Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24
Outputs Target Audience:The target audience of our project includes: Multi-state institutions with faculty, researchers, staff and extension specialists of the grape and wine field from breeding programs to viticulture, enology and wine marketing, consumer behavior and wine business. In this project a team of 15 faculty and staff and extension specialists worked together from Iowa State University, Penn State University, Texas A&M, Oregon State University, North Dakota State University, Cornell University, Michigan State University and University of Minnesota to develop and reach to the target audience. During our focus group meetings organized in 4 US regions, we reached out to faculty, staffs, and extension specialists of other universities including UC Davis, Washington State University, Colorado State University, Oklahoma State University, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Georgia State University, University of Arkansas, Virginia Tech, and Ohio State University. This audience was participating in focus group discussions and provided their insights about the challenges that they hear from the grape and wine industry members with who they work. In addition to the focus group meetings, this target audience was also involved in the strategic planning meeting organized and delivered on July 8th in Cleveland Ohio prior to the American Society for Enology and Viticulture Eastern Section conference. Other faculty, researchers and extension specialists were participating in this conference and who learned about the project and the preliminary results of the project Industry association representatives were involved in the project as they received emails to share the questionnaire with the grape and wine industry members of their state and participated in the focus group meetings organized in 4 US regions. The Washington State Wine Commission, the Oregon Wine Board, the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, the Minnesota Grape Growers Association, and the Iowa Wine Growers Association presidents participated in the discussion of the focus group meeting and shared the challenges of their state industry. Industry stakeholders: Grape growers, vineyard managers, winery owners, winemakers, tasting room managers were all involved in the project through the completion of the questionnaire and their participation in the focus group meetings. We reached out to 1,145 industry stakeholders, which was the number of surveys started, from 40 states. These surveys were completed by 14% of vineyard owner, 12% of wine grape grower and 12% of winemaker, 9% of winery owner, and 2% or less of wine retailer, vineyard management company, vineyard manager, viticulturist, hobby grape grower/winemaker, business/general manager, cellar assistant /assistant winemaker, consultant /crop advisor and enologist. This target audience was also reached out through the participation of a webinar organized by WineAmerica to their members who were the National Grape Research Alliance, Wine Business Monthly, Associations representatives and industry members (25 participants), and through the presentation of this project at a workshop organized by PennState University (estimated 15-20 live participants; over 20 pre-registrants), the master sommelier festival organized in Missouri (40 participants). Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Graduate students from Iowa State University, Texas A & M, Cornell University, Penn State University, and Oregon State University have been involved in the organization of the focus group meetings and have develop skills in taking notes for a full day of discussion about the grape and wine industry in their region, and learn about the organization of a focus group meeting. This was a professional activity resulting in increased knowledge and skills in extension and outreach. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?As explained under the Outputs section, the results have been disseminated to the target audience through: Workshops: A presentation of the data obtained in this project was provided during a field day offered by Penn State Extension on August 14,2024. The data presented included national data and northeast region data obtained from the questionnaire and the focus group meeting discussions, and specifically focused on Pennsylvania data. A presentation of the project and data obtained from the questionnaire and the focus group meetings and the strategic planning meeting was offered during the Master sommelier festival in Missouri on August 18,2024. Webinars: We were invited on June 25,2024 by Wine America and the New York Grape and Wine Foundation to present our project including the goal of the project, and its organization, to members of Wine America. This webinar was 30-min long to present our project. Strategic planning meeting: We presented the project with outputs of the project during our strategic planning meeting on July 8in Cleveland, OH a day prior to the American Society for Enology and Viticulture - Eastern Section and discussed with participants of the conferences about this project. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We have been granted a no-cost extension to fulfill our fourth step of the project focusing on the dissemination of outcomes and development of planning for Research and Extension and Outreach programs. During the next reporting period, we will summarize findings and coordinate extension products (written, in person and virtual presentations) that will reach stakeholders. We will develop extension publications, hold webinars, and give presentations at workshops/conferences to disseminate the findings of the project to industry stakeholders. We expect to publish a newsletter article in the Oregon State University newsletter in September 2024, as well as in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences newsletter at Iowa State University in September 2024, and in Cornell University newsletter. Other newsletter and extension articles might be developed as well in other regions to disseminate to all our target audience (grape and wine industry members across the US) through various extension outlets. We will submit a peer-reviewed manuscript to the American Journal for Enology and Viticulture by the end of the newly extended performance period. We are planning to present the project, its organization and the results obtained to industry stakeholders during a webinar organized by the American Society for Enology and Viticulture (ASEV) and the Eastern Viticulture and Enology Forum webinar during Fall 2024/Spring 2025. We will present project results at winter conferences and meetings, such as the Eastern Winery Exposition and other meetings at which project leaders are speaking. We are working on developing a pre-proposal to submit to USDA NIFA for a project focusing on the findings obtained. We recently had a team meeting to determine likely directions and focus for this pre-proposal.
Impacts What was accomplished under these goals?
1. The lack of knowledge and coordination between emerging wine regions can be optimized to improve the resiliency of the US grape and wine industry. To this end, we have assembled a transdisciplinary team of researchers and extension specialists with experience in a broad range of disciplines (e.g., breeding and genetics, viticulture, enology, and social science/marketing) to identify the primary challenges faced by grape growers and winemakers when working in newer growing regions with emerging, climate-appropriate wine grape cultivars. By facilitating communication among wine grape industry stakeholders who are growing, producing and selling wines to consumers, we will better support this industry. These findings will serve to 1) Improve the production resiliency of regional grapes, 2) Improve winemaking techniques for high wine quality potential and consumer preference, and 3) Develop marketing/communication strategies. 2. Grape growers, winemakers and consumers need knowledge and communication channels to advance the production of this specialty crop in the US under a changing environment. In addition to this target audience, we plan to work with viticulturists, enologists, business and marketing and Extension specialists to better understand the challenges of the industry and provide better knowledge and tools to the industry members. 3. The main goal of this planning project is to gather and evaluate data about common and unique challenges of grape and wine industry across climatic regions in the US, as well as develop a strategic plan with research and extension and outreach priorities. a. To gather data, we developed a questionnaire including 34 questions to be distributed to the grape and wine industry members. This questionnaire was prepared, approved by IRB at Iowa State University (IRB ID 23-284), reviewed for validity by five experts in the field, prior to be disseminated through emails, newsletter articles, presentations at annual meetings and social media posts. The primary goal of this survey was to engage industry stakeholders to identify the primary concerns and issues impacting the grape and wine industry. We were particularly seeking feedback about three areas within the industry: (1) viticulture, (2) enology, and (3) winery business management. The questions were split into four sections: Demographics, Viticulture, Enology and Business marketing. In those three letter sections, we asked participants to rate, and rank the top challenges, and to then to describe how they have dealt with these challenges. Then the participants were being ask to do the same regarding resources needed to better address these concerns in the next 5-10 years. The questionnaire was distributed to industry stakeholders from January 9toMarch 29,2024. On February 7,the question about location has been forced as some of the initial surveys did not mention their location and could not be used included in a specific region. The collected data were analyzed and combined into an excel spreadsheet. Data were analyzed as a whole, with incomplete surveys not being considered in the final data analysis. A total of 1,145 surveys were obtained with 792 participants who fully completed the survey. At the national level, the top 3 viticulture challenges were disease management, pest management followed by environment and climate (including flood, fire, spring frosts, winter cold injury, herbicide drift, heatwave and drought). The top 3 challenges of enology encountered by the participants at the national level were the management of the production costs, of microbial spoilage and of wine acidity. The top 3 challenges of business and marketing were about the distribution of wine through channels other than winery/tasting rooms, learning about profiles of winery visitors and the evolving consumer preferences for alcoholic beverages. Resources that are needed from the participants to address those challenges include applied research, extension programs and labor in all four regions. b. Monthly meetings have been carried out with the team members of the project to work on those data analysis as well as for planning focus group meetings. Four focus groups were organized for each region and met during May to June 2024 both in person and on Zoom. The focus group meetings followed the same agenda for a full day discussion starting by a presentation of the project and the questionnaire data, a brief presentation of the states involved, and followed by discussion and questions for each individual competencies (viticulture, enology and business/marketing). - West region: organized by Oregon State University on 1 May 2024. - Northeast region: organized byPenn State University on 15 May 2024. - Midwest region: organized byIowa State University on 28 May 2024. - South region: organized by Texas A&M on 10 June 2024. Notes of the discussion were taken during each focus group meetings and were reviewed to identify the themes that are researchable, the themes that are education-based and the themes that are out of control from academia. Below is a general listing of some of the themes that were discovered at the focus group meetings; note - these were not analyzed and are therefore not necessarily the "primary/most important" themes, nor is this list exhaustive. The researchable themes for viticulture and enology are Climate change impacts on future grape production, Sustainability, Better job integrating research and Extension. The education-based themes are Viticulture and enology best practices, Focus content and reach, and how to reach industry stakeholders. The themes that are out of control from academia are Labor, and Market. The researchable themes in business and marketing are Wine economics, Wine business analysis, Research approach. The education-based themes and that are out of control from academia are Distribution channels and market research c. The third goal of our project was to develop a strategic plan to identify priorities for viticulture, enology and business based on the national survey and focus groups feedback, identify common concerns and those that are unique, focusing on what we can do nationally, and develop a strategic plan for research and extension and outreach programs in the four regions, to improve the productivity and wine quality potential of the grape and wine industry overall. We organized a strategic planning meeting on July 8,2024 in Cleveland, OH. This was a full day meeting offered one day before the American Society of Enology and Viticulture - Eastern Section conference. The audience of this meeting was mainly team members of the project and we contacted the ASEV-ES members to join if they were interested to learn about the challenges of the grape and wine industry as well as if they were willing to discuss and share their experiences. The meeting involved 24 persons. During this meeting, many topics were discussed including the need for extension programs that should be related to the research programs, sustainability, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the grape and wine industry, the challenges of acidity management and quality of wines. A follow up meeting was carried out with team members of the project about one month after the strategic planning meeting to gather all these ideas and come up with a refine and strategic plan. The goal of this is to start working on a pre-proposal for a USDA project. During this year of the project, we developed the questionnaire that was distributed to our target audience. We gathered all quantitative data and qualitative data from this questionnaire and also developed focus group meetings and gathered more qualitative data. After the final meeting of this project, we accomplished our goal of identifying the common and unique challenges of the grape and wine industry across different climatic regions.
Publications
|