| Tuesday, November 10, 2026 | |
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| 7:30 a.m. - 8:15 a.m | Registration Check-in & Continental Breakfast |
| 8:15 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. | Accounting, Tax & Finance Track presented by CalCPA |
| 8:15 a.m. - 8:20 a.m. | CalCPA Welcome Remarks |
| 8:20 a.m. - 9:10 a.m. | Wine Industry Tax Update |
| Explore current tax considerations affecting the wine industry, with a focus on R&D tax credit opportunities and the tax implications of debt restructuring Speaker: David Pardes, PwC |
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| 9:10 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. | Current GAAP Issues: Accounting for an Evolving Wine Industry |
| Examine how evolving wine industry trends are shaping accounting and financial reporting considerations. This session will address impairment, inventory valuation, excess capacity, going-concern considerations, and the accounting treatment of business combinations. Attendees will also examine approaches to purchase price allocation and other timely GAAP considerations arising from changing market conditions. |
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| 10:00 a.m. - 10:25 a.m. | Networking Break |
| 10:25 a.m. - 11:40 a.m. | Sustainability in the Wine Industry: Costs, Certifications, Reporting and Market Demand |
| Examine sustainability from operational, financial, regulatory, and market perspectives. Panelists will discuss sustainability certifications, production costs associated with sustainable and organic farming, trade and consumer reactions, greenhouse gas emissions assurance, climate-related risk reporting, California wine disclosure regulations, and the effects of climate conditions on grape growing and winemaking. The discussion will also address potential R&D opportunities connected to sustainability initiatives. |
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| 11:40 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. | Planning the Next Chapter: Winery Succession and Trust Tax Reporting |
| Explore succession-planning considerations for winery and vineyard owners, including opportunities to transfer ownership to the next generation when business or asset valuations are lower. The session will also address related trust income tax reporting considerations. | |
| 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. | Buffet Lunch |
| 1:30 p.m. - 1:35 p.m. | WineBusiness Welcome Remarks - Erin Kirschenmann, Managing Editor, WineBusiness Monthly |
| 1:35 p.m. - 2:50 p.m. | State of the Industry: A Data Deep Dive |
| This extended opening session brings the full grape-to-glass picture together in one place, rather than scattering it across the day. We'll examine vineyard pullouts and mothballing, and how to know when enough vines have actually been removed. We'll look at what's sitting in the bulk wine market, including aging inventory that should never reach a shelf. We'll review distributor and retailer inventory levels, and unpack why depletions and shipments have stopped tracking together. We'll cover the latest trends in retail and direct-to-consumer sales. And we'll take an honest look at where the market sits in its broader cycle, and how close we may be to a bottom. This session sets the data foundation for every conversation that follows. Speakers: Audra Cooper, Vice President, Turrentine Brokerage Kaleigh Theriault, Director of Thought Leadership, NIQ Beverage Alcohol Vertical Danny Brager, Beverage Alcohol Industry Fact-Based Consultant, 3 Tier Beverages Liz Mercer, Partner, WISE Academy |
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| 2:50 p.m. - 3:20 p.m. | Networking Break |
| 3:20 p.m. - 4:10 p.m. | Navigating the New Wholesale Landscape |
| Go-to-market strategy has never been messier. A panel of wholesalers and wineries on what's actually changed, what successful supplier relationships look like right now, how to manage distributor relationships through ongoing consolidation and disruption, and — as traditional paths shrink for smaller wineries — what a bifurcated route to market (brokers, last-mile logistics, direct) actually looks like. |
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| 4:10 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. | Keynote: Innovating While Staying True to Your Brand |
| Wineries can't afford to stand still right now, but they also can't afford to chase every trend that comes along. From low- and no-alcohol options to flavored wine, the industry has a pattern of pursuing the same "shiny object" all at once, often without pausing to ask whether it's genuinely right for the brand. This session offers a practical framework for telling the difference between innovation worth pursuing and innovation that's simply imitation, and for finding the line between pushing a brand forward and losing what makes it distinct in the first place. Drawing on real examples of innovation that worked, and just as importantly, innovation that didn't, this session offers a candid look at how to move forward without becoming indistinguishable from everyone else doing the same thing. |
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| 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. | Networking Wine Reception |
| 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. | Wine Industry Leadership Dinner |
| The Wine Industry Leadership Dinner is Invitation Only, as seating is limited. If you are interested in being added to a waitlist to attend the dinner, or have any questions, please email WBM@executivevents.com. |
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| Wednesday, November 11, 2026 | |
|---|---|
| 7:30 a.m. - 8:15 a.m. | Registration Check-in & Continental Breakfast |
| 8:15 a.m. - 8:25 a.m. | Welcome Address - Erin Kirschenmann, Managing Editor, WineBusiness Monthly |
| 8:25 a.m. - 9:25 a.m. | Cost Control Across the Winery: A Department-by-Department Walkthrough |
| A practical, function-by-function session that will walk attendees through ways wineries can find savings right now: from vineyard management and production to winery COGS, and sales/marketing/distribution. This session also touches on the people side of cost control: how to empower frontline staff to surface their own efficiency ideas rather than treating cost-cutting as something handed down from the top. The goal is specific, actionable takeaways attendees can bring home to their own department, not general theory. |
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| 9:30 a.m. - 10:20 a.m. | What Wine Can Learn From Other Industries |
| Wine is not the first industry to face a market correction or downturn: plenty of others have unified to bring a “dying” industry back to life. This session will take a look at what other industries have done to innovate, build a category and right-size. The session makes the case for what it would take for wine to build its own unified industry voice—a federal marketing order, a regional promotion board, or something else—and what's stood in the way so far. |
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| 10:20 a.m. - 10:50 a.m. | Networking Break |
| 10:50 a.m. - 11:40 a.m. | AI in Practice: What the Wine Industry Is Actually Doing With It |
| AI is dominating boardroom conversations, but concrete examples of what's actually working remain scarce. This session moves past the hype cycle to examine real, in-use applications across the wine business, from agentic workflows in accounting and finance, to staying visible in an AI-first search landscape. We'll also address where AI still falls short and shouldn't be relied upon to replace judgment or people, what a sound AI governance policy needs to include, and what leadership teams should be watching for as the technology continues to evolve. This session is designed for executives who need a clear-eyed, practical read on where AI investment is paying off and where it isn't yet. |
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| 11:40 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. | Reading the Macro Landscape: Implications for Wine |
| A Financial Symposium favorite, Callum Williams is back to deliver a big-picture read on the forces shaping the broader economy—inflation, tariffs, interest rates, consumer spending, and the macro trends most likely to define the next 12 to 24 months—and what they mean specifically for the wine business and wine consumption. From a journalist who tracks these shifts globally for a living, this session translates the wider economic backdrop into the stakes leadership teams actually need to be planning against. Speaker: Callum Williams, Senior Economics Writer, The Economist |
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| 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. | Networking Luncheon & Wine Bar |