Unified Wine & GrapeGrowers Symposium Takes Over Downtown Sacramento

The streets flooded with winemakers, vintners, grape-growers, agricultural manufacturers and wine industry icons as over 12,200 people gathered for the Unified Wine & Grapegrowers Symposium Jan. 25 through 27. This annual event, always held at Sacramento's convention center had it all from tractors to tasting rooms. Sponsored by California Association of Wine Grape Growers this industry event, which is open to the public provides significant industry insight on what's currently happening in the wine industry.

From industry insights to new packaging techniques, it was a fount of information on who the wine market will be aiming at, where wine-drinking trends are going and what kinds of wines we'll be drinking in the next decade. The answers might surprise you!

Here are some industry highlights that the true wine geeks will love/hate:

• Immigration reform conclusions: Either we outsource our labor or we outsource our food production.
• A record-breaking 12,200 industry professionals were in attendance for the "State of the Industry," with some people even seated on the hotel floor.
• Crisis planning is imperative for successful futures: It's not if but when a crisis will happen.
• The "Millennial" market (ages 17 to 34) is the largest growing market in wine and will be increasingly catered to in wine preferences and marketing techniques.
• Muscato wine has seen a 109 percent increase in growth, so prepare to see a lot more sweet, white wines.
• The global market of the future is China, Japan and Korea, large counties with growing middle-class markets with disposable income.
• Merlot is still feeling the horrible effects of the "Sideways” movie incident even seven years later. You'll see less on the shelves and less planted in the ground.

It was nice to see how much of the agricultural "in-the-fields" industry was walking around with iPads and iPhones. Technology has taken all sectors by storm.

So another year passes, and the event gave all of us true wine geeks something to think about: where our grapes are coming from, who they are marketing to, and what we'll be drinking in the coming years.