Speakers: Hans Walter-Peterson, Andrew Holden

Description: The cost of growing grapes, like most things, is only going up. This session will walk through a “best estimate” of the costs to produce a ton of Riesling and Concord grapes in New York in 2025. These estimates will be based on input from growers and calculated using the ‘Vineyard Enterprise Management Tool’ created by Trent Davis and Miguel Gomez in 2020.

Speaker: Andrew Holden

Description: Deciding to uproot a vineyard is one of the hardest choices a grape grower can face. While vineyards in challenging regions like the eastern US must constantly adapt to shifting conditions - from unpredictable weather patterns to evolving market demands - knowing when to completely start over is not a straightforward choice. Our speaker will guide growers through the critical financial, agricultural, and strategic factors that should inform this pivotal decision.

Enology Track – Session A

Canandaigua Room (2nd floor)

A Mouse in the House: A Review of Mouse Taint

Speaker: Patrick Gibney

Description: ‘Mousiness’ is a rare but devastating wine taint that has historically stumped microbiologists and winemakers alike. This presentation will review the current understanding of mouse taint in wine and ciders, including its microbiological origins, and explore ways scientists are nibbling away at this complex and odiferous problem.

Viticulture Track – Session A

Lake Front Grand Ballroom

Measuring Vineyard Sustainability

Speakers: Deborah Aller, Justin Jackson

Description: Until recent years, the concept of ‘sustainability’ in New York vineyards has always been a bit amorphous, with no agreed upon definition or way to measure it--and as the saying goes, if you don’t measure it you can’t manage it. New tools are changing that reality though. This session will cover two different ways that they can start to measure and manage the sustainability of their vineyards, through the Soil Health Testing program at Cornell and the New York Wine & Grape Foundation’s VineBalance program.

Enology Track – Session B

Canandaigua Room (2nd floor)

1:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Aroma Chemistry for Winemakers: What Matters, What's Muted

Speaker: Beth Chang

Description: The multitude of chemicals contributing to wine aroma can seem confusing, ever-changing, and unpredictable. In this short session, we will explore what is known about several major chemical components responsible for wine aroma, their sensory impacts in a complex or combinatory matrix, and discuss practical measures that can be taken before, during, and after winemaking to achieve desired results.

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2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

MALB, BMSB, and now SLF: what’s the potential for the newest insect-related acronym to taint wines?

Speaker: Gavin Sacks

Description: The spotted lanternfly (SLF), an invasive pest, has been observed in several NY State grape growing regions in recent years. In addition to a loss of fruit quality due to vine damage, producers are concerned that mechanical co-harvesting of SLF with fruit will directly impact juice and wine flavor (e.g. off-aromas, bitterness), as has been observed for other insect pests like Multi-colored Asian Ladybeetle (MALB). This talk will review the chemical factors that result in some insect defects resulting in taints at low levels (e.g. MALB), and others like Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB) requiring much higher levels. New work to establish maximum recommended limits for SLF contamination in juice and wine grapes will also be discussed.

Viticulture Track – Session B

Finger Lakes Grand Ballroom

1:30 PM - 3:00 PM

Spotted Lanternfly and New York Vineyards

Pesticide credits will be available for this session

Description: There are now established populations of Spotted Lanternfly (SLF) in all the major grape growing regions of New York. This session will provide the industry with updates about the status of this invasive pest in New York grape regions, plus the latest information on how SLF can impact the health and productivity of grapevines, as well as new information about where and to what extent they will spread in the future.

1:30 PM - 1:50 PM

Current Status of SLF in New York Grape Regions

Speaker: Hans Walter-Peterson, Senior Extension Associate - Finger Lakes Grape Program

1:50 PM - 2:25 PM

Impact of SLF Feeding on Grapevine Physiology

Speaker: Drew Harner, Assistant Professor - Virginia Tech University

2:25 PM - 3:00 PM

Modeling Tree of Heaven and Spotted Lanternfly in the Landscape

Speaker: Sara Emery, Assistant Professor - Cornell AgriTech

Enology Track – Session C

Canandaigua Room (2nd floor)

3:15 PM - 4:15 PM

Body and Burn: The Sensory Effects of Alcohol or Lack Thereof

Speaker: Anna Katharine Mansfield 

Description: Alcohol does some heavy lifting in the sensory profile of wine and leaves a gaping hole when it’s removed- that's why creating low- or no-alcohol wine replacements is such a challenge. In this session we’ll review the effects of ethanol on wine aroma, taste, and tactile sensations. (With components tasting.)

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4:30 PM - 5:00 PM

Results from a recent national grape and wine industry needs assessment

Speaker: Cain Hickey

Description: A team of academic research and extension professionals in viticulture, enology, and marketing/social sciences has been collaborating on a USDA/NIFA SCRI Planning Project (USDA/NIFA Contract/Grant/Agreement Number 2023-51181-41189). Project goals included: (1) use a survey to gather and evaluate data about challenges and needs of the grape and wine industry in the U.S.; and (2) as a result, of (1), develop an informed project with research, extension, and outreach priorities. This presentation will review national, regional, and state needs assessment results, with an emphasis on the northeastern US and New York.

Viticulture Track – Session C

Lake Front Grand Ballroom

Pesticide credits will be available for this session

3:15 PM - 5:00 PM

Planning For, Identifying, and Managing Fungicide Resistance

Speakers: Michelle Moyer, Tim Miles

Description: Fungicide resistance in crop pathogens has long been a challenge in agriculture. While farmers previously could switch to newer chemicals when older ones failed, the limited development of new fungicides for grape diseases like downy mildew and botrytis makes preserving the effectiveness of current fungicides even more crucial. This session will discuss what fungicide resistance is and how it develops, how growers can determine if they might have a resistant pathogen population, and how to adjust their pest management strategies accordingly.

Viticulture & Enology – Session A
Lake Front Grand Ballroom

The State of the Wine & Grape Market - Local Perspectives

Speakers: Miguel Gomez, Meghan Frank, Mario Mazza, Juan Micieli-Martinez, Kyle Pallischeck, Stephen Taylor

Moderator: Brittany Gibson

Description: The wine market has experienced steady growth over the past decade or more, but recent downturns in sales are raising concerns about where the market might be headed. Is this just a temporary blip, or a more serious change in consumer habits that wine producers need to adapt to? This session will give attendees a flavor of how the wine market is fairing from a broader national perspective and from a more local view.

Viticulture & Enology – Session B
Lake Front Grand Ballroom

Rights, Responsibilities, and Resources for Grape Farmers and Farmworkers

Speakers: Mary Jo Dudley, Richard Stup

Description: The labor situation in agriculture has been a concern for a number of years now, but the Trump administration’s threats to detain or deport those who do much of the labor has raised those concerns even more. This session will focus on the rights and responsibilities of both farm employers and workers in the current environment, as well as resources available to farmworkers and farm owners to provide assistance to these valuable members of our community.

Speaker: Mike Colizzi

Viticulture & Enology – Session C
Lake Front Grand Ballroom

Product Options for Low/No Alcohol Consumers – WITH TASTING

1:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Speakers: Meg Hartman, Nancie Oxley, Ben Riccardi, Abby Wilkens

Moderator: Chris Gerling

Description: Consumer demand for low- or no-alcohol beverages is a hot topic right now, but most of the ways to fully de-alcoholize wine are expensive and result in pale shadows of the real thing. What options do smaller producers have when visitors want designated-driver friendly options? Attendees will hear from producers who braved the world of below-12 Brix while tasting no- and low-alcohol products.

Technology of Low/No Alcohol Wine Production

2:30 PM - 3:00 PM

Speaker: Christian Deakin

Description: A technical tour of the major dealcoholization technologies available today, and a peek into the new technologies emerging in the no/low space. Plus a brief overview of how a wine's chemistry changes as alcohol is removed, and characteristics that make a good base wine for no/low products.

Viticulture & Enology – Session D
Lake Front Grand Ballroom

Veraison to Harvest Goes World Wide Web: A New Tool for Industry

3:15 PM - 3:45 PM

Speakers: Jen Neubauer

Weather and Wine: Insights into Climate and Vintage

3:45 PM - 4:45 PM

Speakers: Hans Walter-Peterson, Peter Martini, Peter Weis, Jennifer Phillips Russo, Jeremy Schuster, Alice Wise, Chris Gerling

Description: We all know that the weather conditions in any given season have a large influence on the final quality of the harvested fruit and wine quality. Based on multiple years of data from the Veraison to Harvest project, we will see how our weather patterns have been influencing fruit ripening over recent years. Following that will be an overview of the 2024 season, a year that was mostly considered favorable for fruit quality but also had some challenges. We will also look at how 2024 compared to 2021, the previous year we had a large crop in the Finger Lakes, but a very different season.