{"id":5047,"date":"2024-09-16T19:58:34","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T19:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/?p=5047"},"modified":"2024-09-16T20:40:55","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T20:40:55","slug":"nominate-a-leader-for-the-2025-rich-smith-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/2024\/09\/16\/nominate-a-leader-for-the-2025-rich-smith-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Nominate a Leader for the 2025 Rich Smith Award"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Rich Smith (right) circa 2014 with the first Rich Smith Award recipient, John Martini<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Richard (Rich) Smith, founder of Valley Farm Management,<\/strong><\/a> Paraiso Vineyards and Smith Family Wines in California’s Santa Lucia Highlands wine region. He was an ardent family man and a successful grape grower, winery owner and respected colleague. He was a highly effective, collegial and tireless leader whose significant and selfless contributions of time, energy and funds helped to shape public policy and scientific research to advance the American grape and wine industry. He passed away in December 2015. Thus, 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of Rich’s passing.<\/p>\n

Three of the organizations Rich helped to establish\u2014the National Grape Research Alliance<\/strong><\/a>, WineAmerica<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Winegrape Growers of America<\/strong><\/a>\u2014annually join with the Smith Family to bestow the Rich Smith Award of Excellence. It recognizes an industry representative who exemplifies the passion, commitment and collaboration Rich was known for and who similarly impacts the industry. For each organization, it is our highest and most coveted award.<\/p>\n

To make a nomination for this special 10th-anniversary Rich Smith Award, please complete and submit <\/strong>this online form<\/strong><\/a> by October 30, 2024.<\/strong> The recipient will be named at the WGA Leadership Luncheon on January 29, 2025, in Sacramento, CA.<\/p>\n

Past Rich Smith Award Winners<\/strong>
\n2017 – John Martini, Anthony Road Wine Company
\n2018 – Pete Downs, Family Winemakers of California
\n2019 – Jerry Lohr, J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines
\n2020 – Jim Trezise, WineAmerica
\n2021 – Donniella (Donnie) Winchell, Ohio Wine Producers Association
\n2022 – Thomas (Tom) Davenport, National Grape Cooperative (retired)
\n2023 – Marty Clubb, L\u2019Ecole No 41
\n2024 – Nick Dokoozlian, Gallo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard (Rich) Smith, founder of Valley Farm Management, Paraiso Vineyards and Smith Family Wines in California’s Santa Lucia Highlands wine region. He was an ardent family man and a successful grape grower, winery owner and respected colleague. He was a highly effective, collegial and tireless leader whose significant and selfless contributions of time, energy and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ngwi-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5047"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5054,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5047\/revisions\/5054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}