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

Topic: The Tasting Room Formula: AI Search Optimization + The Email Loyalty Loop

As the search landscape rapidly shifts from traditional SEO to AI, getting found requires a new approach. This session shows you how to make your winery discoverable today and use email marketing to keep 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.

Panel Topic: Designing search and email messaging to reach your customers

Panelists:
Greg O’Loughlin, Marketing Lead, Mazza Wines and Five & 20 Spirits and Brewing (large PA and NY operation, multi-channel, contract marketing.)
Dustin Tarpine, Co-Owner & Manager, Cedar Rose Vineyards, NJ

Rebecca Ritz, Founder, Bauerhaus Design

Breakout Session:
Guided by Rebecca Ritz, breakout groups will be led by panelists from Part 1 of the marketing session. Work with like-minded wineries to develop strategies to be discovered online and extend the guest experience. To get the most out of the session, bring a laptop and examples of your current email marketing material.

Panelists:
Greg O’Loughlin, Marketing Lead, Mazza Wines and Five & 20 Spirits and Brewing (large PA and NY operation, multi-channel, contract marketing.)
Dustin Tarpine, Co-Owner & Manager, Cedar Rose Vineyards, NJ

Zane Stevens, Founder & Director, Protea Financial

Topic: Put Your Money Where It Matters

This is not a costing 101 session. Zane Stevens will open with the question: What your numbers are missing? He will discuss the SKU that lost money 3,500 times and explore what lesson can be learned by all sizes and business models. The panel will discuss real numbers and real lessons learned.

Panel Topic: Cost Discovery: What Did You Find?

Panelists:
Francesca Galarus, Co-Owner, Mural City Cellars, PA (Urban winery and wine bar.)
Melissa Aellen, Director of Winery Operations, Linganore Winecellars, MD (Large winery with events, multiple locations, and retail outpost.)
Alejandro “Alex” Castillo-Llamas, Co-Founder and Winemaker, Fallen Mountain Wines, CO (New winery with a limited release, open only for private tastings, and a winemaker’s perspective.)
Additional Speakers: TBA

Zane Stevens, Founder & Director, Protea Financial

Breakout 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. To get the most out of the session, bring your computer and P&L.

Panel Topic: Decision Rules: How Do They Apply to You?

Panelists:
Francesca Galarus, Co-Owner, Mural City Cellars, PA (Urban winery and wine bar.)
Melissa Aellen, Director of Winery Operations, Linganore Winecellars, MD (Large winery with events, multiple locations, and retail outpost.)
Alejandro “Alex” Castillo-Llamas, Co-Founder and Winemaker, Fallen Mountain Wines, CO (New winery with a limited release, open only for private tastings, and a winemaker’s perspective.)
Additional Speakers: TBA

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

Topic: From Surviving to Thriving: Operational Strategies to Reduce Burnout and Build an Empowered Winery Team

Winery teams have always pushed through our industry’s unique challenges, but today’s pressures make those demands harder to sustain. The leading causes are usually operational rather than personal, which means leaders are best positioned to reduce burnout on their teams. Through real-world examples, audience polling, and hands-on planning, participants will begin building a Strategic Empowerment Plan for their own team. Instead of leaving with another overwhelming to-do list, each attendee will identify one key operational change they can implement 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

Topic: Beyond the Transaction: Turning Winery Data into Growth

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 explore how winery size, business model, and sales strategy should shape the technology you use, the metrics you track, and how that data should inform your digital customer journey. We’ll compare leading approaches with a practical look at functionality, trade-offs, cost, and fit for different types of wineries.

Panel Topic: Turning Metrics into Action: What business insights are you deriving from your data, and how are you acting on those insights?

Panelists:
Lisa Sannino, Founder, Sannino Vineyard, NY (Discussing OrderPort.)
Rachel Holman, Owner & CEO, Les Bourgeois Vineyards, MO (Discussing Toast.)
Additional Speakers: TBA

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

Breakout Session:
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. To get the most out of the session, bring your computer.

Panelists:
Lisa Sannino, Founder, Sannino Vineyard, NY (Discussing OrderPort.)
Rachel Holman, Owner & CEO, Les Bourgeois Vineyards, MO (Discussing Toast.)
Additional Speakers: TBA

Julie Peterson, Managing Partner, The Marq Wine Group

This is a must-attend session for wine professionals serving on association boards. Julie Peterson will examine what effective board service looks like and what separates boards that advance a region from those that hold it back. 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, and 3) guidance on contributing constructively to their boards for the benefit of the entire region.

(This is a closed session for wineries who serve on association boards.)

A unique opportunity for wine association leaders. As association funding becomes less predictable, diversifying revenue streams is more important than ever. Whether your organization is volunteer-led with no dedicated funding or state-funded and seeking additional revenue under your own control, you will meet peers from other states facing the same challenges.

(Closed-door and limited to association professionals.)