I received the following request for help from Kay Bogart at UC Davis Outreach & Alumni Relations: 

Input from wine industry professionals is needed to help UC Davis Viticulture & Enology’s Dr Anita Oberholster, identify and address your concerns more effectively. Please complete the online survey, "Current Issues in Managing Cost and Quality in Wine Production". By assessing your needs, we are better able to target our programs to meet the issues of most importance to the wine and winegrape industry.

http://wineserver.ucdavis.edu/pdf/Survey2012.pdf

This is an Adobe Acrobat form, after entering your responses click the "Submit Form" button at the top to return it via email or save it to your computer to email or fax it later.

UC Treatment Guidelines for the 1st generation of 2012 European Grapevine Moth (EGVM) are now available on the UC Cooperative Extension, Napa County website.

Also, if you missed the Industry meetings in Napa County this week, Dr Monica Cooper's, viticulture farm advisor for the UC Cooperative Extension, presentation is available on the website.

“The world of wine has never lacked wine for supply—they’ve always lacked consumers.”

Jean-Charles Boisset, Boisset Family Estates, Wine Business Monthly, February 2012
 

ProWein attendance grew 5 percent in 2011 and is expected to grow even more in 2012. ProWein 2012 will feature more exhibitors and new country participations with strong presence not only from the classic wine-growing nations in Europe and overseas, but also again from such "exotic" countries as Brazil, India, Japan and China. New this year: in the wine segment a producer from Kosovo and in the spirits segment a supplier from Sri Lanka introducing traditional arrack.

Over 3,800 exhibitors from some 50 countries will present first class wines and spirits to an expected 40,000 trade visitors from throughout the world March 4 - 6, 2012 at the fairgrounds in Düsseldorf, Germany.

For the first time, attendees at ProWein 2012, International Trade Fair for Wines and Spirits, can prepare for their visit with an App.

The ProWein App is available free of charge at the Apple AppStore and the Android Market, both in German and English. The App includes a daily updated exhibitor database with a variety of search criteria such as company name, product category and country, allowing users to create their personal list. The location of the selected exhibitors is displayed on the interactive site map. The search results also include the exhibitors' complete contact details and booth numbers. iPhone and Smartphone users can also use the ProWein App to access the extensive event program and to get the latest trade fair and exhibitor news sent directly to their phone.

For those without an iPhone or Smartphone, www.prowein.com also provides helpful tips and useful tools for a visit of ProWein 2012. In addition to the daily updated exhibitor database, exhibitors' news and ancillary program schedule, the online ticket shop is of particular relevance to visitors. eTickets ordered online can be printed at home and will be converted into badges at the turnstiles on show site. In addition, tickets are sold online at a discounted rate (Euro 30 for a 1-day ticket compared to Euro 39 onsite).

For further information on visiting or exhibiting at ProWein 2012, contact Messe Düsseldorf North America, 150 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 2920, Chicago, IL 60601. Telephone: (312) 781-5180; Fax: (312) 781-5188; E-mail: info@mdna.com

I'm heading to Portland this weekend for the Oregon Wine Symposium.  I've been watching the video below over and over to get ready for my trip.

The Symposium starts Tuesday at the Portland Convention Center.  If you're attending the Symposium please stop by the Wine Business Monthly booth and say hi.

Via Ciatti Company Global News

The weather in January proved to be very challenging for growers, as numerous summer storms brought rain and hail to the San Juan and Mendoza regions. Growers and wineries are now nervous, and estimates vary as to the damage done. This translates into growers not wanting to quote pricing, or give any volume indications for the coming harvest. Many growers intend to hold this position until the end of February, or early March, when the harvest begins.

The governing bodies of Mendoza & San Juan have not yet decided what percentage of grapes will be obliged to go to concentrate production, and the INV still has yet to announce its revised forecast for the end of February. It is already clear that most of the Criolla grapes will now go to concentrated juice production due to the combination of low prices for cheap generic white wines, and strong demand for concentrate exports to USA, Japan, South Africa, and Canada.

Read more, Ciatti Company
 

Mashable suggested earlier this week that QR codes are out and mobile visual search (MVS) is in.

With MVS, you simply point at a product or logo and shoot a picture with your smartphone’s built-in camera. Within seconds, the MVS application will provide product or company information, or even the option to make a purchase right then and there on your mobile device.

MVS apps like Google Goggles caution that the emerging technology is just that - emerging - and that it works best for books, landmarks and wine.

The opportunities are boundless with MVS. Unlike two-dimensional barcodes and QR codes, MVS will have wrap-around and three-dimensional recognition capabilities.

We quickly trolled around the Wine Business Monthly office snapping images of unknown wines, big brand names, business cards, even our own magazine. The application recognized just about every item.

With a bit more legwork on our part, we're able to offer you the following SEO tips and tricks for optimizing your wine or winery prescience on Goggle Goggles:

#1 SEO tip for Google Goggles:
Start implimenting optimized images on your website that feature either the solution you’re providing or the problem it is fixing. If you sell wine for example, you would probably have an image of each type of wine on your site already… but do you have close up shots of the label, the stamp on the cork or the bottle seal that goes over the cork?
#2 SEO Tip for Google Googles:
Create geographical cues on your site in places like the about us page. If you were a coffee shop next to Trafalgar Square, then place a photo of the location on your site that states you are just 100 feet away. Then if someone uses Google Goggles while they are standing beside Trafalgar Square, you could show up in the results and have them visit your store for a cup of java or mug of early grey.
#3 SEO Tip for Google Goggles:
Get your list of related keywords and search terms together, compile multiple photos for each of those, assign keyword rich filenames to the images, upload to your site and place the keyword in both the alt tag and text immediately below the image on a webpage. Google has already admitted that they will interrogate their image database, so if you rank well in Google images already then you will have some type of image rank juice transferred through to Google Goggles.

Tips courtesy http://www.enicholas.com
 

Women for WineSense (Napa-Sonoma chapter) will host its first ever event focused solely on its members at Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards Thursday, March 1, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The event will highlight member events for the remainder of the year (most of which are open to the public); new programs in development by the board of directors; and, of course, the Gloria Ferrer winemaking staff offering a history and education on their wines.

Both WWS members and non-members are encouraged to attend the event. Non-members one-time only same-as-member’s-price is $15. Space is limited. Register by 9 p.m. on February 27 at www.womenforwinesense.org.

“When I joined the industry 21 years ago, California wine had an 80 percent share of the domestic market. This year, we as an industry will sell every available grape and barely supply 60 percent of the consumer demand in America. The bottom-line is that California grape production has not kept pace with the market and if these trends are not reversed, California is likely to be supplying less than half of the domestic demand by 2020.”

David Kent, chief executive of The Wine Group, Wine Business Monthly, February 2012
 

BPM has continued to release valuable data related to overall health, confidence level and future projections for the industry.

In a recent survey, nearly half of the BPM survey respondents anticipate price increases over the next three years as the main driver to the increase in gross margin.

As consumption and demand grow, it will be interesting to see what the tipping point will be for consumers related to wineries increasing their sales price.