All posts by Administrative ID

I’m delighted to share with you the aggregated information from our recent member survey. As a reminder, the incoming Board put out a survey to current membership to invite comments on how to best serve the needs of the membership.

Attached is an at-a-glance overview of the Association, and here’s the link to the breakdown of the results received from participants.

The highlights:

This feedback will be used to shape educational and social events over the coming year, as well as making it easier to match needs with expertise.

Keep letting us know of your successes and other updates that you’d like to share with the broader community.

Amy Schofield, Board Member

COVID-19 pandemic is pushing healthcare systems to the breaking point-leaving our frontline medical providers overwhelmed and exhausted. Many people are desperately looking for a way to help, in addition to sheltering-in-place, in this unprecedented time of suffering. There is a way, with Volunteer Surge, for Rotarians and community members in general to make a difference in the ultimate outcome of this pandemic!  Volunteer Surge was established less than three weeks ago by the Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary Club and District 5160, with partners including the Yale School of Public Health, ADP WorkMarket, Salesforce, Amazon Web Services,  GoFundMe®, and The Global Impact Group, to provide free, online training of volunteer community health workers to perform the most basic caretaking tasks for vulnerable people so that professionals can focus on the most acute needs.  

Volunteer Surge’s goal is to train 1,000,000 volunteers as soon as possible. There are two options for the training. One is a 30 to 35 hour course that provides 75 percent of the requirements needed to become a certified nurse assistant. The other is a 8 to 10 hour course to train telehealth volunteers who will work from the comfort and safety of their homes to check on vulnerable people sheltered-in-place, and to refer them to professional healthcare providers, when necessary. The volunteers will be managed by the ADP WorkMarket freelance task system, and the Salesforce Health Cloud, to match them with the needs of local health authorities. 

Go to The Global Impact Group, a Rotary-related non-profit, which has all you need to know to register your interest in becoming a volunteer. For more information, go to www.theglobalimpactgroup.org. The following is a brief video narrated by the Dean of Yale University’s School of Public Health Dr. Vermund. https://vimeo.com/406420744. The second video speaks to the telesupport opportunities within Volunteer Surge. https://vimeo.com/406400491.

Please feel free to contact me at ChrisLD@EQ-Organization.com if interested. We look forward to working with you!

 Chris Laszcz-Davis, Past-President

Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary Club

925) 330-1774 Office, 

ChrisLD@EQ-Organization.com

It is my understanding that most of the wine supply stores in the Bay Area are closed.  

An exception is Oak Barrel Winecraft on San Pablo in Berkeley.  

If any of the LWGA is desperate for some supplies (I desperately needed corks) Oak Barrel is an option.  
You might want to pass this on to the LWGA membership.

—
Bonneau Dickson, P.E.
2428 McGee Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94703

Tel.  510 845 8625
Cell  510 910 3420
Fax. 510 845 4606

Dear fellow LWGA members.
I am sorry to have to announce that we will have to cancel our planned general meeting on March 29, 2020, special topic of Vineyard Mildew Control. this meeting was to have been  presented by Sam Ausburn, Vinicologist of Kosta Browne Winery of Sebastopol, CA. 
This cancellation is due to measures we are being asked to undertake in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic we are currently experiencing, as directed by the Gov. Newsom.  The health and well being of our members is most paramount and  we will do everything we can to avoid further spreading of this virus.  
In an effort to provide meaningful information to our membership despite the cancellation of what would have been a very informative session, I have a link to the UC Davis IPM Management guide which should be useful when thinking about Mildew Management.  We will attempt to reschedule this meeting at another time, where we could go much deeper into this topic. Please go to:  http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/r302100311.html#RAI
We will continue to make plans for the AVA Celebration event scheduled for May 31, 2020.  However, depending on the progress of the pandemic, this might also have to be rescheduled.  Please stand by while we work through these troubled times. 
We look forward to seeing everyone again soon! Stay healthy!!!
Sincerely,

Daniel Howsepian, President, LWGA

In case you missed it, your Board is planning activities for the upcoming year for the Lamorinda Wine Growers Association and wants to hear from you.

Please complete this short survey to make your voice heard. Feel free to forward this survey to grape growers in Lamorinda who may not be members.

LWGA Board

Hello fellow LWGA members.

There have been some very exciting activities in the LWGA of late.  Where to begin. 

First of all, the board of directors elections results are in and the following changes to the board have been made as follows:

Daniel Howsepian ;  President

As incoming President, I am honored and pleased to have been elected by the board to be the President of the LWGA!  My goals and priorities will be for the benefit and advancement of all the membership of the LWGA in the following ways:

– To promote and advocate  a higher level of education and knowledge of grape growing and to encourage natural and sustainable methods;

– To promote and encourage a higher level of wine making from those wonderful grapes that we are producing; and to provide a processing location for the LWGA grapes;

– To provide an ongoing educational program, to provide a readily searchable growing data base on our website, to allow any LWGA member to access if they have any questions;

– To provide a vibrant and interesting social events everyone can enjoy!

– To put the Lamorinda AVA on the map as a source of high quality grapes and wine, and interesting social activities;

– In doing all of the above, and more, I believe that our membership will increase over time, helping us generate a stable level of revenue and working capital, along with other fund raising activities and efforts, to provide for a positive and active agenda for all.

Big agenda, you might say, but with the excitement we are now experiencing with the upcoming Lafayette wine production facility and wine tasting facility in the works, we will certainly see this to fruition. To help us get there, the new board is as follows:

Dave Rey;  Vice President

Bill Scanlin;  Membership Webmaster & Lafayette Chamber Liaison & former President

Larry Thal;  Secretary

Leslie Ward;  Membership & Orinda Chamber Liaison

Gerard  Van  Steyn;   Meetings & Educational Director & Vineyard Consultant

Bill English:  Wine making education coordinator & Consultant

David Hicks;  Wine making, Wine Competitions & Vineyard Consultant

Amy Schofield ;   Marketing, Branding and Moraga Chamber Liaison

Tim Wedlake;  Treasurer

We would like to express our sincere appreciation of the outgoing board members,  Susan Captain &  Carol Haag for the many years of service to the LWGA Board and who have worked to bring us where we are today.  The Board Members wish to continue to build upon this great foundation laid by those before us, and to make the LWGA an organization which serves our members. 

Our most exciting news is that Larry Thal has been involved in a collaboration in the heart of downtown Lafayette,  steps away from the Wine Thieves,  to develop a wine production and tasting facility for the LWGA members which will also have the potential for  a catering kitchen and two housing units in the former Napa Auto parts building on Mt. Diablo Blvd.  This is a long awaited project which will help so many of our members to have a place to process grapes, produce and showcase their wines, and will put the LWGA AVA on the map!  Larry had his first Lafayette Planning Commission meeting recently and it appears to be on a smooth and  well received path to approval.

Our next LWGA meeting will be on March 29, 2020 and there will be a discussion on a subject we all  dread, mildew control.  Please check the website for details.  https://lamorindawinegrowers.com/

The other exciting thing to talk about is the upcoming General Meeting: 4th Annual Lamorinda American Viticultural Area Celebration and Members Choice Wine Rating.  We are looking at having  hosting the event this year in the parking lot of the Wine Thieves with Food Trucks, Music, and lots of wine to taste and enjoy!  This event will be an introduction to the future Wine Hub to be located, once built on the former Napa Auto Parts site, as an annual event!  We are really looking forward to all this becoming reality in the near future at the new facility in planning. 

So, save the date, May 31, 2020.  All this takes a lot of planning and organization.  We need help with this event from our membership.   Volunteers who would enjoy helping  in this AVA Celebration  to please contact us on our website forum or to any board member, and we’ll get in touch with you on the details.    Please get to us very soon to make this AVA event a success it deserves to be.

One more thing.  We need your input on a new survey.  Please take the time to go through this  short survey.  This is immensely helpful to us in determining what the board can do for you. Here is the link for the survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe888uotJqehhlhGcnXYBL3fQcZ1Cfammi0_wO97D-ZrslqXg/viewform?usp=sf_link

Thank you for your time!

Thank you for your attention!

Respectfully submitted:

Daniel Howsepian LWGA President

My name is Dave Rey and I am a candidate for the LWGA Board.  I have been a Lafayette resident for nearly 30 years and I have an acre of vines and a winery at my home in the Reliez Valley area.  I bottle my wines under the Reliez Valley Vineyards label.
My goal as a winegrower is to grow the best possible grapes from my vineyard location and make the best possible wine from the grapes I grow.  I am the first generation in my family to have pursued a non-agricultural career, so having grown up in that world I am very comfortable with the farming aspects of winegrowing.  I have an engineering education and I enjoy applying all the technology available to both viticulture and winemaking.

I was an early member of the group but my business travels left me little time to get involved until I retired.  I previously served on the Board from 2011 to 2016.  During that time I focused mainly on leading the committee that pursued and secured our AVA designation.

I am excited by the plans being made to further promote the Lamorinda AVA and I would like to serve another term on the Board so that I can help with those plans.

My name is Bill Scanlin and I have been on the LWGA board and run the website since 2008 and have been President in 2016, 2017 and 2019. I have been growing grapes and making wine since 1998 and started my commercial winery Deer Hill Vineyards in 2010.

I have been in technology my entire career and am currently Chief Technology Officer at a fintech startup.

I believe the organization needs to be an important resource for its members to help them grow better grapes and make better wine. We can also educate the Lamorinda community on what we are doing and help them setup their own vineyards and try some of the great wine made here. I think we have made great improvements in meeting these goals and would like to continue to move the organization forward.

Amy Schofield is a Communications, Brand, and Marketing Strategist who partners one-on-one with solopreneurs and associations to help grow their brands. With 20+ years working in diverse industries across the globe, her key to success is connecting with the people she serves to affect positive change.

Amy is the Founder of Mixify Beauty, an experiential lifestyle brand that has found its way to the Oscars and Emmys. She is also a sponsor and supporter of Girls Crushing It, a local not-for-profit empowering girls to flex their leadership muscles through entrepreneurship.

Amy holds an MBA specializing in Branding and Communications. She prefers red over white, full bodied over light, and milk over dark.

I’m Gerard van Steyn and I live in Lafayette with my wife Kathryn and our 3 children.  We have 600 vines (70% Cabernet and remainder Malbec, Petite Verdot, Merlot and Cab Franc).  We also have 60 fruit trees, 45 berry bushes, a large vegetable garden, honeybees, 6 chickens 1 dog and 2 cats.  We are farming everything ourselves and have progressed from being organic to now beyond organic which means that in addition to using no chemicals we are focused on maximum soil health and the soil microbiome, including composting. 

I have been on the Board for the last two years and have taken a lead role in changing from 4 meetings per year to 6 per year and in setting up educational content for our meetings. There are interesting and exciting plans being developed for further improving your Lamorinda Winegrowers Association, and our local wines and vineyards. I hope to continue to be a positive contributor to our members and to the Association.

For those of you interested in reviewing the deck presented by Dylan Rahn at the meeting last Sunday, here is a link to it:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12gtaYkoMu4kzCPdKL6y_OhbXruHv3M–h0ciVrzGiQI/edit?usp=sharing

Hello Fellow LWGA Members: 
On January 26, 2020 we had our regular meeting at the Bill & Alison Scanlin’s beautiful Deer Hill Vineyard in Lafayette. There were approx. 41 attendees, and everyone brought ample excellent  wine and appetizers for everyone to enjoy. 
Business items were discussed initially as follows: 
–  Board elections will be held very soon. Please be sure to vote!-  Two long standing board members are retiring; Susan Captain and Carol Haag.  We will miss them both and hope to tap into their collective memories for future advice; 

–  Larry Thal’s wine tasting and production facility was mentioned.  Exciting opportunity for grape growers to have a micro facility available to produce a collective Lamorinda blend and  wine tastings for the public in Lafayette!-  David Hicks announced the availability of himself, Daniel Howsepian, Bill English and Gerard Van Steyn for any grape growing or wine making advice or questions from our membership. There will also be workshops planned for the future wherein our members can participate in advanced learning sessions.  

Once the official business was completed, we were all treated to a wonderful discussion by Dylan Rahn and his dad, Brian Rahn of CVC and followed up with a real time demonstration of pruning on actual grape vines brought in.   Dylan conducted a very lively discussion and demonstration of cane and spur pruning, among other things which everyone thoroughly enjoyed.  
We are very fortunate to have these very educational, timely and interesting subject matters brought to us by knowledgeable speakers.  We plan to have many more to come.
We thank everyone who brought wonderful wine and appetizers  to share with the group!  
See you at the next meeting on March 29 where mildew control will be the topic of the day.  
Submitted by: Daniel Howsepian 

Dear Members,

We currently only have a small number of the members signed up for the Holiday Party on December 5th.  There are more non-members that have signed up but we are no where near the numbers we were expecting based on attendance last year.

This event is the only fundraiser we have each year.  If you came last year, you’ll hopefully remember what a great time we all had celebrating the holidays with our group and the community, tasting many great Lamorinda wines, eating delicious food and dancing to the wonderful music of Diamond Dave.

If you haven’t purchased tickets to the event, we would really appreciate you signing up. 

Also, if you would like your wine poured at the event please email info@lamorindawinegrowers.com and we’ll arrange to pick it up.

The link to purchase tickets is: 

https://lamorindawinegrowers.com/event-calendar/#!event/2019/12/5/lwga-holiday-party

You can use discount code: lwga to get $5 off per ticket for a net cost of $55.
Thank you for your support and we very much hope to see you at the holiday party.

Best Regards,

Bill Scanlin, President

Carol, Haag, Vice President

Leslie Ward, Past President