Unified Wine & Grape Symposium

Industry Leaders Hammer Out Framework for 2016 Unified Wine & Grape Symposium Program

SACRAMENTO, Calif, June 29, 2015… Water, the economy, new technology, emerging trends – those are just some of the pressing topics on the minds of industry professionals, so it should come as no surprise that they are also slated to be on the program of the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium next January 26 through 28, 2016. Over two dozen industry leaders volunteered to be on the Unified’s 2016 Program Development Committee and met in a pair of full-day meetings to identify the most compelling topics and speakers to address the needs of the American wine industry.

“The goal of the Program Development Committee is to ensure the Unified program delivers valuable, current and bankable information to our industry that can be directly translated to businesses,” explains Tom Collins, chair of the 2016 Unified Wine & Grape Symposium Program Development Committee.

The committee’s initial work sets the program framework in place, and over the summer refinement and recruitment of speakers and moderators will take place. Some program aspects include:

• Tuesday, January 26, will feature the Unified’s keynote speaker luncheon. The last two years have seen sellout crowds attending with speakers addressing key issues facing the wine and grape industries.
• Wednesday, January 27, the ever-popular “State of the Industry” general session will look at U.S. production and sales trends.  With standing-room only crowds in the past, this session provides an overall economic perspective of the wine industry and economy, vineyard acreage/crush numbers and a broker overview on the bulk wine markets, wine inventories and international bulk wine supplies. 
• Thursday, January 28, will focus on the “Industry of Tomorrow,” taking a look at what the wine package, content and the industry as a whole may look like in 2026. 

All three days will include afternoon breakout sessions covering the areas of winemaking, grapegrowing, marketing and public relations, along with business and operations.

“We plan on building on our successes from last year, especially on Thursday when we’ll look at the future of the industry, which should be very interesting,” said Collins. “A big change will come on Thursday when we add back sessions for winemaking and grapegrowing, which were substituted with the Exhibit Hall Tours for the past two years. So we’ll have both the tours as well as the sessions that day in 2016,” said Collins.

Built with the joint input of growers, vintners and allied industry members, the Unified Symposium serves as a clearinghouse of information important to wine and grape industry professionals. The Unified Symposium also hosts the industry’s largest trade show of its kind, with over 650 suppliers displaying their products and services. For additional information, please call (530) 753-1342 or visit www.unifiedsymposium.org.