Alisa Jacobson at 2023 Unified Symposium
WineBusiness.com January 2023
Unified Symposium Co-Chair Alisa Jacobson to Highlight Environmental Impacts and Sustainability During 2023 Symposium
Santa Barbara, CA – Alisa Jacobson, Co-Chair, along with Leticia Chacón Rodríguez, of the 2023 Unified Wine & Grape Symposium Program Development Committee, has been appointed to manage the 36-member committee directing programming for this year’s event. Scheduled to be held later this month in Sacramento, the annual, popular symposium attracts wine industry professionals from around the nation, eager to learn and exchange information about the latest developments in viticulture and enology.
Passionate about sustainability and diversity in the workplace, Jacobson focused her efforts, and those of the committee, on highlighting inclusivity at this year’s symposium. “We’re so pleased to have Robin McBride as a keynote speaker. McBride Sisters is one of the largest-by-volume Black-owned wineries in the United States, and prioritizes social awareness and equality as core foundational principles of their wine company.” Jacobson says. In “Leveraging Technology to Increase Sustainability”, Nate Weis, of Silver Oak and Ron Runnebaum (University of California, Davis), among others, will discuss new technologies in sustainability as water becomes scarcer and energy more expensive. As Co-Chair, Jacobson, a passionate climate activist, helped to guide programming to address critical concerns in climate change. Wine educator and writer, Meg Maker, will lead a panel discussion called “A New Lexicon for Wine”, encouraging participants to re-consider the current, largely Eurocentric ways in which the wine industry communicates about wine. Instead, the panel will “explore strategies to transform wine discourse to make wine feel more inclusive, diverse, and accessible.”
Jacobson founded her own wine label, Turning Tide, in 2018. She later debuted “AJ” and “Rare North, two additional brands, in 2021. The “AJ” portfolio allows Jacobson to lean on her California roots, while the Rare North label showcases her talents in the Willamette Valley using grapes from the Halona Woods Vineyard. Jacobson farms the Halona Woods site with vintner John Wagner (Peake Ranch, John Sebastiano Vineyard in Santa Rita Hills/Santa Barbara County) in Mount Pisgah, Polk County, Oregon AVA. Prior to that, she worked at Joseph Phelps Vineyards as a laboratory technician and was then hired by Joel Gott Wines as their first employee. Ultimately, she became VP of winemaking, overseeing a team of 30 and managing all winery and vineyard operations in California, Oregon and Washington. She also supervised international projects in Argentina, Chile, Italy, France and New Zealand. She currently sits on the board of the Oregon Wine Council, a peer-review panelist for the NW Center for Small Fruits Research proposals, and chair of the research committee on the West Coast Smoke Exposure Task Force. She received her bachelor’s degree in viticulture and enology from the University of California, Davis.
Built with the joint input of growers, vintners and allied industry members, the Unified Symposium had served as a clearinghouse of information important to wine and grape industry professionals for 26 years. The Unified Symposium also hosts the industry’s largest trade show of its kind, with over 700 vendors displaying their products and services. The Unified Symposium will host the conference and trade show on January 24-26, 2023, at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center in Sacramento, California. Registration is scheduled to open Tuesday, October 18 at 9 a.m. PDT.
For more information about the upcoming show, visit www.unifiedsymposium.org.