Research Winemaking Focus

The ISU/UMN Research and Winemaking webinar series is back, beginning May 31st 2022!

When the pandemic hit it was difficult to keep providing help, tools, and knowledge to all of you. After a few discussions with some colleagues about new ways of teaching and learning during the pandemic, I decided to take advantage of the online events to develop a webinar series that everyone around the world would have access to.

The grape and wine industry in the US Midwest is focusing on interspecific grapes but not much is known about their chemistry, their changes during winemaking and the best practices to obtain high quality wines that consumers will enjoy.

Therefore I decided to develop a webinar series which would combine research and practical advances involving an academic and an industry partner. With my great collaborator, Drew Horton from the University of Minnesota, we reached out to potential partners from Universities in the US and other countries such as South Africa to present research advances and knowledge that could be applied on interspecific grapes. We also involved grape and wine industry partners that you may already be in contact with in order to present and discuss the practical approaches and on how to apply the research in your vineyard and winery.

Since August 2020, 13 topics related to winemaking were covered from winery cleaning and sanitation to bottling with the participation of industry and academic partners. If you missed those webinars, feel free to watch the recordings on YouTube.

As a result of great interest, feedback, and demand for those webinars, we decided to go more in depth into specific topics with a slight format change. The FREE upcoming webinars this year will be 90-min long with short presentations of academic and/or industry partners for the first portion of the webinar followed by a roundtable style panel involving winemakers from different US States to share experiences and knowledge with you. The 2022 topics will be acidity management, whole cluster winemaking, sparkling wine, micro-oxygenation, cold stabilization and packaging. We always try to provide the tools and knowledge in a timely manner for you to be able to apply what you have learned this season in your winery.

Your feedback on this webinar series offered in 2020 and 2021 is highly appreciated and helps us to understand the impact on your methods and practices, and how to use them to improve wine quality. If you made any changes as a result of attending those webinars, we would like to know. If you have

any specific suggestions and comments, we would also like to know. Your feedback is very important to help improve education for our great grape and wine industry! Please click on the following link to complete the questionnaire, which is totally voluntary and anonymous: https://iastate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ahs2v88yTPZXaUm

Mark your calendar (You will need to register to each individual session)!!

· Acidity management (from vine to wine) on May 31st 2022 at 3pm Central Time through Webex! You will need to register to each individual session.

https://iastate.webex.com/iastate/onstage/g.php?MTID=edd0a9684f3e3c87db96ee0aa3cdfc9ba

· Whole clusters on June 28th 2022 at 3pm Central Time through Webex!

https://iastate.webex.com/iastate/onstage/g.php?MTID=e68244733cfa98ddc61028e75f2459f54

· Sparkling wine on July 26th 2022 at 3pm Central Time through Webex!

https://iastate.webex.com/iastate/onstage/g.php?MTID=e375ac994ba93ecd5899f349cdf6c9cca

· Micro-oxygenation and oxidation management on October 18th 2022 at 3pm Central Time through Webex!

Links to register will come later

· Cold stabilization on November 15th 2022 at 3pm Central Time through Webex!

Links to register will come later

· Wine packaging on December 13th 2022 at 3pm Central Time through Webex!