Napa's American Vineyard Foundation receives 78 grant proposals

The Napa-based American Vineyard Foundation said Tuesday it’s received 78 funding requests for wine-related projects ranging from mealybug control to microbiomics. Now it has to decided how to allocate $1 million in research funds to selected applicants.

Awards will be announced in May.

“We are very pleased with this year’s level of industry support,” Chairman Jim Frisinger said in the April 13 statement. He noted that the foundation typically funds about 40 percent of proposals submitted.

Its mission is to raise and distribute funding to address grape and wine industry research priorities, “helping keep American viticulture and enology on the forefront of the world of wine,” according to AVF. Viticulture is the art of growing grapes, enology that of turning them into wine.

To identify projects for funding, the foundation said it first sent viticulture and enology surveys to 3,000 industry members, then identified topics most important to the grape-growing and wine-making community. It then solicited research proposals to address those topics.

Founded in 1978 by the American Society of Enology and Viticulture, AVF works with a number of other industry groups to “maximize” research funding. They include: the California Table Grape Commission, the California Grape Rootstock Improvement Commission, the California Grape Rootstock Research Foundation, the California Raisin Marketing Board, the California Competitive Grant Program for Research in Viticulture and Enology, the Viticulture Consortium Program for the Western Region, the California Winegrape Inspection Advisory Board, the Oregon Wine Board, and Washington State Grape & Wine Research.