the bur- geoning field of agri-tourism. Speakers from California, Indiana and New York will share their real-life stories of building direct-to-con- sumer business through tourism. Finally, guided tours of the trade show floor will be offered in English and Spanish, with themes reflecting sessions from the sympo- sium. Winemaker Chik Brenneman from the University of California, Davis, will lead a tour of exhibits related to bottling. Brad Peterson, vineyard manager for Silver Oak Cellars and Twomey Cellars will guide tours for grape- growers with an emphasis on water monitoring and management. A maximum of 25 attendees can participate in each tour, with only one person per company admitted. Registration will open 30 minutes prior to tour start times. For more information, or to register for the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, visit uni- fiedsymposium.org. —Kate Lavin