WineMaker GaragisteCon Online

Friday, February 21, 2025 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Eastern)

WineMaker GaragisteCon Online, $74 

Full Day of Online Seminars and Q&A Panels
Access to Video Recordings of All Sessions
3 Learning Tracks: Business/Sales, Winery Operations, and Start-Ups
Questions Answered Live by Industry Experts
Small Wineries and Wineries in Planning
Q&A Sessions with Leading Small Winery Industry Suppliers

Your GaragisteCon Online Registration includes:
• Full access to 10 seminars on business & sales, winery operations, and start-ups
• Full access to recordings of all GaragisteCon Online sessions
• Full access to links to pdfs of GaragisteCon Online Session Presentations
• Questions answered by wine industry experts and fellow attendees
• Q&A sessions with leading winemaker industry suppliers

2025 GaragisteCon Schedule
(All times Eastern)

Friday, February 21, 2025

11 a.m. to Noon

Tips for Improving Winery Workflow During Harvest – Winery Operations Track

Any winery no matter the size needs to have a solid workflow plan in place for the long hours and frenzy of harvest. With so much going on mistakes can happen and some tasks can be better organized to reduce work and improve the flow. Pro winemaker Maureen Macdonald works at a small winery and will share her ideas learned on the job of ways your winery can improve your workflow during the critical long days of harvest.

Maureen Macdonald
Winemaker, Hawk Ridge Winery
“Varietal Focus” Columnist, WineMaker Magazine

5 Legal Mistakes Made by Small Wineries (and How to Avoid Them!) – Business Operations Track

From alcohol regulatory compliance to managing staff, legal risk is present in every winery every single day. And while your time might be more enjoyable working on making and selling great wine, Craft Beverage Lawyer Matthew McLaughlin will provide you examples of the five greatest legal risks facing small wineries and discuss strategies and best practices you can implement to mitigate that risk and comply with alcohol regulations.

Matthew McLaughlin
Founder, McLaughlin PC

12:15 to 12:45 p.m.

Garagiste Sponsor Q&A – Get your questions answered by industry vendors specializing in small-scale wineries

1 to 2 p.m.

New Wines to Attract New Customers: Keys to Making Great Pet Nats & Orange Wines – Winery Operations Track

There is no ignoring the current wine sales data that younger generations are particularly drawn to trendy wine styles such as pet nat and orange wines. As a small-scale winery you can add these to your portfolio and expand your customer base. Pro winemaker Phil Plummer has been successfully crafting award-winning pet nats and orange wines at his Finger Lakes winery for several years and he’ll share his winemaking tips and advice on these two hot style categories.

Phil Plummer
Head Winemaker, Montezuma Winery

Secrets of Wine Club Success – Business Operations Track

Wine Club sales are a financial powerhouse for small-scale wineries. You get to keep the full margin from your wine sale while establishing a relationship with the end customer drinking your wine. But what are the current best practices to maximize your current wine club or start one up successfully if you don’t have one in place? Tasting room consultant Craig Root has help dozens of wineries both fine-tune existing wine clubs or start up new club and he’ll help you better understand and take full advantage of this critical part to any small winery’s financial success.

Craig Root
Lecturer, UC-Davis Continuing and Professional Education
President, Craig Root & Associates

2:15 – 3:15 p.m.

Garagiste Sponsor Q&A – Get your questions answered by industry vendors specializing in small-scale wineries

3:30 – 4:30 p.m.

Winemaking Protocols to Improve Quality – Winery Operations Track

Pat Henderson has run several wineries’ operations, but he also has extensive experience as a winemaking consultant and educator helping other wineries improve their wine qualities by establishing the right protocols and procedures. He’ll share with you an actionable list of ideas you can put into use at your winery to make better wine. Get ready to learn from his decades of experience working at his own wineries as well as helping other wineries to put better protocols in place to make better wine.

Pat Henderson
President, About Wine Consulting
Winemaking Instructor, UC-Davis Extension and Santa Rosa Junior College

Generation Wine Marketing to Boomers, X’s, Millennials, and Z’s – Business Operations Track

Four different generations of wine customers require some different marketing strategies to maximize your message and wine sales. Understanding how to be more effective with each age group can result in more bottles sold and can open your eyes to new possibilities for experiential marketing, sales beyond wine, and non-traditional partnerships to grow your small winery business.

Donniella Winchell
Executive Director, Ohio Wine Producers Association

4:45 – 5:15 p.m.

Garagiste Sponsor Q&A – Get your questions answered by industry vendors specializing in small-scale wineries

5:30 – 6:30 p.m.

Working with a Custom Crush Partner – Winery Operations Track

Custom crush curious? By understanding the demands, costs, and possible pitfalls of the custom processing environment, small-scale winemakers can find success crushing on someone else’s pad. The keys are Identify your needs, understand the risks and rewards of custom crush vs. alternating proprietorship vs. keeping all your winemaking in house. Learn the pros and cons of using a custom crush and how to find the right custom crush partner, evaluating contracts, and having a handle on the resulting cost-of-goods producing wine.

Alison Crowe
Vice President of Winemaking and Partner, Plata Wine Partners
Columnist, WineMaker Magazine

Understand your Winery’s Key Financial Numbers – Business Operation Track

Learn what the key accounting and financial guidelines should be for your small winery so you can understand your numbers more accurately. You’ll learn from winery-specialist CPA Geni Whitehouse and leave with better ideas of benchmark numbers to keep your winery’s projections more realistic and understand some of key figures and metrics to keep your business performing to its full potential and to be more successful.

Geri Whitehouse, CPA
Winery CPA Consultant,  Brotemarkle, Davis & Co.
Founder, The Impactful Advisor

6:45 – 7:45 p.m.

QC Tips for Small Wineries – Winery Operations Track

It doesn’t require much space or expense to put a solid quality control program in place for your small winery. Learn how to add the basic lab gear you need for testing your wines and improve quality control. Small winery co-owner Chik Brenneman will cover the QC tests you should be running no matter your scale and the lab equipment you can add cost-effectively to help you make better wine.

Chik Brenneman
Winemaker and Partner, Baker Family Wines
“Advanced Winemaking” Columnist, WineMaker Magazine

Keys to a Successful Small Winery Start-Up – Business Operations Track

Do you have a dream to go from amateur winemaker to commercial winery owner? This presentation will shed light on what is needed on both the winemaking and business side to successfully start a small winery.  Jenne Baldwin-Eaton has helped many people launch wineries and she share helpful recommendations and lessons learned from real-life case studies of other home winemakers that have recently made their dream of opening a small commercial winery a reality.

Jenne Baldwin-Eaton
Wine Educator and Retired Enology and Viticulture Instructor

Click here to register for WineMaker GaragisteCon Online for $74

Advanced Strategies to Grow Better Grapes in Established Home Vineyards with Wes Hagen

Friday, August 9, 2024, 4 to 6 pm (Eastern)

REPLAY: Advanced Strategies to Grow Better Grapes in Established Home Vineyards with Wes Hagen, $49

Don’t miss this two-hour online workshop focused on ways to grow better grapes in your existing small-scale home vineyard. WineMaker Magazine’s longtime viticulture guru Wes Hagen will lead this live seminar covering pruning, watering, pest control, troubleshooting, harvest decisions, and other keys you need to know to be more successful with your established vineyard. Learn from his decades of professional vineyard management and get your questions answered live online. This workshop will be recorded and you’ll have access to a video of this workshop once it is completed.

Click here to register for Advanced Strategies to Grow Better Grapes in Established Home Vineyards with Wes Hagen for $49