2021 Oregon Wine Symposium | Oregon Winegrowers Association Updates

Jana McKamey is responsible for strengthening and representing the Oregon wine industry’s voice in regulatory and government affairs matters at the federal, state and local levels. She oversees day-to-day operations in support of the association’s mission.

Jana has nearly 15 years of government affairs experience, serving as a senior advisor to the European Union Delegation in Washington, D.C., and in the lobbying practice at a D.C. law firm. She also completed internships with the U.S. Senate and European Parliament. Jana brings wine industry exposure to her position after having worked in retail wine shops in Washington, D.C., and London and an agricultural perspective from growing up in a farming family.

Jana is a 2004 graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with a master’s degree in international affairs / international business diplomacy. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in history and German from the University of Northern Colorado. She is a 2001 recipient of a Fulbright grant to Germany.

Alex Sokol Blosser, son of Sokol Blosser’s founders, Susan Sokol Blosser and Bill Blosser, grew up working in the family vineyards and winery. Not much has changed. The strong pull of the family wine business kept pulling him back in from escapes to college in Texas and a stint with the Air Force Reserves. The wine life had him and it just took a few years for him to realize that he really did love the business and wanted to make this his life’s work.

In typical family business fashion, Alex has played many roles at Sokol Blosser from cellar rat, to vineyard manager, to vice president of sales. All these prior positions groomed him for his current and last position with the winery; that of winemaker. Alex is only the fourth winemaker to walk the catwalks in the winery since Sokol Blosser’s first vintage in the Dundee Hills in 1977. He has worked with and under all the previous winemakers and brings forward those learnings and a winemaking desire to fashion Pinot noir that inspires the world.

Alex is grateful to have found a life partner with his wife Ginny, and for his two sons, Nikolas and Avery, for whom he tries but fails to beat in the card game Magic. He lives on the vineyard and when time allows he is often reading science fiction, riding his bike, watching the Tour de France, and pining for the day when the L.A. Dodgers raise the World Series title once again.