Learn innovative methods for managing bird and vertebrate pests in vineyards. Bart Haycraft (Jackson Family Wines) and falconer Pogerof Scott discuss using falconry to deter birds. Chad Foster (Maverick Farming) shares his use of an autonomous bird laser deterrent. Kevin Garcia Lopez and Sarah Lord (Cal Poly) will present their barn owl research, focusing on nest box occupancy and how changes in vineyard habitat affect foraging behavior. The event will feature a live falconry demonstration and give attendees the opportunity to view a bird laser, including the autonomous bird laser deterrent system. Speakers: Bart Haycraft, Jackson Family Wines Pogerof Scott, Falconer Chad Foster, Maverick Farming  Joseph Traut, Cypress Agritech Graham Evans, Cypress Agritech Riley Boylan, Cypress Agritech Kevin Garcia Lopez, Cal Poly Sarah Lord, Cal Poly CE Approved: DPR 2 - O; CCA 2 - IPM

You can glean a lot of information about a wine from the label. The next time you walk down a wine aisle, you may notice that you feel comfortable with the common terms and symbols like vintage, place of origin, and percent alcohol, but feel some confusion when you see some of the increasingly present ones like natural, vegan, and organic. In this week’s Marketing Tip, we’re giving you a green wine glossary: 5 common wine designations defined so you’ll wonder no longer.   Your Green Wine Glossary Vegan  Not every wine fits a vegan lifestyle. During the winemaking process, small particles can cause haziness or unwanted flavor properties. Winemakers can add a fining agent that will bind to these tiny particles and make them large enough to be filtered out. Many fining agents are animal-based – for example: egg whites, casein, and gelatin. Wine that was fined with any of these materials cannot be considered vegan. Vegan wines include those that

Celebrating 15 Years of SIP Certified Over 47k acres of certified vineyards, 5 wineries, and 60.3m bottles Nearly 30 years ago, a small group of like-minded grape growers started a nonprofit to guide and educate the industry toward sustainability. Today, one of the groups’ award-winning programs, SIP Certified, is recognized as the gold standard program for sustainable winegrowing.  In 1996, this group, known as Vineyard Team, wrote the first self-assessment for sustainable vineyard farming: The Positive Points System (PPS). By completing the PPS year after year, growers would evaluate and improve their sustainable practices on every level, from habitat protection to water conservation, soil health to human resources. Consumer demand to understand how their wine was made compelled the group to transform the self-assessment tool into an official certification program. Their goal was to develop a rigorous, third-party verified program so vineyard stewards could be confident t