Molly Kelly, Ph.D., Enology Extension Educator, The Pennsylvania State University

This session will provide an overview of proper sanitation practices including methods to determine efficacy. In addition, Molly will discuss a three-year sanitation monitoring study of four PA wineries. Successes and failures will be presented as well as lessons learned.

Federico Casassa, Ph.D. Professor of Enology & Wine Sensory Analysis, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Oxidative vs. reductive juice handling sets the phenolic, antioxidant, and yeast environment before fermentation. This presentation integrates work with Grenache Blanc, Loureiro, Vermentino, Albariño, and also aspects relevant to rosé juice. We compare reductive processing—early SO2, ascorbic acid, inert gas and, when appropriate, glutathione—with deliberate hyper-oxygenation before fermentation.  

The latter promotes removal of oxidized phenolic material during settling. Reductive processing conserves glutathione and other nucleophiles but can increase the probability of sulfur-driven reductive characters when fermentation conditions are not well managed. 

Different ORP trajectories during juice handling will be shown and discussed. The practical message is that reductive vs. hyper-Ox handling is a useful choice contingent upon cultivar, fruit health, phenolic load, desired style, color target, solids, and anticipated aging. A decision framework for choosing a protective or hyper-oxidative program will be provided—and for avoiding the least predictable option: partial, uncontrolled oxidation. 

Molly Kelly, Ph.D., Enology Extension Educator, The Pennsylvania State University

The impact of dissolved oxygen (DO) on wine quality will be discussed, including mitigation techniques. Molly will present preliminary findings of a study; measuring DO throughout the winemaking process. She will also discuss DO bottling line audit results and techniques to reduce oxygen pickup at this critical stage.

Mengjun Hu, Associate Professor of Plant Science, University of Maryland

This presentation concerns grapevine cluster ripe rot and its effective management. It covers the basic biology of the disease and research findings from multi-year field trials that led to novel and easy-to-adopt control strategies, with emphasis on fungicide timing and choices. It is targeted at growers and vineyard managers at all levels.

Mel Goldman, Owner, Keuka Lake Vineyard (Leon Millot)
Tony McDonnell, Winemaker, Windridge Vineyards (Chardonel, Chambourcin)

A wine from the French hybrid Leon Millot (2010) by Keuka Lake Vineyard won the New York Governor’s Cup in 2011. Chardonel has Chardonnay as a parent, comparable wine quality, better hardiness, disease resistance and crop levels, and Chambourcin has been a reliable and versatile red hybrid across the Mid-Atlantic for 40 years. 

Mel Goldman will discuss Leon Millot. This hybrid consists of two clones: Rouge (the Foster clone) and Noir (the Boordy clone). They are both early to bud and early to harvest, but pretty certain to ripen adequately in almost any year. The Foster clone’s tight clusters make it more prone to rot when the fall is rainy. The Boordy clone, with its loose clusters, is hardier and does well even in rainy harvest seasons. When frost damage is close to budbreak, both clones produce secondaries, though the crop is much smaller than it would otherwise be. That was the case with this year’s April 21st frost.  We will also taste the difference between a rainy fall Leon dominated by the Boordy clone versus a sunny harvest where the Leon is a blend of the two clones.

Tony McDonnell will discuss his experience with Chardonel and Chambourcin in the 2026 vintage and beyond.  Specifically, he will be addressing the characteristics of these varieties which make them more suitable for growing in areas with a high risk of Spring frost/freeze events.  The session will also include discussion of winemaking considerations for each variety.

Rebecca Ritz, Founder, Bauerhaus Design

In a search landscape that is rapidly shifting from traditional SEO to AI, getting found requires a new approach. This session covers exactly how to make your winery discoverable today, and how to use email marketing to keep those guests coming back. We’ll skip the generic advice and focus on identifying the specific guests your winery is built for. Walk away with the exact tools you need to audit your own AI/SEO visibility, map out an email strategy that feels authentic, and build lasting loyalty.

Rebecca Ritz, Founder, Bauerhaus Design

In a search landscape that is rapidly shifting from traditional SEO to AI, getting found requires a new approach. This session covers exactly how to make your winery discoverable today, and how to use email marketing to keep those guests coming back. We’ll skip the generic advice and focus on identifying the specific guests your winery is built for. Walk away with the exact tools you need to audit your own AI/SEO visibility, map out an email strategy that feels authentic, and build lasting loyalty.

Zane Stevens, Founder & Director, Protea Financial

This is not a not a costing 101 session. Attendees put tasting room, club, online, events, and retail side by side on the same basis, building a channel-level contribution margin live in the room using their own numbers (owner labor, fulfillment, event staffing, billbacks, shipping subsidy, comps, etc.). A diagnostic on why the channel numbers wineries are confident in are usually wrong,. Attendees leave having committed to one reallocation decision, backed by a number. Bring your computer and P&L.

Zane Stevens, Founder & Director, Protea Financial

This is not a not a costing 101 session. Attendees put tasting room, club, online, events, and retail side by side on the same basis, building a channel-level contribution margin live in the room using their own numbers (owner labor, fulfillment, event staffing, billbacks, shipping subsidy, comps, etc.). A diagnostic on why the channel numbers wineries are confident in are usually wrong,. Attendees leave having committed to one reallocation decision, backed by a number. Bring your computer and P&L.

Joy Ting, Research Enologist, Virginia Winemakers Research Exchange

As producers seek new ways to manage acidity across climates, varieties, and vintages, yeast strain selection is emerging as a practical tool for increasing or decreasing malic acid during fermentation. Saccharomyces yeast can both produce and consume malic acid, with the net effect determined by strain genetics and fermentation conditions. Information on these strain-specific effects has become more widely available as suppliers characterize existing strains and, in some cases, select new strains for acid management. Drawing on production-scale WRE trials conducted in Virginia, this talk will evaluate whether commercially available yeast strains deliver the expected changes in malic acid under commercial winemaking conditions. The results will identify fermentation conditions and management strategies that influence strain performance and help winemakers achieve the desired malic acid shift. 

Federico Casassa, Ph.D. Professor of Enology & Wine Sensory Analysis, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo 

Micro-oxygenation during red-wine fermentation is often solely discussed in terms of oxygen dose. However, its application depends upon gas delivery, which can affect cap mixing, CO2 stripping, oxygen transfer, yeast exposure, and Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP) trajectory. This presentation brings together a red-wine research series in Pinot Noir, Petite Sirah, and Syrah to examine oxygen interventions as process controls during alcoholic fermentation coupled with the continuous monitoring of the ORP.   

The talk will distinguish gas-to-liquid oxygen transfer from chemical and microbial oxygen consumption, and ORP from dissolved oxygen. It will also separate oxygen effects from cap-management effects. The practical objective is to use MOX as a controlled fermentative tool: monitor the process, establish cultivar and style-specific thresholds, and integrate fermentation kinetics, cap movement, phenolic extraction, volatile composition, and sensory results.

Jim Russell, Sales, Aftek
Peter Bell, Winery Consultant, Finger Lakes Wine Consulting LLC
Craig Hosbach, Head Winemaker, Fox Run Vineyards

We’ll address common issues associated with membrane filtration in bottling and packaging around vinifera, fruit wines, cider, native, hybrid wines, ciders, sparkling wines. We hope to cover basics in preparing products around proteins, pectins, and beta glucans to name a few. We’ll discuss some common issues we have seen in the last few years and some tools to help identify and address these issues. 

Peter Bell and Craig Hosbach will be joining us to dive a bit deeper into the bench-top protocols and common issues from a winemaker’s perspective.

Mike Beneduce, Owner + Winemaker, Beneduce Vineyards

Over the past ten years, Beneduce Vineyards transitioned from conventional herbicide use to a fully herbicide-free vineyard management program. In this seminar, Mike Beneduce will share the practical lessons, challenges, and successes of that transition within a premium wine grape production system. Attendees will gain insight into the viticultural and economic considerations behind the change, the benefits realized through current management practices, and a practical, step-by-step framework for reducing and ultimately eliminating herbicides in their own vineyards. 

Joanne Newborn, CEO & Founder, Newborn Evolution LLC

Winery teams have always pushed through our industry’s unique challenges but today’s industry pressures are making those demands harder to sustain. According to Gallup, 27% of U.S. employees feel burned out very often or always, and the leading causes are operational rather than personal. That means leaders are the people best positioned to reduce burnout among their teams. In this interactive session, leadership strategist and alcohol beverage industry veteran Joanne Newborn will focus on the business decisions that either create burnout or prevent it. Attendees will take a careful look at how work is structured on their teams and explore practical levers they can pull. Through real-world examples, audience polling, and hands-on planning, participants will begin building a Strategic Empowerment Plan for their own team. Rather than leaving with another overwhelming to-do list, each attendee will identify one key operational change they can put in place right away to build a stronger team, protect capacity, and create a healthier, more sustainable way of running the business.

Samantha McClure, Head of Marketing & AI Innovation, Meridian Advisory Partners
Melanie Buck Lu, Head of Business & Growth, Meridian Advisory Partners

Your commerce platform should do more than process transactions—it should give you the data you need to make smarter decisions and grow your business. In this session, we’ll look at how winery size, business model, and sales strategy should shape both the technology you use, the metrics you track, and how that data should inform your digital customer journey. We’ll compare leading approaches, including Commerce7 and Shopify + WineHub, with a practical look at functionality, tradeoffs, cost, and fit for different types of wineries. From there, we’ll explore how to determine whether you’re capturing the right data—and, most importantly, how to turn that data into concrete actions across DTC, ecommerce, wine club, and broader growth initiatives. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of what their technology stack should enable, which metrics matter most for their business, and where they may have gaps in the systems or data they rely on today.

Samantha McClure, Head of Marketing & AI Innovation, Meridian Advisory Partners
Melanie Buck Lu, Head of Business & Growth, Meridian Advisory Partners

Your commerce platform should do more than process transactions—it should give you the data you need to make smarter decisions and grow your business. In this session, we’ll look at how winery size, business model, and sales strategy should shape both the technology you use, the metrics you track, and how that data should inform your digital customer journey. We’ll compare leading approaches, including Commerce7 and Shopify + WineHub, with a practical look at functionality, tradeoffs, cost, and fit for different types of wineries. From there, we’ll explore how to determine whether you’re capturing the right data—and, most importantly, how to turn that data into concrete actions across DTC, ecommerce, wine club, and broader growth initiatives. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of what their technology stack should enable, which metrics matter most for their business, and where they may have gaps in the systems or data they rely on today.

Winery owners and managers serve on association boards because they are invested in the success of their region, yet many receive little orientation beyond a copy of the bylaws. This closed-door session examines what effective board service involves and what distinguishes boards that advance a region from those that hold it back. The session addresses governance and financial oversight, the practical meaning of fiduciary responsibility, and the distinction between the board’s role and that of the executive director. It also considers how strong bylaws and strategic planning support an association, and why unresolved internal issues can undermine an organization’s credibility and market access over time. Leaders of high-functioning associations will explain, in plain language, how their boards reached that level. Attendees will leave with:

1. A clear understanding of their responsibilities as board members, and where the board’s role ends and staff’s begins

2. Specific practices drawn from well-run boards

3. Guidance on contributing constructively to their boards for the benefit of the entire region.

Join us for a unique opportunity for wine association leaders to come together and discuss association management. This working session brings together executives, staff, and volunteer leaders to exchange strategies, share lessons learned, and benchmark their organizations against their peers. The session focuses on diversifying revenue. As grant funding becomes less predictable, associations that rely heavily on membership dues or a single source of funding face growing risk. Whether your organization is volunteer-led with no dedicated funding, working toward partial funding, or state-funded and seeking additional revenue under its own control, you will meet peers from other states navigating the same challenges. Topics include grants, membership, events, passport programs, and other revenue opportunities. The format is a facilitated discussion rather than a series of presentations. Participants will work through a set of focused topics, drawing on candid accounts of what has worked and what has not. Attendees will leave with:

1. Practical revenue strategies to bring to their boards

2. Models from associations at different stages of funding

3. A national network of peers for continued collaboration