Registration for the conference opens November 10 at 1:00 p.m. (Eastern time), and those who register early will receive the best discounts. The “real early birds” who register in the first 48 hours (before 1:00 p.m. on Friday, November 12) will get an additional 10% discount. Members of 31 supporting sponsor wine associations, wine trails and other wine groups are eligible for discounts. Early registration lasts through December 10.

The largest wine and grape trade show and conference east of the Pacific states, EWE will feature 40 speakers and 35 sessions and workshop modules, tastings, networking and social events, and a trade show with approximately 175 booths. For the fifth year, EWE is partnering with the License to Steal (LTS) conference organized by the Ohio Wine Producers Association (OWPA). On March 22, LTS will hold a day long workshop on Tasting Room Management, and the sessions on March 23 and 24 will be focused on wine marketing issues and ideas.

The EWE program will start on March 22 with full-day workshops on three topics: Fruit Wines & Mead, Fining & Filtration, and Fortified Wines. Fruit wines are popular with consumers in winery tasting rooms, and mead is a fast-growing category of alcoholic beverages. Both types of wine have challenges and issues that differ from standard wine processing, and speakers will address the different issues as well as tasting and discussing samples of berry and tree fruit wines, mead and fruit or grape mead blends. The Fining and Filtration workshop will look at this phase of winemaking, including sterile filtration at bottling, clearing challenging wines, and a panel discussion of fining trials, filtration media and logistics. The workshop on fortified wines will focus on port-style wines – white, ruby and reserve/multi-vintage blends – as well as cream sherry-style wines. The workshop will look at high-proof fortification protocols and quality control as well as an explanation of the classic sherry solera system.

Two days of sessions on three tracks – enology, viticulture and money/management – will take place on March 23 and 24 and will cover a wide range of winemaking, viticultural and business-related topics. Bob Mignarri, EWE show manager, told Wine Business Monthly that the program in 2022 includes “a lot of speakers who haven’t participated before” and those speakers come from 11 states, Austria, Canada, France and Italy. Six of the ten winemaking sessions will be accompanied by wine tasting of varieties such as Grüner Veltliner, Blaufrankisch, Riesling and Pinot Nor, and of different wine treatments, including large format oak containers, barrel alternatives, and chaptalization trials. One viticulture session on new cold-hardy, mildew-resistant hybrids from Italy will also include a tasting.

A Welcome Wine Reception will take place on March 22 and the Annual Industry Celebration Dinner, followed by the ASEV-Eastern Section Live Auction, will be held the evening of March 23.

Hotel room blocks for EWE will also open for reservations on November 10 at several Syracuse hotels. The Marriott Syracuse Downtown is located a block and a half from the Oncenter; the Crowne Plaza Syracuse, while a half mile from the Oncenter, has a complimentary shuttle service to the Oncenter and the airport; and while the Doubletree by Hilton Syracuse is ten minutes from downtown Syracuse, it also has a free Oncenter shuttle.

Wine Business Monthly and Wines Vines Analytics are the official sponsors of the Eastern Winery Exposition, and the conference sponsor is Prestige Merchandizing. Media sponsors include Beverage Trade Network, Wine Business Monthly, Wine & Craft Beverage News, and Wine & Country, and associate sponsors are Prestige Merchandising, Fermentis by Lesaffre, Novavine, GOfermentor, Farm Credit East, and ThermoFisher Scientific.

More information about both the EWE and LTS conferences, including registration, program content, speakers, other events, and registration for the conferences and for hotels is available at www.easternwineryexposition.com.