Winemaking Episodes

The economics of Sparkling Wine

Drawing on her background in winemaking and Silicon Valley, Ashley Leonard, Founder and CEO of InnoVint, has developed a modern platform that tracks everything from the vineyard to the bottle. From getting granular with COGS to automating TTB compliance, InnoVint gets the winery out of spreadsheets and into a modern, cloud-based, mobile-centric system. This system is designed to accomplish InnoVint’s mission: Helping wineries run better businesses. Detailed Show Notes: InnoVint overview - ...

Making wine in California, France, and even Serbia, consulting winemaker Julien Fayard has a broad view of the winemaking world. His constant monitoring, evaluation, and investment in winemaking technology benefit both his own and his clients’ wineries. Julien offers insight into winemaking technology on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as some of the specific technologies he utilizes. Detailed Show Notes: Julien’s background: French, came to the US in 2006 and worked for Phillipe Melka...

Duncan Shouler explains how the 0% range was developed, the critical elements of non-alcoholic wine, the current market conditions, and what it will take for the non-alcoholic wine market to succeed.

Frustrated by a lack of understanding of consumer taste preferences and a lack of data-driven decision-making about winemaking, Katerina Axelsson, CEO and Co-Founder of Tastry, built an AI and chemical analysis system to solve this. With custom-built algorithms that take chemical analysis and develop flavor profiles and a database of consumer taste preferences that map to the US’s 248M adults, Tastry is paving a new, innovative way to use data to make and market wine. Detailed Show Notes: ...

Katie Jackson leads the Sustainability Team of Jackson Family Wines, she describes some of the major programs they’ve undertaken.

Silver Oak, the 1st existing winery and new build winery to be LEED Platinum certified and be at the forefront of energy efficiency for the last 20 years.

With an action plan that covers five key climate change strategies, Bordeaux can become carbon neutral by 2050.

Robert Morris, founder of Grand Cru Custom Crush in Sonoma County explains the benefits of the custom crush model, how it works, and how Grand Cru has changed the custom crush game.

Roman discusses how co-ops work, how they pay their growers to get to zero income, and how managing a co-op is different from other companies.

Washington State’s leading wine company, describes what he’s learnt and the process of collaborating with other luminaries of the wine world, including the Antinori Family, Dr Loosen, and Michel Gassier from the Rhone Valley.

Francois Margot, Director of Sales, North America describes how Diam is creating corks with choices and consistency for aging, oxygen transfer, and initial oxygen release.

We discuss the various uses of cork, the differences between corks and other closures, and how the business of cork has evolved over the decades.

As a 7th generation family-owned and run company, being sustainable means building towards the future for the next generations.

The launch of the Collection series, evolving the non-vintage Brut Premier into a multi-vintage wine that represents the best of the base vintage, the house style, and the push for freshness.

The low and no alcohol wine space is growing rapidly. Enough so that a company specializing in spinning cone technology to reduce alcohol, ConeTech, changed their name to BevZero.

Jason explains the rationale, strategy, and process of going bag-in-box and for other alternative packaging.

Having studied what was important to wine consumers working at Oddbins, a British wine retailer, Nicholas Hammeken, Founder and Director of Innovation at Hammeken Cellars, founded a company focused on crafting Spanish wines that match consumer preferences

One of the world’s leading grape geneticists, Carole Meredith, Professor Emerita of UC Davis and owner of Lagier Meredith winery, has spent decades identifying and profiling grape varieties. It was so interesting that the interview has been split into tw

One of the world’s leading grape geneticists, Carole Meredith, Professor Emerita of UC Davis, and owner of Lagier Meredith winery, has spent decades identifying and profiling grape varieties. It was so interesting that the interview has been split into t

Laura Catena, Managing Director of Catena Zapata, Founder of the Catena Institute, and Owner of Luca Winery, used to frequently get asked, “What’s next for Argentina after Malbec.” While Argentina has diversity in wine, its core calling card, quality, an

A tasting term, specific elements in the soil and grapes, and even geological elements and rock types; the term minerality in the context of wine has taken up a rather broad usage. Robert and Peter explore a bit of the science, the use of the term as a t

In this episode, Robert Vernick and Peter Yeung interview Carlos de Jesus, Director of Marketing and Communications for Amorim Cork in Portugal, the largest cork company in the world which is celebrating its 150 year anniversary in 2020.  We discuss the v