Founded in 1995, CCVT is a Paso Robles-based organization that promotes sustainable winegrowing, but the expo program covered ground that stretched beyond viticulture. "We're trying to make it as broad as possible," said CCVT's program director, Jill Whitacre, who estimated that about 40% of the expo's 175 attendees were involved in some sort of farming other than viticulture. The goal of the expo, she added, is "to get different segments of agriculture to work together."

Thus, seminar topics included issues such as weed control, pesticide application, agricultural labor and the use of biodiesel and solar power, as well as viticulture-focused subjects like vine balance, cluster thinning and the use of whey to combat powdery mildew.

There weren't a lot of groundbreaking developments or surprising new products. Brian Talley, general manager of Talley Vineyards in the Arroyo Grande Valley, said he's happy if he can discover one piece of equipment or technique at this sort of gathering, and he was intrigued by photographs during one seminar of a cultivator with a camera—not for his vineyards but for his family's vegetable-growing operation, Talley Farms.

Jason Melvin, director of vineyards for Estancia in Monterey County, listened intently to a session on the benefits of using biodiesel. "Biodiesel is something I've been considering for a while," he said, and the presentation by Lisa Mortensen, CEO of Community Fuels in Encinitas, Calif., "reinforced the positives." Melvin added that there have been discussions within Constellation Brands, which owns Estancia, about moving to biodiesel in California.

Among the positives cited by Mortensen: Biodiesel can be blended with petroleum diesel at any level (blends containing 2 to 20% biodiesel are most common); biodiesel reduces wear and tear on engines, even at a low percentage of the fuel blend; biodiesel is clean-burning and reduces the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

In a session on solar power, Rob Erlichman, founder of Sunlight Electric in San Francisco, presented a case study on Honig Vineyard, which installed photovoltaic cells to generate electricity. "The economics of this are actually remarkably compelling," he said, because of tax breaks and power company subsidies. In the case of Honig, he said, the winery paid just 23% of the retail price for the solar system, after rebates and subsidies. The winery also saved on electricity and was able to promote its environmentally responsible practices on its website.

In a seminar on advances in viticulture, Jim Wolpert, extension viticulturist at UC Davis, discussed recent research on vine balance and fruit thinning. Among his conclusions: Vineyards that are planted too densely end up with a too-crowded canopy, which can adversely affect the quality of the fruit. Balance is best achieved, he said, when the vineyard is being designed, with the right spacing for the grape varieties and rootstocks that are being used. Researchers are working on understanding those relationships. "We've got a whale of a lot of work ahead of us," he said.

Although he devoted most of the session to vine balance, Wolpert also offered what he acknowledged might be some controversial findings on fruit thinning. "This is a bit of a sacred cow," he said. Removing less-ripe clusters at veraison is "just automatically done now," because there's an assumption that these grapes will never catch up.

That may have been true when grapes were harvested at lower sugars, Wolpert said. But a 2005 test at a commercial vineyard in Napa Valley found that with extended hang time, the less-ripe clusters do catch up, at least in terms of sugar content. He said that other ripeness indicators, such as brown seeds, weren't studied. And he allowed that the later-ripening clusters didn't have the same flavors as the grapes that had been ripest at versaison.

Angela Gadino, who is working on a master's degree at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, presented the results of her thesis research on the use of whey as an alternative to sulfur for controlling powdery mildew. Gadino noted that there's talk about banning the use of sulfur on organic products sold overseas. Whey, a byproduct of cheese and butter production, is very costly for the dairy industry to dispose of, and its use against powdery mildew has been studied on cucumbers in Brazil and on grapes in Australia. Although Gadino's results are promising, she cautioned that they are preliminary and based on only a one-year test.

The exhibit floor held nearly four dozen booths, with exhibitors ranging from vine nurseries to makers of organic fertilizers and pesticides to solar power companies and government organizations. The National Center for Appropriate Technology passed out information on sustainable and organic practices for a variety of crops, while PMS Instrument Co. displayed machinery that tests moisture stress in grape leaves.

CCVT, whose member growers represent more than 60,000 acres of vineyards in Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, has scheduled its third annual expo for Nov. 1 and 2, 2007, at the California Mid-State Fairgrounds in Paso Robles, site of the first expo. Whitacre said that the plan is to alternate between the Paso Robles and Monterey venues, although she added that the expo might be held in the Central Valley sometime in the future.

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