Conference Agenda Thursday, March 5 Industry Seminar: The Making of Hard Cider, Fruit Wines and Mead Presented by Shea A.J Comfort, The Yeast Whisperer 8:00 a.m Registration Opens Coffee and continental breakfast 9:00 a.m Session begins 12:00 p.m Break for Lunch 1:00 p.m. Session Continues 4:00 p.m. Adjourn Friday, March 6 7:30 a.m. Registration Opens Coffee and continental breakfast 8:15 a.m. New Mexico Department of Agriculture Up Date Presented by Jeff Witte, NM Secretary of Agriculture 9:00 a.m. Bench Trials Presented by Shea A.J Comfort, The Yeast Whisperer 10:30 a.m. Break 10:45 a.m. How Service, Sales and Knowledge Can Set Your Tasting Room Apart From the Competition Presented by Patty Held, Patty Held Consulting 12:00 pm Break for Lunch 1:00 p.m. The Art of Blending Wines Presented by Shea A.J Comfort, The Yeast Whisperer 2:15 p.m. Cold Varietals Presented by Rick Dunst & Dennis Rak, Double A Vineyard 3:00p.m. Break
3:15 p.m. What Every Winery Needs to Know About Marketing in 2015 Presented by Patty Held, Patty Held Consulting 4:30 p.m. Adjourn 5:00 p.m. New Mexico Wine Growers Association: Annual Meeting (members only) 6:30-8:30 p.m. New Mexico Wine Growers Association Industry Wine Social: Please join us for an industry appreciation social and vote on your favorite New Mexico Wines. All New Mexico Wineries are invited to submit wines for competition. Event is open to conference registrants only; no guest tickets available for this event. Saturday, March 7 8:00 a.m. Registration Opens Coffee and continental breakfast 8:30 a.m. Preventing Oxidation in Finished Wine Presented by Michael Jones, Scott Laboratories 9:45 a.m. Break 10:00 a.m. Winemaking in New Mexico, Its all about the ph Presented by Mark Matheson, Matheson Winery 11:00 a.m. Marketing to Restaurants Presented by Nicole Villareal, Nicky V's Pizzeria/ Fat Squirrel Pub & Grille 12:00 p.m. Break for Lunch 1:00 p.m. Sluggish and Stuck Fermentations Presented by Michael Jones, Scott Laboratories 2:00 p.m. Copyrights and Trademarks in Wine Labels Presented by Melissa Eckhause, Texas A & M Law School, Art Institute of Fort Worth 3:15 p.m. Break 3:30 p.m. A Tribute to Henry Street's Winemaking Philosophy Presented by Jeremiah Baumgartel, New Mexico Vine and Wine Society 4:30 p.m. Adjourn 5:00 p.m. Vine and Wine Society Annual Meeting 6:30 pm Wine Maker s Award Dinner Join us for an elegant evening celebrating the best of New Mexico Wines
Speaker and Session Information Shea A.J Comfort, The Yeast Whisperer SHEA A.J. COMFORT helped start More Wine! in 2000. Over the next four years he did intensive fermentation research on yeast, oak, malolactic bacteria, tannins and oxygen. He also created and taught an amateur winemaking program, educated the company staff and created a series of technical how-to manuals. He has been an on-going contract winemaker for Lallemand since 2001, creating yeast and malolactic bacteria trials along with giving technical winemaking presentations for them throughout the country. Shea is currently the consulting winemaker for Reliez Valley Vineyards, the Boonville Cider House, and the Alaska Berries Winery. Since 2007 he has been working with individual winemakers through his independent winemaking consultation business, yeastwhisperer.com. Presented Sessions: Industry Seminar: The Making of Hard Cider, Fruit Wines and Mead This seminar will provide an in-depth look in what winemakers need to understand in order to make truly great Ciders, Fruit Wines, & Meads. We will be looking at the technical aspects of what is involved, and then putting it all the elements together in a straight-forward, and easy to understand set of protocols that we can follow in order to be successful from the very first batch. Bench Trials With all the excellent tools available to winemakers today, it is important we learn how to best approach using them. Bench trials are critical to allowing us to get the most from these tools and ensure they help us make consistently good, solid products. This session will concentrate on the philosophy and practical theory of integrating bench trials into your winemaking. The Art of Blending Wines Blending is a powerful tool for all our winemaking, but there is often more to it than first appears. When we might want to blend and how best to approach it, have a profound effect on our getting ideal results. This session will concentrate on how you can best incorporate the philosophy and practical theory of blending into your winemaking. Jeff Witte, NM Secretary of Agriculture Jeff Witte was named the director/secretary of New Mexico Department of Agriculture (NMDA) beginning May 16, 2011. In that capacity he is also the Cabinet secretary for NMDA under Governor Susana Martinez. Mr. Witte served as the assistant director of NMDA from 1994 to 2003 when he became the director for the Office of Agricultural Biosecurity for NMDA and New Mexico State University (NMSU). From 2004 until his current appointment, he co directed the Southwest Border Food Safety and Defense Center at NMSU. He is an adjunct instructor with Louisiana State University, National Center for Biomedical Research and Training; and the University of Tennessee, College of Veterinary Medicine. Mr. Witte comes from a ranching family in northern New Mexico. He is a graduate of New Mexico State University with a bachelor s degree in Agricultural Business Management and a master s degree in Agricultural Economics and Economics. Jeff is married to Janet and has a son, Jeremy, and daughter, Jennifer.
New Mexico Department of Agriculture Update This session will briefly cover updates on trends and policies within the New Mexico Department of Agriculture. Patty Held, Patty Held Winery Consultant Patty Held of Hermann, Missouri, has a B.S. Enology degree from California State University at Fresno. She was winemaker at Taylor Wine Company in New York for 6 years, then returned to her family-owned winery, Stone Hill Winery, in Hermann, Missouri, where she was director of public relations and special events from 1988 until July, 2008. Currently, Patty has her own consulting business, Patty Held Winery Consulting; her passionate areas are customer service training, marketing, websites, tasting room evaluations and wine trails. Patty is the President of the Hermann Wine Trail, a successful wine trail selling over 4000 wine trail tickets/year. Patty is an adjunct on-line marketing instructor for VESTA, a marketing contributor for Midwest Wine Press, industry advisor and part of the marketing team for America's Wine Trail s website and mobile app. Patty is a sales rep for My Business Integrated, a company who specializes in website development, mobile solutions, local search marketing and automated digital marketing. She has been in the wine industry since she was five years old and has been involved in all areas of the winery business. Presented Sessions: How Service, Sales and Knowledge Can Set Your Tasting Room Apart From the Competition Is your tasting room remarkable? Learn how you can provide the best customer service, use knowledge to capture and keep customers and increase tasting room sales with wine clubs, and wine trail events. We ll take a look at several winery tasting rooms that rock! What Every Winery Needs to Know About Marketing in 2015 Don t let your winery get left behind when it comes to marketing. Follow these seven steps to get traffic through the front door and make the phone ring. Topics we ll discuss are; define brand identity, websites that get found, local search marketing, email marketing, blogs, social media marketing and word of mouth marketing. Rick Dunst & Dennis Rak, Double A Vineyard Rick Dunst spent 30 growing seasons at the Cornell Vineyard Lab in Fredonia, N.Y., performing viticulture research studies and examining the growth patterns and pest susceptibility of a range of grape cultivars. When not in the field, Rick responds to customer inquiries and concerns, interprets soil and disease analyses data, and makes varietal recommendations. Rick also writes the monthly Double A Vineyards newsletter. Dennis Rak is the owner of Double A Vineyards Inc. The nursery was established in 1990 and has grown to be one of the largest suppliers of grapevine planting stock in the United States. Dennis has built up to what is now 1000 acres of crop, 350 of which are grapes. The additional acreage is home to nursery stock and hybrid shrub willow. Dennis grew up in Sheridan and is a graduate of Cornell University (1980) with a BS degree in horticulture and plant protection. He and his wife Sue Rak and two sons, Adam and Abram now run Double A
Vineyards, Inc. together. In addition to running the nursery business Dennis stays busy as a board member of the National Grape Cooperative and the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce. Cold Varietals This session will discuss cold hardy varieties including traditional hybrids and newer releases from the Cornell breeding program, as well as extremely cold hardy cultivars developed at the University of Minnesota and by Elmer Swenson. *tastings for the wine discussed in this session will be available during the Friday Night Wine Social Michael Jones, Scott Laboratories Michael Jones has over 35 years of winemaking experience under his belt. Since 2007 he has shared his wealth of knowledge with North America by traveling extensively to trade shows and seminars throughout the country, many times as a speaker. A UC Davis graduate, Michael has lived and worked in Burgundy, France and the Hunter Valley, Australia. Domestically, Michael built his experience at Novavine, Hanzell Vineyards and Caymus Vineyards. He also spent 19 years at Domaine Chandon where he put on a multitude of hats and was involved with the vineyards, operations, winemaking, laboratory and was part of the team that established the Wine Education program. Prior to his start in the wine industry, Michael spent a year traveling cross-country by freight train, stopping to work on a shrimp boat in the Gulf of Mexico, pitch hay in San Antonio and sell art in New Orleans. Presented Sessions: Preventing Oxidation in Finished Wine Sluggish and Stuck Fermentations Mark Matheson, Matheson Winery Mark Matheson started making wine in Stockton California while attending Junior College. Got roped into an introductory wine class, got hooked, went to U.C. Davis, made wine in the Central Valley and Sonoma, moved to the fledging wine region in New Mexico, moved back to California, got bored, moved back to New Mexico, where winemaking is difficult but very satisfying. He also owns a nano brewery in Bernalillo Winemaking in New Mexico, Its all about the ph Hosted by Nicole Villareal, Nicky V's Pizzeria/ Fat Squirrel Pub & Grille Nicole Villareal has been in the restaurant industry since 2006. Currently she is the owner/operator of two restaurants, a pizzeria/wine bar and an English pub. Nicky Vs Neighborhood Pizzeria, in Albuquerque, NM, was opened by Nicole in 2010, and has earned "Best New Restaurant, 2010", "Best Small Business, 2011", "Best Westside Restaurant 2013" along with a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence in 2012. Nicole, and
partners, opened Fat Squirrel pub and grille, in Rio Rancho, NM, in 2009, and then wholly acquired the operation in 2013. Personally, Nicole received a 40 under 40 award in 2012, as well as Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2008, for Woman in a Male Dominated Field. In 2013 Nicole received her first sommelier credential. Nicole is currently in the final stages of opening Pi Brewing Co, a microbrewery and taproom which will be located in Albuquerque, NM. Nicole resides in Albuquerque, NM with her husband, Greg and two children. Marketing to Restaurants This session will discuss how wineries without major distributors can make it on to restaurant wine lists, the differences in approach if you are trying to sell by the glass, by the bottle or as a feature, and how to maintain the relationship to ensure consistent reordering. Melissa Eckhause, Texas A & M Law School, Art Institute of Fort Worth Melissa Eckhause is an intellectual property attorney, adjunct law professor at Texas A&M University School of Law, and an adjunct law and business instructor at the Art Institute of Fort Worth. The focus of her work is trademark and copyright law as it applies to the arts, fashion, and entertainment industries. Prior to teaching, Ms. Eckhause spent over ten years in private practice at Am Law 150 firms in Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit. Ms. Eckhause has represented wine and spirits producers, music and film producers, Fortune 500 companies, start-up ventures, and professional athletes. She recently authored, Is Appropriation Art Ever Appropriate?. She also is a member of Women in Film and serves on the International Trademark Association Professor Committee. Ms. Eckhause graduated summa cum laude from the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, and she earned a B.B.A. in Risk Management with honors from the University of Wisconsin. Ms. Eckhause also is studying for the WSET Level 3 Award in Wines and Spirits. Copyrights and Trademarks in Wine Labels This presentation will address how copyright and trademark laws impact the design of wine labels, and it will help wine producers understand how they can legally protect their wine labels Jeremiah Baumgartel, New Mexico Vine and Wine Society Jeremiah Baumgartel is currently the winemaker at Ponderosa Valley Vineyards in the Jemez Mountains. He received his M.S. degree in viticulture from UC Davis in 2008. Jeremiah is a New Mexico native who has industry experience in California as well as New Mexico. He can be reached at 505-239-1496 and jerbaum@gmail.com. A Tribute To Henry Street s Wine Making Philosophy
34 th Annual New Mexico Wine Education Conference Registration Form March 5 th -7 th Hotel Albuquerque at Old town 800 Rio Grande Blvd NW, Albuquerque, NM Please PRINT all information Name: Business Name: Address: City: State: Zip: Phone: Fax: Email: Room Reservations To receive the group rate of $99.00, guests must state they are with the New Mexico Wine Education Conference (Block Code: 1503NEWMEX). The last date to reserve your room will be February 12 th 2015. Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town 1-800-237-2133 https://gc.synxis.com/rez.aspx?hotel=63151&chain=17123&shell=gcf&arrive=12/10/2014&depart=12/11/2014&adult=1&child=0&group=1503newmex Session Registration Full Conference (Thurs, Fri, Sat, Fri night, Sat night)* Received by Received after January 15 January 15 $300 $325 Thursday Yeast Whisperer Seminar ** $75 $100 Friday only ** $100 $125 Saturday only** $170 $195 Saturday Awards Dinner guest $80 $105 LATE FEE. After February 28 add $50 late fee to any registration TOTAL: Quantity *Registration fees are per person and include registration bag, breakfast, lunch, breaks, Friday Wine Industry Mixer and Satu rday Awards Dinner. **Registration fees are per person and include registration bag, breakfast, lunch, and breaks and that evening s special event, if any Additional Names for other Badges if registering more than one person: Total Please mail in checks payable to NMWGA and registration forms to: NMWGA Wine Education Conference PO Box 1387 Las Cruces, NM 88004 Registration also available online at www.nmwine.com under our festival section. If you have any questions please call Helping Hands Event Planning at 575-522-1232