RISE 2025

SPEAKERS

Keep checking back for updates to our exciting list of speakers, mentors and moderators for 2025.

Will Drayton | Director of Technical Viticulture and Research Winemaking at Treasury Wine Estates (TWE)

Will Drayton is the Director of Technical Viticulture, Sustainability and Research at Treasury Wine Estates (TWE), one of the world’s largest wine companies. Will has been with TWE since 2008, beginning in viticulture at Etude Winery and has held many positions within the viticulture and winemaking groups. In his current role, Will guides TWE’s US sustainability efforts in addition to technical and scientific aspects of winegrowing in California. He serves on the committee that guides the Sustainable Wine Roundtable, Chair of the PD-GWSS board for the CDFA and board member of the Los Carneros Water District. Will holds a Master’s degree from UC Davis in Horticulture and Agronomy and undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge. Will resides with his young family in Sebastopol, CA.

Ray Isle | Executive Wine Editor, Food & Wine and Author, “The World in a Wineglass”

Ray Isle is the Executive Wine Editor of Food & Wine and the Wine & Spirits Editor of Travel + Leisure. He writes Food & Wine’s monthly “Bottle Service” column, and oversees wine content for both brands as well as contributing regular print and online features about wine, spirits, and wine-related travel. His articles about wine, beer, food and spirits have appeared in a wide range of national publications, as well as in Best American Food Writing. He has won the IACP Award for Narrative Beverage Writing three times, the gold award from the North American Travel Journalists Association, and been nominated three times for the James Beard Award in beverage writing. He speaks regularly on wine at events around the country and is a frequent guest on national media, appearing on programs such as NBC’s Today, CBS Mornings, CNBC’s Squawk Box, American Public Media’s “Splendid Table,” and many others. His recent book The World in a Wineglass was published in 2023 by Scribner’s. Follow his wine exploits on Instagram @rayisle.

Margarita Postoronca | Viticulturist and Grower Relations at CHANDON

Margarita oversees viticulture for 650 acres of the  CHANDON Estate Vineyards. Her responsibilities include, but are not limited to creating fertilization programs, creating and distributing irrigation work orders, creating and overseeing pesticide spray program (both organic and conventional), maintaining and leading sustainability certifications.

Andrea Robinson, MS | Master Sommelier

Andrea Robinson is a world-renowned Master Sommelier who takes the seemingly daunting subject of wine and food, and brings it down to earth for all to understand and enjoy. Robinson, one of only 26 female Master Sommeliers in the world, couples this distinction with a strong culinary pedigree as a graduate and former Dean of the French Culinary Institute, and the winner of three James Beard Awards. In addition, she has been widely featured across leading national television networks and publications as the “go-to” expert for all things wine.

Morgan Twain-Peterson, MW | Owner & Winemaker at Bedrock Wine Co.

Morgan’s early exposure to wine and winemaking was thanks to his father Joel Peterson, who had started a small passion project called Ravenswood Winery— a job for which he was steadily not making money while working out of a small building along the big curve on Broadway. Though always enamored with the wine industry, Morgan bypassed a traditional Viticulture and Enology degree and studied History and Political Science at Vassar College. After undergrad, he enrolled at Columbia University with an eye towards a Masters in American Studies. meanwhile working at a small shop in the Upper East Side called Pet Wines. There, he met Chris Cottrell, with whom he became fast friends.

Dr. Monika Weiss | Co-Founder of ergSol

Monika is an environmental pioneer and management consultant with extensive national and international experience in helping people and organizations turn potential to success. She has a strong background in collaborative leadership in cross-cultural, multi-industry environments and public-private consortium. As an experienced project manager and change agent she is committed to developing sustainable organizations. Her skills include:  finding organizational forms to fit the tasks of innovating a new technology; preparing the infrastructure and raising the public awareness for product commercialization; valuing diversity to create synergy.  Monika’s work focus is on sustainable business strategies and renewable technologies, especially in the solar thermal realm. She holds a M.S. in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology.

thank you to our expert speakers