Frei: Shaping the way forward for the Washington wine business

As we sit up for the WineVit 2024 Conference and Commerce Present, there are great alternatives for continued collaboration, advocacy, training and programming, outreach and assist throughout the wine business. 

Washington Winegrowers Affiliation envisions a thriving business for Washington wines and vineyards, supported by distinctive training and modern analysis. We accomplish this imaginative and prescient by working collectively in a considerate, strategic strategy to deal with the wants of our business. From staging winery layouts and utilizing clean-certified plant materials, by way of rising, harvest and the artwork of winemaking, all the best way to shopper delight, we stay conscious of the business’s legacy in shaping its future. 

Because the Washington wine business navigates this dynamic panorama, the problems at hand proceed to impress innovation and collaboration, not solely inside the wine business but additionally reaching throughout to different agricultural companions, state and federal policymakers and regulatory businesses, analysis and academic supporters, business coalitions and allied enterprise teams.

In reference to the Washington wine business roundtable hosted by the Washington Winegrowers Affiliation in December, the main points going through us additionally current alternatives for the way forward for the wine business:

—Environmental (smoke publicity, clear crops, water administration).

—Enterprise operations (ag labor, mechanization, regulatory impacts).

—Gross sales and advertising and marketing, shopper expertise (product provide and demand, interstate and international export obstacles, neo-prohibitionism, combating inaccurate messaging, product pricing). 

—Sustainability. 

Whereas these points adapt to our continually fluctuating local weather and circumstances, the wine business has confronted many of those issues for the reason that first wine grape was planted centuries in the past. With every of those challenges earlier than us, the business makes selections on what the end result will likely be. The business can select to be proactive and be part of the decision, focusing efforts on engagement, planning and motion, or the end result and affect on the business will likely be decided for us once we fail to take part. 

Whereas environmental disasters are tough to proactively tackle, we are able to assist analysis to grasp the impacts, search details about future tendencies and preemptively search choices for the way to reply to projected outcomes. The West Coast Smoke Publicity Job Pressure is an instance of a cooperative group involving Washington, California and Oregon wine business commerce associations, state academic establishments and governmental businesses, together with U.S. Division of Agriculture coordination, with the main focus of smoke-impact analysis and problem-solving strategies for the wine business. Equally, the collaborative Northwest Basis Block Advisory Group serves as a useful resource for analysis, improvement and entry to examined, virus-free, clean-certified plant supplies.

Alongside engagement with business companions, Washington Winegrowers Affiliation continues to advocate with state and federal policymakers and regulatory businesses to deal with and promote key business points. As we advance business points, we champion the pursuits and desires of our membership. Certainly, we’re becoming a member of the business on the WineVit 2024 Conference and Commerce Present immediately after our legislative efforts in Olympia on this brief 2024 legislative session. Our advocacy and promotion of the Washington wine business is ever current. 

Washington agriculture supplies distinctive high quality of merchandise, establishes meals safety, sustains and enriches our surroundings, employs our communities and attracts vacationers to rural areas. The Washington wine business’s give attention to sustainability not solely reinforces the unimaginable advantages of this agricultural product, nevertheless it additionally demonstrates the dedication to enhancing and defending our panorama. 

Right here in Washington, now we have the head of sustainable and renewable sources: superb soil profiles and rising areas to create 20 distinctive American Viticultural Areas; helpful irrigation water administration techniques; alternatives for strategic planning and administration of vineyards and wine grape varietals; worker and group stewardship; wineries and tasting rooms in places that showcase the splendor of Washington state; and premier winemakers creating stunning wines. 

The Sustainable WA winegrape normal is the primary statewide sustainability certification program, constructed on a rigorous, science-based program with steady enchancment in thoughts. To be licensed as Sustainable WA and use the trademarked model is to proudly exhibit an operation that’s environmentally sound, socially equitable and economically viable. 

These focus areas for the Washington wine business additionally contact upon associated themes for tree fruit and different Washington agriculture. Working collectively, we function a unifying voice to advertise Washington agriculture and facilitate deliberate decision of our shared challenges and points. We are able to have interaction within the analysis wanted to grasp the problems and inform future prospects, present training and consciousness on the problems and act in assist of the problems inside our sphere of affect and management. In the end, we are able to form the way forward for our personal design. 

Cheers to a thriving 2024 season for Washington agriculture and the Washington wine business! 

—by Colleen Frei

Colleen Frei turned the manager director of the Washington Winegrowers Affiliation in January. She may be reached at: colleen@wawinegrowers.org.