2021 Oregon Wine Symposium | Winegrowing for Winemakers Parts 1 & 2 | Viticultura para enólogos

Dai Crisp has been growing wine grapes in the Willamette Valley of Oregon since 1986. He started winegrowing at his family farm, helping his folks plant and develop the Wren Vineyard, organically farming the site. In 1989 he began farming professionally, managing Croft Vineyard. In 1999 he took on management of Temperance Hill Vineyard, a high-elevation site in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA. Dai and PK McCoy moved to the family farm in 2000 and they started Lumos Wine Co. that same year. Dai has been engaged in research efforts, served on the Oregon Wine Board and has worked on securing federal research funding for agriculture in Oregon, Washington and Idaho for over 22 years. He continues to farm Wren, Logsdon Ridge and Temperance Hill vineyards, all certified organic by the USDA and the state of Oregon. When time allows, Dai loves exploring the southwest, photographing landscape and native American ruins and rock art sites.

Dr. Patty Skinkis conducts applied research at Oregon State University and provides outreach and education programs for the Oregon winegrape industry. Her research program focuses on applied viticulture and whole plant physiology studies designed to understand causes and management of vine vigor/vine balance and impacts on fruit composition and wine quality. As extension specialist, Patty develops educational programs and informational publications for the industry statewide. Her outreach efforts include bringing industry members together in technical groups to foster information exchange between the University and industry. She also teaches undergraduate and graduate level viticulture courses at OSU. Her efforts expand beyond Oregon, as she is a member of the National Clean Plant Network—Grapes advisory board, is an associate editor for the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture and Catalyst Journal, and is president of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture 2020-2021.

Dr. Nick Dokoozlian is the vice president of winegrowing research at E. & J. Gallo Winery in Modesto, California. He also serves as the research chair for the National Grape and Wine Initiative, and is an associate editor of the American Journal of Viticulture and Enology.

Prior to joining E. & J. Gallo, Nick was a member of the department of viticulture and enology at the University of California, Davis. He received his Ph.D. in plant physiology from the University of California, Davis.

Dr. Laura Catena is a Harvard and Stanford trained biologist and physician and the founder of the Catena Institute of Wine in Argentina in 1995. The Institute is dedicated to preserving the Malbec variety and to elevating Argentine wine. She is currently managing director of Bodega Catena Zapata and of her own Luca winery. Bodega Catena Zapata was chosen the world’s #1 Most Admired Wine Brand by Drinks International in 2020. Laura has been called the “face” of Argentine wine and is author of Argentina’s definitive wine guide, “Vino Argentino.” She appeared in The Oprah Magazine as one of the World’s Top Women Vintners. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Food & Wine Magazine, La Nación, Decanter and The Economist 1843 Magazine. Laura’s second book, “Gold in the Vineyards,” an illustrated book about the world’s most famous vineyards, was released in English in 2020. Laura has been on the Executive Board of the UC Davis School of Viticulture and Enology since 2017. She lives with her husband and three children between Mendoza, Argentina, and San Francisco.

Dr. Phil Freese is an internationally acclaimed wine growing advisor with an intimate knowledge of the world’s vineyards. He graduated from Purdue University in 1968 with a B.S. in Biochemistry and received a Ph. D. in biochemistry/biophysics from the University of California, Davis in 1973. Following his tenure as vice president of winegrowing at the Robert Mondavi Winery, Phil began independent wine growing services business WineGrow in 1993. He works closely with winemakers and the wine grape vineyards to achieve the full expression of wine character from each site.

Phil is the wine growing partner and an owner of Vilafonté Vineyards in Paarl and Stellenbosch, South Africa. Phil consults internationally to wine growers and wine producers in South Africa, Chile, Argentina and the Golan Heights of Israel. He maintains a consulting practice based in his home state of California.

Long a fixture in California wine, Dr. Zelma Long has 50 years of winemaking experience in three states, six nations, plus Napa and Sonoma for a total of 70 vintages. Her passions are the linkage of winemaking and winegrowing, Bordeaux varietals and Chardonnay. She loves young and aged Sauvignon Blanc wines, and is currently focusing her sensory studies on the Nebbiolo-based Barolo wines.

Since 1997, with her husband Phil Freese, she has built the winemaking for their South Africa Vilafonté winery and vineyard yielding two Bordeaux blends: Series M and Series C. Their site has four cultivars, and 17 one-hectare blocks that she has come to know as distinct personalities with different needs for winemaking care; some are early developers, and some have taken a dozen years to settle into their personae.

Zelma has received the ASEV Award of Merit and recently completed a Ph.D. at UC Davis in performance and Native American studies.

Luis Reginato is a third generation winemaker and viticulturalist. He has been working with Nicolas and Laura Catena for more than 20 years, since he graduated from agricultural engineering school in Mendoza in 1999. Today Luis is vineyard director for the Catena Zapata family vineyards and an active participant in the Catena Institute ́s viticultural studies. Luis’s winemaking talents run in his blood. His grandparents came to Argentina from the Veneto and Marche regions of Italy and settled in Mendoza, where they took advantage of the abundant farming opportunities. Luis ́s grandfather was a barrel maker and viticulturist, and his father Jose and brother Pepe also grew up in the wine business and today they are well-known in Mendoza for the elegant sparkling wines that they produce at their family winery. Most recently, he was responsible for working with the Catena Institute to create a Sustainability Certification for Argentina and to provide the scientific basis for establishing new formal appellations in the Uco Valley.