It’s Not All Bad

June 2025

Earlier this month, NGRA Board member and Lodi Winegrape Commission Research & Education Director Stephanie Bolton wrote a blog post for the Commision’s website titled, “Five Pieces of Good News in the Research World.” In it, she celebrates research-related news in and around the Lodi AVA, including the highly anticipated, forthcoming hiring of an Assistant Professor of Applied Viticulture to lead UC Davis’ Oakville Station viticulture research site.

Stephanie’s pick-me-up post got me to thinking: she’s right. There’s a lot of good news in the research world! In fact, there’s so much good news—across the US and around the world—that we (NGRA) post about it every single weekday on our social media accounts! And we round up and aggregate all those awards and accolades, and research advancements, breakthroughs, field trials and findings in this newsletter every month.

This year has brought a lot of worrisome news. Federal funding cuts and firings have made endless headlines and heartaches every day, every month. These stories have serious implications for current and future grape research, as we’ve covered in this newsletter. It’s easy to focus on the negative when there’s so much of it, at such high volume and intensity.

By contrast, research is typically quiet work. In sports terms, it’s a game of inches. A marathon, not a sprint. I often say that research is a matter of faith—work you invest in, knowing you might not see the outcome of your efforts or funding in your lifetime. The incremental wins don’t always rise to the level of press release, journal article or trade magazine story. But there’s enough to fill our social media feed every day. And that’s a lot!

As we enter the second half of 2025, let this be your reminder that, although the news isn’t always good, it also isn’t always bad! If you ever need a quick reminder that research keeps winning, just visit us on Facebook or X (Twitter). We’ll be happy to oblige.

Donnell Brown
President