Explore current tax considerations affecting the wine industry, with a focus on R&D tax credit opportunities and the tax implications of debt restructuring.

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.    

Examine current M&A activity and valuation trends affecting wineries and vineyards. Panelists will discuss buyer and seller dynamics, access to capital, key valuation drivers, land and vineyard appraisals, and how current market conditions are influencing transaction timing and deal structure.

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.

This extended 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.

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.

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.