Wine East Features
Exposition Fills in Program Gaps
A practical and relevant seminar program for eastern wineries and growers has been finalized for the Eastern Winery Exposition scheduled to take place March 7 and 8 in Lancaster, Pa. Industry leaders, most of them from the East, will speak about eastern-oriented enology, viticulture, marketing and economic subjects. Richard Leahy, conference director for the Exposition, told Wines & Vines, “It’s important to learn something new. We’re trying not only to present new technology, but new ways of dealing with new challenges.”
Jerry Forest of Pennsylvania’s Buckingham Valley Vineyards will participate in the session about new winemaking technology. “I will discuss the relatively new process of clearing juice through flotation and the principle of how it works,” he said. “I will detail our use of flotation over the past five harvest seasons—the results, successes and failures. I will also review some of the units available and costs.” In the same session, winemaker J.L. Groux of Stratus Vineyards in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, will discuss his experience enhancing a large geothermal system in a winery environment.
Two sessions—one on optimizing varietal fruit character in red hybrids, and a similar one on Cabernet Franc—will feature speakers from different parts of the eastern U.S. discussing not only what they do under normal conditions but also how they adapted to the tough growing season in 2011. In the red hybrid seminar, Ian Barry of Keuka Lake Vineyards, Brad Knapp of Pennsylvania’s Pinnacle Ridge Vineyards and Dr. Joseph Fiola of the University of Maryland Extension will focus on Chambourcin, while Chris Gran¬strom of Vermont’s Lincoln Peak Vineyard will talk about the two very different styles of wine he makes from Marquette and Frontenac. The two speakers in the Cabernet Franc session will be Mark Chien from Penn State Extension and Adam McTaggart from Boxwood Winery in Virginia.
Virginia-based viticulturist Lucie Morton will present a session discussing the benefits and mechanics of close vine spacing and cane pruning. As she describes it, a new generation of vineyard growers is finding success in the production of dry table wines through the use of a classic European approach that starts with closer vine spacing. In addition to her own session, Morton will moderate a vineyard-spraying workshop with panelists Bryan Hed from Penn State and Dr. Andrew Landers from Cornell University. Dr. Landers will examine many of the new techniques that have been developed in recent years to improve the targeting of sprays and enhance spray coverage.
Richard Carey of Vitis Research in Lancaster, Pa., and Shepherd Rouse of Virginia’s Rockbridge Vineyards will evaluate new packaging and closure technology. The pair will discuss new ways for small and medium-sized eastern wineries to use a variety of non-cork closures. They’ll also weigh the advantages, disadvantages, costs and trade-offs of non-glass packaging.
Lisa Van de Water and Michael Jones will compare new and established microbiology technology and products. Van de Water, an internationally known consultant in wine microbiology, will discuss the integration of traditional and modern methods of tracking wine microbes during fermentation, cellaring and bottling. Jones, the point person in the field for the fermentation division of Scott Labs, will cover two relatively new products, chitosan (for treating wine contaminated with Brettanomyces), and three ways of using yeast encapsulated in alginate beads.
Ed Boyce of Black Ankle Vineyards in Maryland, Stephen Rigby of Hauser Estate Winery in Pennsylvania and Tina Hazlitt of Sawmill Creek Vineyards in New York will consider how economic sustainability relates to choice of cultivars. According to Boyce, “The economics of cultivar choice is a multifaceted concept, but in my experience, the best way to choose what to plant is to start with a marketing plan for a wine and work backward from there. I will discuss the quality and consistency of the wine from 12 different vinifera cultivars that I grow, while factoring in customer perceptions of value for the different wines.”
Not many people are as knowledgeable about small winery economics as Dr. Gerald B. White, professor emeritus at Cornell University. His talk will include a review of the capital investment and cash flow for the first 10 years of a typical 10,000-case winery, various business models to consider and expected yields, grape prices and costs for the major vinifera and hybrid varieties of grapes grown in the East. For those who are considering entering the wine business, he will discuss which should be started first, the vineyard or the winery, and why.
Newcomers starting a winery will benefit from information and advice given from some of the top authorities in the East. In addition to Dr. White’s discussion of economics, another session of importance to newcomers will be the talk about winery sanitation conducted by Tom Payette and John McClain, president of McClain Ozone Inc. A wider range of topics related to successfully starting wineries will be given in a roundtable workshop offered by Richard Carey and Tom Payette together with Brian Roeder, whose Barrel Oak Winery in Virginia became a successful destination winery in less than four years. (See “Community-Based Direct Marketing” in Wines & Vines’ January 2012 issue.) In that time period, Barrel Oak Winery has had $6 million in sales and regularly has as many as 1,000 guests per day.
On March 9, Mark Chien and Joe Fiola will present an all-day new grapegrower workshop (for which there will be an additional charge).
Two marketing sessions will be of special interest. Ohio Wine Producers Association executive director Donniella Winchell and Derek Whittington of Tassel Ridge Winery in Iowa will present a program to discuss effective social media networking. Not only is it necessary to decide which vehicles work for a given business, there is an ever-expanding number of platforms in cyberspace as well as the question of finding time to commit to an effective program. Whittington will participate in a second session about wine clubs with Patty Held of Missouri-based Patty Held Winery Consulting and Theresa Dorr, president and CEO of Active Club Management as well as the Wine Club Boot Camp. Attendees will be presented with new ideas to take back to their wineries, and open discussion with the audience will ensure that everyone’s questions and challenges can be addressed.
Linda Jones McKee, editor of the Wine East section in Wines & Vines magazine and president of Tamanend Winery in Lancaster, Pa., will summarize the Wine Market Council Annual Report on The American Wine Consumer in 2012. This report is taken from consumer focus groups around the country and tracks such important metrics as frequency of wine consumption, frequency and dollar value of consumption patterns by gender and age, and the popularity of regional wine.
The program will open Wednesday with a plenary session, Winegrowing and the Internet, presented by Tom Payette, a hands-on and analytical wine consultant from Virginia who has had 27 years of experience serving clients in the East. His insights regarding whether to use the Internet to obtain winemaking knowledge should be a fitting start to the sessions that follow.
A raffle will benefit the scholarship fund of the Eastern Section of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture. The Eastern Section annually awards scholarships to students pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees in enology or viticulture, and 50% of proceeds from the raffle will benefit the ASEV-ES scholarship fund.
Jerry Forest of Pennsylvania’s Buckingham Valley Vineyards will participate in the session about new winemaking technology. “I will discuss the relatively new process of clearing juice through flotation and the principle of how it works,” he said. “I will detail our use of flotation over the past five harvest seasons—the results, successes and failures. I will also review some of the units available and costs.” In the same session, winemaker J.L. Groux of Stratus Vineyards in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, will discuss his experience enhancing a large geothermal system in a winery environment.
Two sessions—one on optimizing varietal fruit character in red hybrids, and a similar one on Cabernet Franc—will feature speakers from different parts of the eastern U.S. discussing not only what they do under normal conditions but also how they adapted to the tough growing season in 2011. In the red hybrid seminar, Ian Barry of Keuka Lake Vineyards, Brad Knapp of Pennsylvania’s Pinnacle Ridge Vineyards and Dr. Joseph Fiola of the University of Maryland Extension will focus on Chambourcin, while Chris Gran¬strom of Vermont’s Lincoln Peak Vineyard will talk about the two very different styles of wine he makes from Marquette and Frontenac. The two speakers in the Cabernet Franc session will be Mark Chien from Penn State Extension and Adam McTaggart from Boxwood Winery in Virginia.
Virginia-based viticulturist Lucie Morton will present a session discussing the benefits and mechanics of close vine spacing and cane pruning. As she describes it, a new generation of vineyard growers is finding success in the production of dry table wines through the use of a classic European approach that starts with closer vine spacing. In addition to her own session, Morton will moderate a vineyard-spraying workshop with panelists Bryan Hed from Penn State and Dr. Andrew Landers from Cornell University. Dr. Landers will examine many of the new techniques that have been developed in recent years to improve the targeting of sprays and enhance spray coverage.
Richard Carey of Vitis Research in Lancaster, Pa., and Shepherd Rouse of Virginia’s Rockbridge Vineyards will evaluate new packaging and closure technology. The pair will discuss new ways for small and medium-sized eastern wineries to use a variety of non-cork closures. They’ll also weigh the advantages, disadvantages, costs and trade-offs of non-glass packaging.
Lisa Van de Water and Michael Jones will compare new and established microbiology technology and products. Van de Water, an internationally known consultant in wine microbiology, will discuss the integration of traditional and modern methods of tracking wine microbes during fermentation, cellaring and bottling. Jones, the point person in the field for the fermentation division of Scott Labs, will cover two relatively new products, chitosan (for treating wine contaminated with Brettanomyces), and three ways of using yeast encapsulated in alginate beads.
Ed Boyce of Black Ankle Vineyards in Maryland, Stephen Rigby of Hauser Estate Winery in Pennsylvania and Tina Hazlitt of Sawmill Creek Vineyards in New York will consider how economic sustainability relates to choice of cultivars. According to Boyce, “The economics of cultivar choice is a multifaceted concept, but in my experience, the best way to choose what to plant is to start with a marketing plan for a wine and work backward from there. I will discuss the quality and consistency of the wine from 12 different vinifera cultivars that I grow, while factoring in customer perceptions of value for the different wines.”
Not many people are as knowledgeable about small winery economics as Dr. Gerald B. White, professor emeritus at Cornell University. His talk will include a review of the capital investment and cash flow for the first 10 years of a typical 10,000-case winery, various business models to consider and expected yields, grape prices and costs for the major vinifera and hybrid varieties of grapes grown in the East. For those who are considering entering the wine business, he will discuss which should be started first, the vineyard or the winery, and why.
Newcomers starting a winery will benefit from information and advice given from some of the top authorities in the East. In addition to Dr. White’s discussion of economics, another session of importance to newcomers will be the talk about winery sanitation conducted by Tom Payette and John McClain, president of McClain Ozone Inc. A wider range of topics related to successfully starting wineries will be given in a roundtable workshop offered by Richard Carey and Tom Payette together with Brian Roeder, whose Barrel Oak Winery in Virginia became a successful destination winery in less than four years. (See “Community-Based Direct Marketing” in Wines & Vines’ January 2012 issue.) In that time period, Barrel Oak Winery has had $6 million in sales and regularly has as many as 1,000 guests per day.
On March 9, Mark Chien and Joe Fiola will present an all-day new grapegrower workshop (for which there will be an additional charge).
Two marketing sessions will be of special interest. Ohio Wine Producers Association executive director Donniella Winchell and Derek Whittington of Tassel Ridge Winery in Iowa will present a program to discuss effective social media networking. Not only is it necessary to decide which vehicles work for a given business, there is an ever-expanding number of platforms in cyberspace as well as the question of finding time to commit to an effective program. Whittington will participate in a second session about wine clubs with Patty Held of Missouri-based Patty Held Winery Consulting and Theresa Dorr, president and CEO of Active Club Management as well as the Wine Club Boot Camp. Attendees will be presented with new ideas to take back to their wineries, and open discussion with the audience will ensure that everyone’s questions and challenges can be addressed.
Linda Jones McKee, editor of the Wine East section in Wines & Vines magazine and president of Tamanend Winery in Lancaster, Pa., will summarize the Wine Market Council Annual Report on The American Wine Consumer in 2012. This report is taken from consumer focus groups around the country and tracks such important metrics as frequency of wine consumption, frequency and dollar value of consumption patterns by gender and age, and the popularity of regional wine.
The program will open Wednesday with a plenary session, Winegrowing and the Internet, presented by Tom Payette, a hands-on and analytical wine consultant from Virginia who has had 27 years of experience serving clients in the East. His insights regarding whether to use the Internet to obtain winemaking knowledge should be a fitting start to the sessions that follow.
A raffle will benefit the scholarship fund of the Eastern Section of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture. The Eastern Section annually awards scholarships to students pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees in enology or viticulture, and 50% of proceeds from the raffle will benefit the ASEV-ES scholarship fund.
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