Alison Crowe is Vice President, Winemaking and a founding Partner at Napa-based Plata Wine Partners. Plata Wine Partners, started in 2005, is a leading wine and case goods supplier to “Top 100” brands and US and international retailers, distributors and restaurant groups. With grape sourcing from its own certified sustainable vineyards, Plata Wine Partners grows and packages coastal California wines from Santa Barbara to the Napa Valley. Alison is on the board of the Carneros Wine Alliance and the Unified Symposium Program Committee. She writes the popular column “The Wine Wizard” for WineMaker magazine, is author of The Winemaker’s Answer Book and the award-winning wine blog, GirlandtheGrape.com. She is a frequent industry speaker, having lectured at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and the UC Davis Graduate School of Management and holds three degrees from UC Davis: Fermentation Science, Spanish (1998) and an MBA (2010).