Whine Institute awards Pelosi with its annual leadership award

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The Wine Institute may have ruffled some feathers last week, by presenting Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with its annual leadership award during its Washington Week lobbying visit.

The San Francisco-based institute, which represents about 1,000 California wineries and related businesses, has a friend in Pelosi (D-San Francisco) but the speaker raises blood pressures in many red state constituencies.

The delegation, led by Wine Institute Chairman Ray Chadwick and Robert "Bobby" Koch, its president and CEO, also met May 3 through 5 with many members of the House of Representatives and Senate, officials said Monday, discussing issues such as H.R. 5034, which they described as "the beer wholesalers' monopoly protection bill," tax reform, deficit reduction, immigration reform, food safety, climate change, sustainable wine growing, the Farm Bill, pest and disease control, water issues and international trade.

The long list reflects the broad spectrum of issues of interest to the Golden State's winemakers. Not surprisingly, "The upcoming elections, the current state of politics and comity in the Congress were also topics of discussion," institute officials said.

Pelosi, meanwhile, called wine one of California's greatest exports, in the Wine Institute's latest electronic newsletter, "a product of our soil, a reflection of the sunshine, and an expression of the best California has to offer." It's also a huge economic engine, Pelosi added, generating 820,000 jobs nationwide, including 330,000 in California.

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Edited May 11, 2010 by ##########