Event Type: Webinar
Date: 9/24/2026 — 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM
You know what a case sold for, but do you know what it actually cost to make it?
Join us on Thursday, September 24, 2026 at 10 am PT to see how leading wineries are moving beyond spreadsheets and guesswork to get a clear, real-time view of COGS, margins, and cost allocation with InnoVint's winery operating system.
What you'll learn:
How costing actually breaks down: fruit cost distribution, overhead allocation, and cost category tracking from grape to bottle.
How Darioush uses InnoVint for COGS today, plus Protea Financial's view across multiple winery accounting trends.
Margin visibility in practice: blend cost estimation before bottling and SKU-level profitability.
Cost allocation that flows straight into multi-client billing.
Three to 5 action items to put to work right away.
Register here -> https://start.innovint.us/the-real-cost-of-a-case?utm_source=wine_industry_network&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=q3fy26_webinar_costing
InnoVint SUPPLY now includes wholesale order management, giving wineries one place to create orders, track customers, and fulfill wholesale business from start to finish. The moment an order is fulfilled, bonded and taxpaid inventory updates automatically, so it's never out of sync with a separate spreadsheet.
The release also adds a streamlined QuickBooks workflow, so invoices never have to be entered twice, and granular COGS tracking, so wineries know their margin on every order.
Wineries are reporting 5+ hours saved a week on order and inventory management alone, which extrapolates to over 250 hours back per work year.
Dan Salinas, Sales Admin Specialist at Schug, says SUPPLY has given his team a trusted source of truth across the winery: "Our team can now use SUPPLY and know exactly what our inventory is at any point in time, for any product. I trust the numbers in it. It's always given me exactly what I know it should, better than I know I could."
InnoVint SUPPLY is part of InnoVint’s Winery Operating System, giving wineries one cohesive view from grape to finished case goods.
SUPPLY: Inventory and Order Management is available now,
Learn more here: [LINK]
Last year, Wine Industry Network recognized InnoVint with its WINnovation Award for bringing something the industry didn't have: a free, real-time window into how harvest is actually going, region by region, as it happens.
This year, that recognition has grown into something bigger. InnoVint's Harvest Watch Dashboard is back for its second season, now covering six regions, with more data than ever for wineries and growers to follow along as fruit comes in.
Harvest Watch gives anyone in the industry a live snapshot of harvest activity: what's coming in by varietal and AVA, tracked alongside Brix, pH, TA, tonnage, and weather, updating in real time as harvest unfolds. It's built to be useful whether someone is deep in their own crush pad or simply trying to get a read on how the broader region is trending this year.
What made the tool stand out to Wine Industry Network last year is the same thing that's driving its growth now: it's completely free, updates daily, and reflects InnoVint's broader philosophy that good data, shared openly, makes the whole industry stronger.
Now reporting across six regions: Napa Valley, Sonoma Valley, Central Coast, Willamette Valley, Columbia Valley, and New York
Check out the free dashboard at innovint.us/harvest-watch/
Twelve years ago, when Ashley Leonard and Dan Strengier first brought InnoVint’s unique, data-based software to the wine industry, it would have been difficult to comprehend how fully AI technology would revolutionize winery operations.
But that’s exactly what’s happening with InnoVint’s all-in-one winery operating system that’s been empowering wineries since its inception: InnoVint is now weaving AI throughout its cutting-edge platform to make functions like Vineyard Tracking, Wine Production, Inventory Management and Cost Accounting practices easier and more effective than ever before.
Strengier, InnoVint’s Co-Founder and CTO describes InnoVint’s new AI capabilities as “exponentially more efficient.”
“AI can literally capture analyses written on a messy napkin and import a 30-page PDF document flawlessly,” Strengier testifies. “It can create complex work orders for panels of analytics and additions on tanks in seconds – and do it from anywhere. Doing this work manually just isn’t a great use of those precious human resources' time anymore.”
InnoVint has introduced its AI-powered functionality across three key wine production workflow areas:
AI Analysis Import – allows winery teams to snap a photo of handwritten notes or lab results and automatically associate that data with inventory in InnoVint.
AI Generated Reports – wineries can generate reports using plain language on text and voice in mobile devices, enabling them to quickly review data on items like alcohol levels, fermentation progress or comparing lot VAs.
AI Work Order Creation – enables wineries to quickly translate short text or voice instructions into structured work orders within InnoVint, streamlining this time-consuming but essential part of cellar operations.
Customers are enthusiastically embracing how InnoVint’s AI technology simplifies and enhances winery operations.
“I am absolutely blown away by how well the AI did on our existing brix & temp sheet.” - Mark Bui-Ford, One Hope Wines
“The Image Upload feature works perfectly and is much easier than manually uploading or scanning the QR code to enter info.” - Alicia Whitby, Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards
“My team isn’t coming to me anymore, just handing me a brix and temp sheet saying, ‘Here it is.’ They’re saying, ‘Kyle, you need to go check tank four. This curve doesn’t make any sense. Do you want to make any adjustments?’ That’s how you’re making better wine.” - Kyle Altomare, Gloria Ferrer
These customer experiences reflect the broader shift InnoVint is seeing across the industry: winery teams are no longer approaching AI as an abstract concept, but as a practical tool that can reduce manual work, improve visibility and support better decision-making in real production environments.
“Dan and I have been pleasantly surprised by the reaction to the inclusion of AI into InnoVint’s options for our winery customers,” confirms Leonard, InnoVint’s Co-Founder and CEO.
“Everything we do at InnoVint is intentional; we’re focused on adding value to wineries. The proof that it’s working is seeing wineries using our technology in a real way with real results.”
Wineries interested in seeing InnoVint’s AI functionality in action can view InnoVint’s on-demand webinar, which walks through the platform’s AI-powered tools and how they support day-to-day winery operations.
For more information about InnoVint, or to request a demo, go to https://www.innovint.us.
Spreadsheets Aren’t “Free”
A barrel inventory sheet in one tab. A fermentation log in another. A compliance tracker that’s been handed down and adapted over the years. A blending workbook, a tasting note doc, and a case count sheet. Plus the binders sitting in the desk drawers. None of it connected.
When someone asks what the setup costs, the honest answer is nothing. There is no line on the P&L for wine production software. Technically, it’s free.
Then you count the hours.
When Wynne Sargeant joined Brave & Maiden as winemaker, the production records lived across a whole array of Google Sheets, which is a very common setup for small wineries. Topping a barrel meant opening the inventory sheet to find the right lot, then jumping to roughly a dozen other spreadsheets feeding compliance, logistics, blending, and inventory. Each one updated by hand. Technical sheets for wines already in bottle were incomplete, so producing one meant rebuilding the wine’s history from scratch. The assistant winemaker was burning an hour a week on physical recounts and barrel number detective work. None of that showed up on an invoice. All of it showed up in the hours spent doing unnecessary administrative work each day.
I had to do full investigative work to figure out the history of a single wine. I had to go to the printed fermentation sheet, follow that to the blending sheet to figure out what actually made the final cut, then to cases produced, then to the analyses. All of these different documents for one wine.
-Wynne Sargeant, Winemaker
The real issue was that no single document was the source of truth. The lot history lived in one place, the compliance numbers in another, the blend decisions in a third, and keeping them in sync was a full-time job. On a two-person production team, that job falls to the winemaker. It’s a pattern that plays out at small wineries everywhere, and Brave & Maiden was no exception.
Spreadsheets were the cheapest tool in the cellar on paper, and the most expensive one in practice. Most wineries just haven’t run the math yet. Brave & Maiden did.
The Solution
Trading a Dozen Spreadsheets for One Source of Truth
Wynne had used InnoVint during her seven years at Peak Ranch, where she implemented the platform as the team built out a new winery. When she looked at options for Brave & Maiden, the fit for a small production team was obvious.
What made InnoVint the right call for a small winery:
Flexibility without unnecessary bells and whistles. At roughly 5,000 cases with two people making the wine, she did not need the most complex platform on the market. She needed something flexible enough to meet the winery where it was, without paying for features she couldn’t use.
Built for the cellar, not the desk. The assistant winemaker can record a top, a loss, or an addition from where the work is actually happening, so the data gets entered once, by the person doing the work. No retyping or reconciliation.
Live data from anywhere. Instead of walking the barrel rows to verify what the spreadsheet claims, Wynne can see real-time inventory from wherever she is.
One system the whole team works from. The entire team contributes to the same live record, so the winemaker is no longer the bottleneck or the only person holding the data.
You don’t necessarily need all the bells and whistles when you’re a small winery, and you can’t necessarily afford the fanciest platform. What we needed was a system that does exactly what the winery needs, nothing more, with room to build on. That system was InnoVint.
-Wynne Sargeant, Winemaker
What Changed When Spreadsheets Went Away
By the numbers
Tech sheet prep: 8 hours per wine down to about 1 minute
Inventory and compliance work: 30 minutes per task down to 5
Weekly physical recounts: 1+ hour saved per week
Annual savings: ~$7,500
Payback period: ROI inside year one
EOY inventory discrepancies: eliminated
Measurable ROI inside year one
The clearest wins are the ones Wynne could measure. Tech sheets that used to take 8 hours to reconstruct from scattered spreadsheets now pull in under a minute. Her own inventory and compliance routine dropped from 30 minutes to 5. Her assistant winemaker was spending about an hour a week on extra physical counts and chasing down unclear barrel numbers, work that is now almost entirely gone. Wynne quantified the combined savings at roughly $7,500 a year and realized a return on investment within year one.
Given the reasonable pricing, we have already realized a return on investment within our first year. We have saved a significant amount of time and successfully eliminated inventory discrepancies.
-Wynne Sargeant, Winemaker
What a single source of truth unlocks
The hours and dollars are only part of the story. The operational change is that Brave & Maiden now has the single source of truth it never had in the spreadsheet era, and that changes how the entire winery runs.
End-of-year inventory accuracy is, in Wynne’s words, night and day. Physical counts on December 31st used to surface barrels and kegs that the spreadsheets had lost track of, which matters beyond compliance. As Wynne explained, “If you don’t realize you have a barrel until you do your one physical count, you’re not in a great spot. You wonder, was that barrel ever topped? Was it given the necessary additions? Maybe that barrel now doesn’t have hope to be in your single varietal bottling.” Now the numbers match reality, and questions that used to be guesswork are a filter away.
For a team this size, the bigger point is that InnoVint distributes the tracking load instead of concentrating it in one person’s head. The conventional wisdom says you don’t need software because everyone already knows what’s going on. Wynne has found the opposite. When the tracking lives in spreadsheets or a single winemaker’s notebook, one person becomes the bottleneck and the single point of failure. With a shared source of truth, her assistant winemaker enters tops, losses, and additions from the cellar floor, and that single entry updates compliance, inventory, and blending history together.
Having such a small team, it helped share the burden of tracking. It helps make everything more streamlined, and it builds your team’s ability to understand the importance of tracking and maintaining your winery data.”
-Wynne Sargeant, Winemaker
And for Wynne, the value of a shared system extends beyond the current team.
This is the kind of system that outlives the winemaker. Whether it’s a family winery passing the business to the next generation or a team bringing someone new into the cellar, you’re investing in generations of information.”
-Wynne Sargeant, Winemaker
The Takeaway for Small Wineries
Spreadsheets aren’t actually free. They cost hours, accuracy, and the reconciliation work that pulls a winemaker out of the cellar.
A small, lean team is exactly the reason to invest in a real system of record. It’s the team that can least afford for the data to live in one person’s head.
Notebooks get lost. People leave. Putting your winemaking history into a real system of record is how you protect the future of the winery.
-Wynne Sargeant, Winemaker
Where do you want the knowledge of how your wines were made to live? In one person’s notebook, a folder of disconnected spreadsheets, or in a system the whole team can contribute to and the next winemaker can inherit?
The 3rd Annual State of Winery Health Survey Is Now Open
The 3rd Annual State of Winery Health Survey is now live, and winery professionals are encouraged to participate. The goal: to gather real, actionable data on the financial, operational, and cultural health of the wine industry and create benchmarks that help winery teams make smarter, data-informed decisions.
The survey is open to all winery professionals, is completely anonymous, and takes less than 10 minutes to complete. All participants will receive early access to the results and be entered to win one of two $500 gift cards.
Last year's survey revealed several trends that are reshaping how the industry thinks about winery performance and business health:
80% of wineries report stable or growing sales, and 82% are profitable or have a plan to get there within 1–2 years
Wineries embracing modern technology are 50% more likely to see sales growth
Only 38% of wineries know their per-product profit margins, but those that do are more likely to be profitable
Wineries engaged in their local communities are 3x more likely to be profitable and report increasing sales
90% of leaders rate their workplace culture positively, while only 58% of winemaking staff feel the same
The results from this year's survey will build on those insights, giving winery leaders and professionals better visibility into how their peers are managing costs, pricing strategies, team dynamics, and long-term resilience across a rapidly changing market.
Take the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2026-winery-health-win
The Duckhorn Portfolio, North America’s premier luxury wine company, has selected InnoVint as its winery operating system following a comprehensive evaluation and RFP process. The decision reflects Duckhorn’s focus on modernizing its winemaking operations with a platform and a partner capable of supporting both current complexity and long-term growth.
Why The Duckhorn Portfolio Chose InnoVint
The Duckhorn Portfolio sought a modern, scalable solution to unify winemaking operations across multiple facilities while maintaining accuracy, compliance, and operational visibility. InnoVint was selected not only for its integrated, production-first platform, but for its deep industry expertise and proven ability to guide complex wineries through system transitions with confidence.
“InnoVint stood out as more than a technology provider,” said PJ Alviso, Vice President of Winegrowing at The Duckhorn Portfolio. “During our evaluation of the winemaking software options that are out there, InnoVint was a clear winner. Their exceptional product, extensive knowledge base, and unwavering passion as builders align perfectly with the values we hold dear at Duckhorn. Just as importantly, we trusted their team to advise us through the migration process and help us make smart decisions along the way.”
InnoVint’s winery operating system brings together vineyard tracking, grape intake, bulk wine movements, lab analysis, work orders, costing, and compliance in a single, purpose-built platform. Its API-driven architecture supports seamless integrations with broader business and ERP tools while providing the flexibility to support future growth, new facilities, and custom crush relationships.
What the Partnership Includes
As part of the partnership, Duckhorn will work closely with InnoVint’s implementation and customer success teams, leveraging a proven migration framework, hands-on training, and ongoing advisory support. InnoVint will also bring its internal technical resources to help design and deliver tailored solutions on top of the platform, supporting Duckhorn’s unique data, reporting, and operational needs across winemaking, operations, and finance teams.
“What stood out to us in this process was how thoughtful The Duckhorn Portfolio was in evaluating not just the software, but the partnership,” said Ashley Leonard, CEO of InnoVint. “They asked the right questions and were deeply focused on what it would take to support their teams through a transition like this. We’re proud they chose InnoVint to empower their operations, and we’re excited to work in partnership with such an incredible portfolio and their teams.”
The partnership reinforces InnoVint’s position as a trusted partner to premium and enterprise wineries seeking not just modern software, but experienced guidance in building healthier, more connected winery operations.
During our evaluation of the winemaking software options that are out there, InnoVint was a clear winner. Their exceptional product, extensive knowledge base, and unwavering passion as builders align perfectly with the values we hold dear at Duckhorn.
PJ Alviso – VP of Winegrowing
About InnoVint
Founded in 2015, InnoVint is the leading winery operating system, trusted by more than 2,000 wine brands of every size. Its all-in-one platform brings production, inventory, compliance, and costing into one simple system, giving wineries a single source of truth from vineyard to bottle. With tools tailored to how wineries actually work, InnoVint helps teams stay organized, reduce manual tasks, understand true costs, and make better decisions at every step. InnoVint’s mission is to help wineries run healthy, resilient, successful businesses. To learn more visit us at https://www.innovint.us
About The Duckhorn Portfolio
The Duckhorn Portfolio is North America’s premier luxury wine company, with eleven wineries, nine state-of-the-art winemaking facilities, five tasting rooms and over 2,200 coveted acres of vineyards spanning 38 Estate properties. Established in 1976, when vintners Dan and Margaret Duckhorn founded Napa Valley’s Duckhorn Vineyards, today, our portfolio features some of North America’s most revered wineries, including Duckhorn Vineyards, Decoy, Kosta Browne, Sonoma-Cutrer, Goldeneye, Calera, Greenwing, Paraduxx, Migration, Canvasback and Postmark. Sourcing grapes from our own Estate vineyards and fine growers in Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Anderson Valley, California’s North and Central coasts, Oregon and Washington State, we offer a curated and comprehensive portfolio of acclaimed luxury wines with price points ranging from $20 to $230 across more than 15 varietals. Our wines are available throughout the United States, on five continents, and in more than 50 countries around the world. To learn more, visit us at https://www.duckhornportfolio.com/
Event Type: Webinar
Date: 2/26/2026
Winery teams deal with a lot of manual work—data entry, rewriting notes, digging through spreadsheets. That’s all time not spent making wine, and it adds up fast. ⏳
This Thursday, Feb 26 at 10 am PT, we’re hosting a short webinar to showcase three real examples of how wineries are using AI to reduce those manual efforts and make winemaking work easier.
✨ We’ll cover how AI can be used to:
- Turn handwritten notes into clean data
- Create work orders by voice
- Get quick answers to everyday questions (alcohol levels, fermentation progression, lot VAs) without digging through spreadsheets
![Why Your Tasting Room Isn't Converting, and What to Do About It [Expert Talks: Wine Industry Insights]](https://d1gnybordwtuqk.cloudfront.net/win/tenant-1/cf5e924dfa1c463cd1302621b3e4d16362be5e6c.png)
As wineries across the country face softening tasting room conversion rates and increasing pressure on direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales, a new episode of Expert Talks: Wine Industry Insights highlights practical strategies from one of the industry’s leading DTC educators.
InnoVint recently sat down with Liz Mercer, Partner and Winery Coach at WISE Academy, to examine what the top 10% of tasting rooms are doing differently to consistently convert guests into wine club members and drive higher-margin sales.
Drawing on more than 25 years of wine industry experience, Mercer outlines the operational disciplines, team training strategies, and guest experience enhancements that set apart high-performing tasting rooms from the rest. Rather than relying on aggressive sales tactics, the discussion focuses on intentional hospitality, empowered front-of-house (FOH) teams, and structured yet authentic club conversations.
The episode offers actionable guidance for wineries looking to:
- Grow their DTC and wine club membership base
- Increase sales of higher-margin wines
- Strengthen and support tasting room teams
- Elevate the overall guest experience
For wineries seeking practical insights to improve tasting room performance, the episode is now available to watch or listen on your preferred platforms.
Check out the video below, and read the top 7 takeaways in the blog post here.
InnoVint Announces Intelligent Winery Workflows Powered by AI
New AI capabilities automate data capture, reporting, and work order creation to reduce manual work in winery operations
InnoVint, the leading winery operations & production platform, today announced the launch of Intelligent Winery Workflows, introducing artificial intelligence directly into core production workflows to help winery teams move faster with less manual effort.
As part of this launch, all InnoVint customers now have access to InnoVint’s AI Analysis Import functionality, which allows teams to snap a photo of handwritten lab notes or analysis sheets and automatically capture that data in InnoVint. During the recent harvest, wineries uploaded hundreds of documents and thousands of analyses, eliminating thousands of manual keystrokes from everyday workflows.
InnoVint also previewed two upcoming AI-powered capabilities:
- AI Generated Reports will enable wineries to create reports using plain-language text or voice, making it easier to access production insights without building complex filters.
- AI Work Order Creation will allow cellar teams to translate short text or voice instructions into structured work orders, speeding up task creation on both mobile and desktop.
These new workflows mark the first phase of InnoVint’s broader effort to thoughtfully weave AI throughout its winery operating system to reduce manual work and help teams move faster with less friction.
Wineries can learn more by registering for InnoVint’s upcoming webinar or by visiting the InnoVint booth (#114) at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium to see these capabilities in action.