CULTIVAR 2026 Brings Three Days of Training to Vineyard Workers and Honors a Scholar of the Year
The Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation’s conference runs Nov. 10 to 12 with 22 sessions for Napa County vineyard workers, and it will recognize Guadalupe Gonzalez of Jaguar Farm Labor Contracting, who completed 96.5 hours of classes, as its 2026 Scholar of the Year.
NAPA: The Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation will host CULTIVAR 2026 from Nov. 10 to 12, three days of advanced training built for the people who farm Napa Valley’s vineyards, the Foundation announced on Nov. 4. The conference closes by honoring Guadalupe Gonzalez of Jaguar Farm Labor Contracting as the Foundation’s 2026 Scholar of the Year.
Attendance is complimentary for all Napa County vineyard workers, and the conference is taught in Spanish. The Foundation’s own CULTIVAR page says the 2026 conference is already at capacity, with registration limited to eight attendees per company.
Twenty-two sessions across three days
The program runs to 22 sessions spanning advanced viticulture, leadership and safety training, and emerging technology. Instructors include viticulturists and winemakers from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Inglenook, Joseph Phelps Vineyards, Kendall-Jackson, Larkmead Vineyards, Promontory and Beckstoffer Vineyards, together with educators from UC Davis, according to the announcement.
Gonzalez completed 96.5 hours of education across 12 classes to earn the Scholar of the Year recognition.
The technology sessions reach into the vineyard rows: Saga Robotics is presenting work from its autonomous UV-C trial at Beckstoffer Vineyards. County agencies are also on the program, with the Napa County Sheriff’s Office, the Fire Department and the Agricultural Commissioner’s Office leading Emergency Ag Pass training. The conference’s compliance program also carries 1.75 hours of Laws and Regulations continuing education credit.
Scholar of the Year
Gonzalez completed 96.5 hours of education across 12 classes to earn the Scholar of the Year recognition, according to the announcement. She began her career working in the vineyard and went on to become one of the first women supervisors at her company. She will be recognized at the Scholar of the Year Award Breakfast on Thursday, Nov. 12, the conference’s final day.
The Foundation is celebrating 15 years of work this year. It describes itself as the first organization of its kind in the United States, and it says it has reached more than 33,000 participants since its founding, through classes and programs aimed at the vineyard workforce and their families.
CULTIVAR arrives in the post-harvest weeks, after the last fruit has come in and before winter pruning settles in, in the one stretch of the vineyard calendar when the valley’s crews can give three full days to the classroom.
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