If you wait until things feel hectic, you waited too long. For wineries and craft beverage businesses, the busy season is already beginning. More visitors. More orders. More shipments. More pressure on your systems. The businesses that feel calm this season are the ones preparing now. Today’s 5-minute winery check: Review your 20 highest-value recent orders . Look at where they came from: Online store Tasting room Club shipments Event orders and other DTC sales You may uncover valuable patterns: Which channel drives your biggest sales Which customers buy most often Which wines customers spend the most on Where your best growth opportunities are right now The smartest decisions often come from simply looking at what’s already working. That’s where Activ8 Commerce gives wineries an edge. Our seamless Shopify integration gives you a modern storefront while keeping your data, club activity, POS, and reporting connected in one place. Because when your systems wor

Enartis USA announced the promotions of Amy Jensen to Sales Manager and James Allen to Applied Innovation Manager, effective March 2026. These strategic appointments underscore the company’s evolution from a traditional enological product supplier into a comprehensive partner for integrated winemaking solutions, engineering services, and applied research. Strengthening Leadership for a Modernizing Industry Producers across North America are actively navigating tightening margins, shifting consumer trends, and increased demands for operational efficiency. To meet these challenges head-on, Enartis is expanding its leadership structure to deliver connected, cross-disciplinary expertise that bridges enology, and engineering. “The wine industry is moving from reactive decision-making to predictive control, and our leadership must reflect that,” said Francesco Bergaglio, CEO of Enartis USA. “Amy and James intimately understand the operational and financial pressures o

Top Line Water is one of the most critical—and increasingly scrutinized—resources in modern winemaking. From cleaning tanks and floors to maintaining oak barrels, cellar operations can consume thousands of gallons daily. With rising sustainability expectations and operational costs, reducing water use is not just good for the environment, it is good for business. Water conservation is becoming an issue in modern winemaking. In the past, much of the conversation centered around vineyard irrigation. Today, one of the most overlooked areas of water consumption occurs in the cleaning and maintenance of barrels. Small efficiency improvements per barrel can translate into thousands of gallons saved per year in your operation. The Challenge Traditional oak barrels, while prized for the unique flavor addition and maturation with O2, also come with a significant sustainability issue: water usage. Cleaning and sanitizing an oak barrel typically require several high-impact water even

When you’re weighing your irrigation automation options for your next vineyard development project, there are good reasons to consider putting Lumo in from the start. 1. Faster Vine Establishment With Lumo installed, you’re never going to miss irrigations, which is especially important during heat events that can damage young vines. Everything will run automatically according to the schedule you set, even overnight and on weekends and holidays.  You’ll eliminate the risk of under or over-irrigating because you’ll be tracking water volumes at a block level and you’ll receive alerts whenever there’s something up with your irrigation system performance.  Nailing your irrigation upfront is critical to the longevity of your vines, ensuring their roots get properly established and improving the long-term productivity of your vineyard.  With Lumo in from the start, you can be 100% certain your vines are getting the care they need to thr

If peak seasons make or break your operation, you’ve seen how quickly a smooth-running warehouse can get overloaded. Orders pile up, aisles tighten, and your main forklift fleet hits its limit. You need more capacity fast, but you don’t necessarily need more equipment all year long. That’s exactly where a smart short-term rental strategy comes in. With one of the largest material handling rental fleets in the West and dozens of locations spanning across California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Montana, Papé Rents helps businesses add flexible surge capacity without locking up capital in equipment that sits idle once the rush is over. Start with Historical Data Effective seasonal surge planning starts long before the first big order drops. Look at your historical data: Daily order volumes and lines picked Dock-to-stock times Overtime hours Equipment utilization by truck type As you monitor your workflow over time, patterns start to emerge. Maybe ou

A pause in the fever dream of instability October arrived not with fanfare but with something rarer: Quiet. After a year of collective anticipation for more and more problems, what occurred was a respite. The tariffs are stalled, and the early indications from the Supreme Court suggest they are still in flux and will be a topic for discussion on a future date. Fuel costs have stabilized, as have ocean freight rates. There is a peculiar quality to this pause. It is that in-between moment that makes it hard to understand if wineries should keep their guard up or, finally, tentatively lower their shoulders. The glass half empty, half full The supply chain in October was like a strange dance. Everything remained unchanged – neither improving dramatically nor deteriorating. Just... holding. Diesel slipped from $3.748 to $3.679 per gallon, a decline so modest it barely registers as movement. But after months of upward pressure, even sideways feels like progress. Ocean rates hit bottom

If you’ve been in the wine business long enough, you know the rhythm of harvest tends to repeat itself — until it doesn’t. A Changing Vineyard and Cellar Landscape This year, growers and winemakers across California are still navigating tough choices. With less demand and smaller contracts, some fruit is being left on the vine or sold off early, and many wineries are cutting back crush volumes simply because cellar space and cash flow are tight. Others are consolidating vineyard blocks, farming for vine health instead of yield, or pausing replanting until the market finds its balance. Inside the cellar, the picture isn’t much different. Tanks are full, case sales are slower, and every square foot of storage matters. As a result, more wineries are stretching existing barrel inventory another season, delaying new oak purchases, and relying on recoopered and used barrels to stay flexible without adding unnecessary costs. And the pattern reaches well beyond Californ

“We successfully automated almost every irrigation set last season,” said Andrew Oliver, Vineyard Manager at Antinori. “Lumo’s pump automation is an absolute game changer for our team,” agreed Hunter Emch, Northern Unit Area Manager at Redwood Empire Vineyard Management. REVM and Antinori are two early users of Lumo’s Pump Automation product, a powerful new integration with its smart valve platform that automates irrigation scheduling and execution from end to end. The solution has already been deployed at ranches ranging in size from 60 to 1,300 acres. Real-time, block-level flow and pressure data from Lumo smart valves is used to verify performance, dial in precision, and keep critical infrastructure safe. Over 150 ranches in Napa, Sonoma, the Central Coast, the Okanagan Valley and Washington State are already using Lumo’s precision irrigation system to close their execution gap, increase operational efficiency, and irrigate to plan. In July

Not all detergents work the same way. If you’re using the wrong scrubbing bubbles you – and your equipment – will be sorry. Using the wrong detergent in your commercial or industrial pressure washer can set you up for everything from poor cleaning results to damaging your equipment and costing you big bucks. Do you know the 5 warning signs you’re using the wrong detergent? 5 Signs You’re Using The Wrong Detergent With Your Pressure Washer Choosing the right detergent is crucial when it comes to maintaining your commercial or industrial pressure washer. But did you know that detergents are not interchangeable because each one is formulated to deliver specific results? Using an incompatible or ineffective detergent can lead to a variety of problems, from way too many sudsy bubbles clogging the works to poor cleaning outcomes to damage to your equipment. Check out these are five signs that signal you might be using the wrong detergent with your pressure wash