Schedule - June 10
Practical Workshop
8:45-9:55 am
Leveraging Technology
Abby Rose, Vidacycle, Caine Thompson, Saga Robotics, and Kevin Hill, Parabug
Regenerative farming is grounded in working with nature. The strategic use of technologies can strengthen decisions, reduce inputs, and free up time for the observation and adaptation this work demands.
The final practical workshop on "Leveraging Technology" features three tools doing exactly that:
Vidacycle — Sectormentor is a digital platform to track and visualize essential farm indicators across vine health, phenology, disease & pests, and yield. The 10 Regen Indicators, co-developed with Nicole Masters, turn earthworm counts and infiltration rates into a decision-making framework.
Saga Robotics — Thorvald is an autonomous, electric robot effectively treating powdery mildew with UV-C light — no fungicides, no heavy tractor passes — while cameras gather vine data on every run.
Parabug — Drones that deploy beneficial insects in half the time and half the cost of traditional release. Hilary Graves of Booker Vineyard shares her firsthand experience.
Footprints in the soil come first. These tools help extend the reach.
Keynote Address
10:10-11:00 am
Tim LaSalle, Co-Founder, Center for Regenerative Agriculture & Resilient Systems at CSU Chico; Regenerative agriculture systems specialist
Tim LaSalle served as the first CEO of Rodale Institute, and as Executive Director of the Allan Savory Center for Holistic Management. He was a consultant, advisor, and research coordinator for the Howard Buffett Foundation in Africa on soils and food security for smallholder farmers. He served as the President/CEO of the California Agriculture Leadership Program, where he arranged educational leadership programs in more than 80 countries with heads of state, ministers, and community leaders. He is Professor Emeritus of California Polytechnic State University.
Asking Critical Questions Forum
11:15-12:30 pm
“How do we build market demand for regenerative wines?”
Moderator, Martin Reyes MW (WineWise), Chiara Shannon (Groundstar Vineyard), Darcey Howard (Regenerative Organic Alliance), and Elaina Leibee (Erewhon Market)
Wine sales are down. Wellness is up. And regenerative winegrowing could be the bridge.
But a farming revolution only works if the market rewards it. Right now, "organic" immediately signals "better for me" to consumers. "Regenerative" remains a more elusive term. Closing that gap is a major economic opportunity, and what will ultimately scale the movement.
That's the conversation at this Critical Questions Forum: how does regenerative wine break through to trade, buyers, and shoppers at the shelf?
Martin Reyes MW — international importer (WineWise) and the first Master of Wine of Mexican descent — moderates a panel spanning the value chain:
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Chiara Shannon (Groundstar Vineyard) — DipWSET educator and regenerative grower featured in Forbes and WSJ, working the wine-and-wellness frontier.
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Darcey Howard (Regenerative Organic Alliance) — 20+ years scaling natural products brands, now driving buyer and consumer engagement for certified regenerative products.
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Elaina Leibee — Wine Director at Erewhon, LA's most influential wellness retailer, with a buyer's eye on what moves at the register.
A grower-educator. A brand strategist. A distributor. A luxury retailer. One question with real money on the table: how do we build market demand for regenerative wines?
Masterclass
1:30-4:30 pm
Masterclass: Rehydration — From Soil to Watershed
Mimi Casteel (Hope Well Wine) and Brock Dolman (Occidental Arts & Ecology Center)
What if the most powerful climate tool isn't on your farm — it's your farm connected to every farm around it? This masterclass moves beyond individual vineyard management to collective, cooperative watershed restoration for compounding climate and resilience benefits. Mimi Casteel — winemaker, agroecologist, and "water cooler" — brings her experience transforming vineyards and ranches (including her own Hope Well vineyard in Willamette Valley, OR) into living laboratories for regenerative hydrology. She'll share how healthy soils act as water sponges that create localized cooling, sequester carbon, and buffer against drought and extreme heat — and how natural infrastructure like leaky weirs, rock dams, and earthen berms can restore degraded streams into regenerative wetland sinks. Brock Dolman — watershed educator and restoration designer — brings decades of hands-on work designing and implementing water restoration projects through OAEC, including their Fuels to Flows initiative that transforms fire-prone landscapes into water-harvesting systems. Together they'll inspire growers to think beyond their property lines and imagine what becomes possible when neighbors cooperate to restore watershed function at a landscape scale.
“We can manifest huge amounts of energy to make change. The only true limitation to a future of beauty and permanence is our own imagination and the courage to act.” -Mimi Casteel
We'll close out this powerful event with a walk around tasting of leading regenerative wines from Santa Barbara County, Paso Robles, SLO Coast, Napa Valley, Willamette Valley, Oregon, Provence, France and Tuscany, Italy.