2022 Meet the Experts |

Thomas Bachelder

Proprietor & Winemaker, Bachelder | Winemaker, Le Clos Jordanne

Although Thomas and his wife Mary make wine in Oregon and Niagara as well, Burgundy is Thomas’ spiritual home – the sacred ground where the Chardonnay and Pinot noir grapes first evolved, then happily grew and acclimatized. There Thomas works, where possible, with organic vignerons to ensure that the local sense of place is best expressed. The same is true for Niagara and Oregon. The Bachelder vineyards stretch from Nuits-Saint Georges in the north, through Beaune, heading south to Puligny-Montrachet. Bachelder has rented very modest cellars just outside of Beaune and leads a Garagiste-like existence. In Niagara, they work with growers all along the “Bench” from St. David’s through Vineland to Beamsville (where they rent cellars), and in Oregon, they work mostly with fruit from the Yamhill-Carlton Appellation, and can be found making their wine at the Carlton Winemaker’s Studio. Wherever he works, Thomas crafts wines that sing of their origins with as little “make-up” as possible – wines that are finely-perfumed and tightly-wound, offering the classic refined fruit and textured minerality of the best terroirs, whether grown in the Limestone-laced Burgundian earth, with the silty calcerous Espcarpment soils in Niagara, or the complex sedimentary and volcanic-derived soils of Oregon. The Three Terroirs series is now making nearly 15 different Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays made by Thomas in Burgundy, Niagara and Oregon!

E08 | Growing & Making Quality Pinot Noir

Peter Bell

Winery Consultant

Peter, a Canadian native, was the winemaker at Fox Run Vineyards from 1995-2022. He holds degrees in Enology from Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, Australia and in Anthropology from Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. He worked as a winemaker in Australia and New Zealand before landing in the Finger Lakes region of New York in 1990 to be head winemaker at Dr. Frank’s. He was also an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Food Science at Cornell University and lectured to wine industry professionals throughout the world.

Peter is also a member of the EWE Program Advisory Board. He retired from full-time winemaking in 2022 and is active as a consultant to wineries in the eastern U.S.

Tim Benedict

Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards, Hazlitt Red Cat Cellars, East Coast Crush & Co-Pack

Consultant Winemaker

Tim is a native of the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York who grew up around his grandfather’s vineyards. His early formal training was in the field of music but other than an inspired period as a traveling musician, he brought the creative sensibilities of a musician to the craft of winemaking. Tim has 30+ years experience in the grape and wine industry. Throughout his career, he has crafted many award-winning wines from vinifera, hybrid, and native varieties, specializing in dessert wines like port, sherry, late harvest and ice wines. In recent years he has expanded his portfolio to include formula wines, hard cider, and wine spritzers. Tim is an experienced project and production manager and has judged wines in several international competitions.

Anthony “Jay” Borzillo III, CPA

HBK CPAs & Consultants

Principal

Jay is a Principal in the Blue Bell, PA office of HBK. He has provided consulting services to vineyard and winery owners for many years and has a deep understanding of how the varying businesses comprising a vineyard/winery interrelate. Among his many projects, he has developed a cost accounting model for determining per bottle costs by varietal, helping design and implement vineyard and winery operations entity structures, developed an industry specific chart of accounts, and advised on the utilization of a branding entity to leverage intangible assets.

J. Stephen Casscles, Esq

Winemaker, Dear Native Grapes Winery; Owner, Cedar Cliff Vineyards

Stephen comes from an old Hudson River Valley fruit growing family and worked at Benmarl Vineyards in Marlboro, NY from 1973 to 1986 where he worked with French-American grape varieties. Stephen has had a long career as an attorney for the NY State Senate and the NY State Department of Health. Stephen wrote 27 laws related to the production, distribution, and sale of wine, spirits, beer, and cider, in addition to laws related to his legal specialty of insurance, health care financing, municipal finance, and racing law.
In 1990, Stephen established Cedar Cliff Vineyards and Nursery in Athens NY where he evaluates 19th century Hudson Valley and Boston’s North Shore heritage grape varieties and other cool climate grapes. Stephen was a winemaker at Hudson-Chatham Winery in Ghent, New York, from 2007 to 2020, where he made wines from French-American & heritage hybrid grape varieties. From 2021 to 2023, he was appointed director/winemaker of Milea Estate Vineyard’s Hudson Valley Heritage Grape Project. He now works at Dear Native Grapes Winery, in Walton, NY.
In 2015, Casscles wrote Grapes of the Hudson Valley and Other Cool Climate Regions of the US and Canada, which is now in its 2nd Edition (2023) with 2 new chapters on grapes bred in New England. He is associated with 3 small nurseries that propagate rare nineteenth-century heritage and other cool climate grape varieties. He is an award-winning winemaker who has been covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New York Post, Wine Enthusiast, Forbes Magazine, Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book (2021), the Albany Times-Union, and the Hartford Courant.
Stephen lecturers on wine, grape cultivation, and nineteenth-century American horticulture throughout the East Coast. In addition to his full-length works on grape varieties, grape cultivation, and 19th-century horticulture, he is a contributor to academic and trade journals for UMass Amherst, the New Jersey Horticultural Society, and Arnold Arboretum (Harvard). He also advises and lectures at the Fermentation Sciences Program at SUNY at Cobleskill and has a working relationship with many in the Korean wine industry. His new book, The Grapes of Chungcheongbuk-do, Korea, should be in print by early 2024.

Steve DiFrancesco

Winemaking Consultant

Steve became fascinated with wine while working in a restaurant during college and became the wine specialist there. He graduated with a BS in Plant Science from Stetson University, entered the wine business in the Finger Lakes of New York, and has since enjoyed 42 harvests there (plus one in Chile).

Steve worked with Guy DeVaux and Charles Fournier at Gold Seal Vineyards (owned by Seagram’s), with their excellent sparkling wines, from the late ‘70’s to the mid ‘80’s. He then worked with high quality red hybrids at Bully Hill Vineyards, and became an assistant winemaker at Glenora Wine Cellars in the late ‘80’s. He became winemaker at Lucas Vineyards in the early ‘90’s and helped expand production in high quality sparkling and still wines.

Steve returned to Glenora in 1995 and has helped expand its reputation and production. In 2000, the owners of Glenora purchased Knapp Winery, and Steve was responsible for production at both wineries. Riesling is at the forefront of a broad production line, including sparkling wines, red and white viniferas, as well as hybrids and natives.

During Steve’s career he has been involved in scale-ups, scale-backs, acquisitions, start-ups, and shutdowns. His wines have won over 450 gold medals in regional, national, and international competitions. He has made over 40 professional presentations in the Northeast and Midwest.

He has judged in wine competitions from California to New York to Virginia. In 2022, Steve was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Eastern Winery Exposition. He is also a board member for the Atlantic Seaboard Wine Association. Steve retired during the summer of 2021, and is now available as a winemaking consultant.

Contact: steve.difrancesco@gmail.com | P: 315-719-2113

Matt Falenski

Laurel Highlands Meadery

Meadmaker and Co-owner

Matt has been involved with fermentation and alcohol production for twenty years and has been making mead for fifteen years. In 2010 he and his wife began Laurel Highlands Meadery in Greensburg, PA. While building their business, Matt earned a degree in Viticulture and Enology and has dedicated himself to educating people about the world’s oldest fermented beverage.

W01e | Melomels & Pyments

Marc Fuchs, PhD

Cornell University

Professor, Plant Pathology

Marc was born and raised in the grape growing region of Alsace in France. His research and extension program at Cornell University focuses on virus diseases of fruit and vegetable crops. Marc has worked on grapevine viruses over the past 35 years, developing rapid detection techniques, understanding their dissemination, and investigating effective management strategies.

V01 | Elimination of the Crown Gall Pathogen

Barry H. Gump, PhD

School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, Florida International University

Harvey R. Chaplin Eminent Scholar in Beverage Management

Barry is the first holder of the Harvey R. Chaplin Eminent Scholar’s Chair in Beverage Management at Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. In this position he has developed new graduate and undergraduate beverage classes to expand the offerings of the Beverage Management curriculum. Barry is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry and Emeritus Adjunct Professor of Enology at California State University, Fresno. He has had a long association –over forty years– with the wine industry, conducting research in analytical methodology applied to grapes, juices, and wines.

E09 | Advanced Lab Analysis

Ed Lutjens

Bluet

Cellarmaster

After managing a small cooperage, Ed meandered into winemaking through Bluet’s Maine wild blueberry sparkling wines. Under the guidance of founders Michael Terrien and Eric Martin, Ed has managed growth from 250 cases in 2017 to 4,000 in 2021. While Bluet is one of Maine’s biggest wine producers, exploring wine from wild blueberries is still in its infancy. With over 6,000 identified varieties, from field to field and farm to farm, the varietal character is amazing! With a 100-ton harvest in 2020, Ed and Bluet are striving to positively affect the Maine blueberry industry and to influence further appreciation of this 10,000 year old native fruit. Bluet is releasing its first appellations in 2022.

W01b | Panel & Tasting: Berry Fruit Wines

Frederick T. Merwarth

Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard

Winemaker

Frederick is the winemaker, vineyard manager, and grafting manager of the Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard in New York. He comes from a strong agricultural background and attended Cornell University to pursue his deep rooted interests in agriculture and German studies. Since starting as an intern in 2001 under the watchful eye of Hermann J. Wiemer, he quickly became the key decision maker in every aspect of the winery, vineyard, and nursery operations. In 2007, Frederick assumed management of Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard, which continues to produce the top rieslings in the country.

E04 | Achieving Optimal Balance with Riesling

E05 | Using Large Format Oak Containers

Tom Payette

Winemaker & Winemaking Consultant

Tom is a hands-on, analytical, East Coast pioneering, winemaking professional with a Food Science Degree. His extended expertise focuses on winemaking, winery and vineyard start-ups and expansions, still and sparkling wine and general winery issues. Tom has over three decades of well-rounded experience in still and sparkling wine production in Virginia along with nine years in ultra-premium Bordeaux varietal wine production in Napa, CA. Tom studied under famed Bordeaux enologist Jacques Boissenot. He was awarded Winemaker of the Year in 1999 by Vineyard & Winery Management and most recently named a “Wine Industry Leader of the Year” by Wine Business Monthly. Visit winemakingconsultant.com to learn more about Tom.

Phil Plummer

Montezuma Winery

Winemaker

Phil has been making wine in New York’s Finger Lakes region for over a decade, spending the bulk of those years at Montezuma Winery, where he has served as head winemaker since 2013. In his time at Montezuma, Phil has taken a leading role in the development and production of a wide-ranging portfolio of wines made from grapes, fruit, and honey, and was instrumental in the launch of Montezuma’s sister winery, Idol Ridge.

Andrew Reynolds, PhD

Consultant

Andy is a viticulture consultant in the Niagara Region of Ontario. His activities include writing, editing, reviewing manuscripts, grant writing for businesses, and vineyard consulting. Prior to this he was: Professor of Viticulture, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, 1997-2020, and Research Scientist, viticulture & enology, Agriculture Canada Research Station, Summerland, BC (1983-1997). Andy’s education includes: BSc (Agr.), horticulture (1978), Univ. of Guelph; MSc, plant breeding & genetics (1980), Univ. of Guelph; PhD (1983), Cornell Univ., horticulture and plant physiology; thesis: grapevine canopy microclimate in relation to wine quality.

Andy has been conducting research in grapes and wines since his MSc studies in 1978. Major research interests include precision viticulture and use of geomatic technologies and remote sensing for studying the terroir effect; wine aroma chemistry; irrigation and water relations; cultural practices, site, and soil and their impact upon wine flavor; canopy management. His publications: more than 150 in refereed journals and symposium proceedings, as well as two books, and several articles and one book still in progress. Awards: OIV Award for Best Book in Oenology (Managing Wine Quality; 2011); Decanter Award (Grapevine Breeding Programs for the Wine Industry; 2015); ASEV/ES Outstanding Achievement Award (2010); Brock University Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching (2009). Andy has been very active in the American Society for Enology and Viticulture (ASEV) including Associate Editor since 1995. ASEV/ES activities include: Director 1997-99, 2002-06; Chair 2000-02; Section Rep. 2006-2020. Andy is a frequent speaker at conferences internationally, or at least was, prior to COVID.

V03 | Precision Viticulture II

Chris Stamp

Lakewood Vineyards

Winemaker

Chris has spent much of his life in the grape and wine business. He grew up on his family’s grape farm in Watkins Glen, NY. His interest in winemaking was piqued by the newly burgeoning small wineries in the area. Summer jobs at Glenora and Taylor Wine Company augmented his education while he attained a BS in Food Science from Cornell University. He began his winemaking career as winemaker at a small winery in the Finger Lakes. This was followed by a four year stint as extension and research associate at Ohio State University (OARDC, Wooster, Ohio).

In 1989, Chris moved back to the Finger Lakes to help his family start Lakewood Vineyards. Over the years Lakewood has grown to an annual production of over 100,000 gallons, producing a wide range of wines from vinifera to mead. He is an occasional contributor to Wines & Vines magazine and has given dozens of winemaking presentations. Chris and his wife Elizabeth are also sole proprietors of Lakewood Cork, importing and selling high quality wine corks in the Eastern U.S. They have three children (Ben, Abby and Amelia), 1 dog (Piper) and three horses (Buddy, George and Remi). Interests include flying and enjoying wine with friends, but not at the same time.

W02d | Ruby Port Styles

Joy Ting

Virginia Winemakers Research Exchange

Research Enologist and Extension Coordinator

Joy works with Virginia winemakers to plan, conduct and evaluate practical experiments in the winery and share results with the winemaking community. She also produces a small line of wines under her own name. Prior to her post at the VWRE, Joy was the enologist and winemaker at Michael Shaps Wineworks in Charlottesville, VA. Joy holds a PhD in Applied Biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology and has worked in the Virginia Wine industry since 2013.

E07 | Chaptalization Trials

Samuel Weiner

WineryConnect

Founder and CTO

Sam has over 25 years of experience in software, with a particular focus on Enterprise Architecture and Enterprise Application Integration. He helps businesses use technology to address immediate business challenges, positions them to drive towards their long-term business objectives, and works to minimize both up-front costs and total cost of ownership by selecting and integrating best-of-breed technology partners. Since 2013, Sam and WineryConnect have worked with wineries, breweries, cideries, and distilleries to develop broad “virtual IT department” solutions for beverage producers.

M01 | Master Data Management

Christine Vrooman

Ankida Ridge

Owner & Vineyard Manager

Ankida Ridge Vineyards is one of the East Coast’s premier Pinot Noir producers and Christine is passionate about implementing environmentally sensitive practices in their vineyard and balancing the considerations of nature with the pragmatism of producing a crop in the humid Mid-Atlantic regions. She embraces the French philosophy of “la lutte raisonnée,” the reasoned struggle. Christine and Dennis Vrooman, along with their winemaker son, Nathan, proved that the high elevations of the cooler, rocky Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia have the potential to become a prominent world-class Pinot Noir producing region. Ankida Ridge is recognized with high praise in Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book 2020, and their Pinot Noir was recognized as a “Top Ten Hot Brand 2017” by Wine Business Monthly. Ankida has also been an invited winery to Oregon’s acclaimed International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC).

Christine has been active in the Virginia wine industry, including serving on the VA Sustainability Workbook Committee, the Virginia Wine Marketing Grant Committee, writing for Virginia’s Grape Press Leaning Green column, and serving as a passionate ambassador of the Virginia wine industry.

E08 | Growing & Making Quality Pinot Noir

The Largest Production Wine and Grape Trade Show and Conference in the East Returns to Syracuse NY

2022 Meet the Experts

2022 Meet the Experts

TUESDAY, MARCH 22

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23

THURSDAY, MARCH 24

Thomas Bachelder

Proprietor & Winemaker, Bachelder | Winemaker, Le Clos Jordanne

Peter Bell

Tim Benedict

Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards, Hazlitt Red Cat Cellars, East Coast Crush & Co-Pack

Anthony “Jay” Borzillo III, CPA

HBK CPAs & Consultants

J. Stephen Casscles, Esq

Steve DiFrancesco

Matt Falenski

Laurel Highlands Meadery

Marc Fuchs, PhD

Cornell University

Barry H. Gump, PhD

School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, Florida International University

Ed Lutjens

Bluet

Frederick T. Merwarth

Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard

Tom Payette

Phil Plummer

Montezuma Winery

Andrew Reynolds, PhD

Chris Stamp

Lakewood Vineyards

Joy Ting

Virginia Winemakers Research Exchange

Samuel Weiner

WineryConnect

Christine Vrooman

Ankida Ridge