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| Day #1: Friday, May 15, 2009 • 9:30 - 10:30 a.m. |
| Mastering Maceration – How long should you let your red grape juice ferment on the skins? Tannins, color and flavor compounds are all extracted during maceration and give red wines their structure. Learn about the keys to running a productive maceration, specific techniques and what to avoid to bring out the best in your red wines. |
SPEAKER
Chik Brenneman
Winery Manager & Winemaker
Department of Viticulture
and Enology, UC Davis
|
| Wine Kit First Aid – Even good wine kits can sometimes take a bad turn. Off colors, bad odors and stuck fermentations are just a few potential troubles. Learn how to fix common mistakes made during your kit winemaking from Tim Vandergrift who answers these kinds of questions for customers at kit manufacturer Winexpert. |
SPEAKER
Tim Vandergrift
Technical Services Manager
Winexpert, Inc. |
| Vine Pruning Strategies – Grapevines require careful pruning to
promote balanced growth and better fruit quality. Understand the basic
pruning styles including cane pruning and spur pruning and how to
properly space shoots to gain the right exposure to sun and air
circulation. Learn the techniques and strategies you need for your home
vineyard. |
SPEAKER
Dr. Stephen J. Krebs
Instructor & Coordinator
Viticulture & Winery
Technology Program,
Napa Valley College
|
| Friday, May 15, 2009 • 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. |
| Understanding the Role of pH and Acidity – pH and acidity are two intertwined keys to better wines. The more you know about the important impact of pH and acidity on the quality of the wine in your glass, the better a winemaker you can be when faced with key decisions. Gain a greater understanding of pH and acidity with award-winning professional winemaker Pat Henderson of Kenwood Vineyards. |
SPEAKER
Pat Henderson
Senior Winemaker
Kenwood Vineyards
|
| Fermentation Troubleshooting – Your wine won’t ferment. It ferments too quickly. It ferments too slowly. It won’t ferment at all! There can be plenty of troubles along with those fermentation bubbles. Find out how to identify (and fix!) the common challenges facing winemaking during fermentation. |
SPEAKER
Sigrid Gertsen-Briand
Technical Services Manager
Lallemand
|
| Choosing a Trellis System for Your Vineyard – Use the right trellis system and your vineyard will reach its potential, but choose the wrong trellis and you can have a negative impact on the quality of your fruit. What are the keys to picking the right trellis system for your vineyard? Learn about the various trellis options available and how to determine what will work best for your grapevines including understanding how the demands of vine vigor impact your choice of the right system. |
SPEAKER
Dr. Stephen J. Krebs
Instructor and Coordinator
Viticulture and Winery
Technology Program,
Napa Valley College
|
| Friday, May 15, 2009 • 12:15 - 1:30 p.m. |
|
LUNCH AND KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Michael Beaulac, Winemaker, St. Supéry Vineyards & Winery
Hear from award-winning winemaker Michael Beaulac about the keys to producing great wine –
no matter the size of your batch. |
SPEAKER
Michael Beaulac
Winemaker
St. Supéry
Vineyards & Winery |
| Friday, May 15, 2009 • 1:45 - 2:45 p.m. |
| Measuring and Adjusting pH & Acidity – Measuring and adjusting acid levels and the pH of your wine is an important skill as a winemaker. Mother nature doesn’t always cooperate so you need to know how to tweak the numbers to produce the best wine you can produce. Learn when and how to test and measure both acid and pH levels in your wine and then the techniques best suited to raise or lower the numbers. |
SPEAKER
Pat Henderson
Senior Winemaker
Kenwood Vineyards
|
| Avoiding Microbial Problems during Yeast and ML Fermentation – Fermenting wine is fertile ground for wild yeasts and other microbes. Learn how to protect your fermenting wine from unseen microbes and have a healthy yeast and malolactic fermentation. Understand the keys to controlling spoilage microorganisms during this critical time in your wine’s life and avoid the heartache of a ruined batch. |
SPEAKER
Dr. Lisa Van de Water
The Vinotec Group
|
|
Napa Cab Roundtable
The Napa Valley is known for producing some of the best Cabernet Sauvignon in the world.
Learn some of the winemaking techniques and keys used in the Napa Valley to producing a great Cab from three local professional winemakers. |
SPEAKERS
Michael Beaulac
Winemaker
St. Supéry
Vineyards & Winery
Jef L. Stebben
Stebben Wine Consultants
Bruce Devlin
Winemaker
Ballentine Vineyards |
| Friday, May 15, 2009 • 3:15 - 4:15 p.m. |
|
WineMaker Workshop:Wine Component Tasting
Essential wine components such as sugar, alcohol, acid, tannins and
oak will be served in doctored wine samples to all conference attendees
to gain a better understanding how these components blend together to
form a balanced wine. You’ll gain a great appreciation for your own
personal preferences and get to know your own palate as you explore
these components with Tim Vandergrift.
|
SPEAKER
Tim Vandergrift
Technical Services Manager
Winexpert, Inc.
|
| Friday, May 15, 2009 • 4:45 - 5:45 p.m. |
| The Fine Art of Fining – The first thing you notice when you are handed a glass of wine is its color and clarity. Fining is one of the easiest ways to improve the clarity of your wine. Learn how fining agents work to remove suspended solids as well as how to use various popular fining agents in your winemaking. |
SPEAKER
Bob Peak
Partner
The Beverage People |
| Traditional (and not) Sparkling Winemaking – Learn how to produce your own sparkling wine at home with professional winemaker and author Daniel Pambianchi. He’ll walk through the steps to the classic méthode Champenoise as well putting other more offbeat techniques to use including using dialysis tubing (seriously) to produce your own great sparkling wine. |
SPEAKER
Daniel Pambianchi
General Manager
Maleta Estate Winery
Technical Editor
WineMaker magazine
|
| Growing Grapes Q & A – Bring your most puzzling grape growing questions to this session featuring professional vineyard manager and WineMaker “Backyard Vines” columnist Wes Hagen. Wes will field questions for a full hour and help the audience troubleshoot common and not so common problems. |
SPEAKER
Wes Hagen
Vineyard Manager
Clos Pepe Vineyard
|
| Friday, May 15, 2009 • 6:00 - 10:00 p.m. |
WINEMAKER WINE SWAP & TASTING PARTY
Pack some of your favorite handmade wines for the conference because here’s a great chance to exchange wines (and ideas) with hobbyists from across North America. Bring a bottle of your own wine and take another wine away at our Wine Swap. Plus, regional winemaking clubs will be pouring wines made by their members to sample. Throw in a buffet highlighting regional foods and cheese and it is a great opportunity to get to know speakers and attendees and talk winemaking all evening. |
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| Day #2: Saturday, May 16, 2009 • 9:30 a.m - 10:30 a.m. |
| Keys to Avoiding Oxidation – Oxygen can negatively impact your wine’s color, aroma and flavor. Understand the harmful effects of oxidation on your wine and what you can do as a winemaker to prevent the possibility of your wine becoming oxidized. |
SPEAKER
Chik Brenneman
Winery Manager and Winemaker
Department of Viticulture
and Enology,
University of California at Davis
|
|
Vineyard Pest Management – It turns out you are not the only one who is interested in harvesting your homegrown grapes. Find out the keys to control critters of all types, from bugs to deer, from hurting your future harvest. |
SPEAKER
Wes Hagen
Vineyard Manager
Clos Pepe Vineyard
|
| Cold vs. Warm Climate Red Grape Techniques – A Cabernet Sauvignon grape grown in a warm climate will have much different specs than the same Cabernet grape variety grown in a cold climate region. Learn the right techniques and climate-dependent approaches to maximize the potential of your red grapes grown in cold vs. warm regions with Peter Brehm, who has decades of experiences growing and buying grapes from a broad range of climates. |
SPEAKER
Peter Brehm
President
Brehm Vineyards
|
| Saturday, May 16, 2009 • 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. |
| Measuring MLF – Carrying out a malolactic fermentation is not difficult, but you need to know how to monitor the progress and not leave the end result to guesswork if you want to be a successful winemaker. Learn how to use paper chromatography to track MLF progress and how to properly interpret the results. |
SPEAKER
Sigrid Gertsen-Briand
Technical Services Manager
Lallemand
|
| Expert Wine Kit Tips – Think “outside the box” and take your kit winemaking to the next level with these tips. Learn how to get even more out of your wine kit and ways to get creative when approaching making wine from your next kit. |
SPEAKER
Lone Jorgensen
Winemaker
RJ Spagnols
|
| Avoiding Microbial Problems in the Cellar and Bottle– Just because your wine has finished fermenting doesn’t mean you are safe from spoilage microbes. Learn how to protect your aging wine in the barrel or bottle from unseen microbes. Understand the keys to controlling spoilage microorganisms during this final stretch in your winemaking and avoid the heartache of a ruined batch. |
SPEAKER
Dr. Lisa Van de Water
The Vinotec Grou |
| Saturday, May 16, 2009 • 12:15 - 1:30 p.m. |
|
SATURDAY LUNCH AND KEYNOTE ADDRESS
WineMaker Columnists Q & A Live!
 Bring your best winemaking questions to today’s lunch! We have assembled all of our regular magazine columnists to field all winemaking questions from kits to growing grapes and everything in between. Don’t miss this chance to get help solving your wine problems from: Alison Crowe (“Wine Wizard”), Wes Hagen (“Backyard Vines”), Daniel Pambianchi (“Techniques”) and Tim Vandergrift (“Wine Kits”). Don’t be shy – ask away. |
| Saturday, May 16, 2009 • 1:45 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. |
| Using Liquid Wine Yeast Strains – For years professional brewers and homebrewers have primarily used liquid yeasts to produce award-winning beers. However, on the winemaking side, dried cultures dominate the wine yeast landscape with many hobby winemakers not having much knowledge or experience with liquid yeast. Now you can find out about more about liquid wine yeasts, how to use these cultures for your wines and get your questions answered by one of the largest liquid yeast companies in North America. |
SPEAKER
Neva Parker
Laboratory Manager
White Labs Pure Yeast Cultures
|
| Understanding Wine Aging – There are many myths and plenty of bad information out there about how a wine ages and how to determine when a wine is at its peak for drinking. You can use a basic knowledge of your wine’s chemistry and attributes to determine how long a wine can last and when it will be best to drink. Learn the keys to understanding the lifespan of your wines as well as how to age wine properly. |
SPEAKER
Bob Peak
Partner
The Beverage People
|
| Top 5 Winemaking Mistakes to Avoid – Napa-based professional winemaker Alison Crowe has answered hundreds of questions in her decade long role as WineMaker’s popular “Wine Wizard”. But certain common themes and mistakes have run through all those years of troubleshooting problems for hobby winemakers. Find out her top 5 winemaking mistakes to avoid culled from answering so many pleas for help over the years. |
SPEAKER
Alison Crowe
Winemaker
Plata Wine Partners
|
| Saturday, May 16, 2009 • 3:15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. |
WineMaker Workshop: Wine Defects Tasting – Return of the Bad & Ugly
At the 2008 Conference, award-winning professional winemaker Jef Stebben held a standing room only tasting of defective wine samples that proved to be one of the conference’s most popular seminars. For the 2009 conference, he’s back with more doctored samples as he leads all conference attendees through the dark side. Here’s your chance to smell and taste defects and truly understand and learn to identify them (if unfortunately you ever need to!) |
SPEAKER
Jef L. Stebben
Stebben Wine Consultants
|
| Saturday, May 16, 2009 • 4:45 p.m. - 5:45 p.m. |
| Oak Alternatives – Adjusting your wine for taste and clarity can be done with additions to your next batch. Learn when and how to add items like oak, sweeteners and fining agents. Plus, Bob Peak will offer some examples of wines to view and taste so you can better understand the impact of the additions on these finished wines. |
SPEAKER
Tristan Johnson
Manager
MoreWine!
|
| Wine Kit Blending – Learn the keys to successfully blending different finished kit wines together and how blending can allow you to build up your cellar with an even greater variety of wines. Find out how to decide what kit wines to blend as well as how to conduct test trials before a larger blend is made. |
SPEAKER
Lone Jorgensen
Winemaker
RJ Spagnols |
| Macroaeration and Microoxygenation of Wine – Can your wine actually benefit from oxygen? Learn how macroaerating wine can produce a softer, more fruity wine with more color stability and how a small, controlled amount of oxygen during aging can help wine reach its full potential and increase flavor complexity while softening tannins. Find out how oxygen can also work for your wine, instead of just against it. |
SPEAKER
Daniel Pambianchi
General Manager
Maleta Estate Winery
Technical Editor
WineMaker magazine |
| Saturday, May 16, 2009 • 7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. |
|
2009 WINEMAKER INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR WINE COMPETITION AWARDS DINNER
 Find out first who is a medalist in the world’s largest competition for amateur wines! Last year over 4,300 wines competed. What wines will be judged the best? The official results will be revealed for the very first time during this awards dinner.
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Conference 
