Weekly video conversations with winery owners and operators begin November 3, with each interview also broken into topic-based lessons for the Network on Trellis Collaborative
November 3, 2026 (Washington D.C., DC) — Trellis Collaborative, the national professional development and peer network for the wine industry, this week launched The Pod with Trellis Collaborative, a weekly video podcast hosted by founder Tara Good. Season one features ten candid conversations with winery owners, winemakers, and tasting room leaders from emerging and established regions across the United States.
The Pod is built for people who work in the industry. Its audience already knows the macro trends, so each episode skips the brand story and goes to the mechanics: what a winery charges for a tasting and why, how it handles distributor fees, which costs it cut and which it doubled down on, and what the numbers are actually telling it. The goal is specific, ground-level detail that other operators can take back to their own businesses.
Every conversation has a second life. After each episode airs, Trellis Collaborative breaks the interview into short, topic-tagged video lessons and adds them to the Network on Trellis Collaborative, its members-only video library of wine industry solutions. Lessons are filed by discipline – hospitality and guest flow, business development and DTC, marketing and regional perception, financial management, staffing, and winemaking and viticulture – so a member looking for help with one problem can find how several of their peers solved it.
From Jay Raffaldini of Raffaldini Vineyards alone, members can watch how he trains tasting room staff to sell grapes they can’t pronounce, why he ripped out 100,000 vines across three replantings, and how drying his reds doubles as inventory control.
“The best advice in this industry comes from the person one region over who already tried it,” said Tara Good, founder of Trellis Collaborative. “The Pod lets us have those conversations out loud. The interviews are free for anyone who wants to listen. The Network is where we organize what those operators taught us, so members can find the exact answer they need, when they need it.”
Season one
New episodes release every Tuesday on all major podcast platforms and as full video on YouTube. The season opens with:
- November 3: Caitlin Holesinsky, Holesinsky Vineyard + Winery (Buhl, Idaho), on split-case fees, getting into big retail, and running Idaho’s only USDA-certified organic vineyard
- November 10: Jay Raffaldini, Raffaldini Vineyards (Ronda, North Carolina), on selling 99% of his wine onsite and drying grapes for profit
- November 17: Nicolas Hogrefe, Stardust Cellars (North Wilkesboro, North Carolina), on biodynamic muscadine, selling mead in moonshine country, and low-alcohol drinks for the next generation
The season runs through January 2027.
Find The Pod with Trellis Collaborative on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
About the Network on Trellis Collaborative
The Network on Trellis Collaborative is a video library of wine industry solutions, available with Trellis Collaborative membership. It collects practical lessons from winery operators and industry experts, organized by topic, so members can learn from their peers on their own schedule.
About Trellis Collaborative
Trellis Collaborative is a national professional development and peer networking organization for the wine industry. It works with state wine associations, winery operators, and industry educators to deliver workshops, cohort programs, and events, and to connect wineries with the people who have already solved the problems they face. Learn more at trelliscollaborative.com.
About Tara Good
Tara Good is the founder of Trellis Collaborative and host of The Pod with Trellis Collaborative. She previously served as Vice President of Development at WineAmerica, the national association of American wineries, where she spent more than a decade working with wineries and state associations nationwide.
