Presenters

Jennie Hess

Director of Hospitality, Shelton Vineyards

As a native of the North Carolina Piedmont, Jennie has fond memories of growing up on her grandparent's farm surrounded by late summer vines of Muscadine and Scuppernong grapes. Those early recollections stayed with her through ten years in publishing advertising sales and another ten years in pharmaceutical sales, before an opportunity in 2009 to join Childress Vineyards as wine club manager.

Jennie's dedication and commitment to design, customer service and hospitality have been at the core of her professional life and always played an integral role. She describes herself as a hospitalarian. She enjoys practicing the art of hospitality every day with great reward. Jennie's greatest joy from her work comes from the opportunity to connect people. These connections have given her the opportunity of a successful tenure as co-owner of Perfect Pair Events, then playing an integral role in launching Foothill Brewing's event space, Footnote and luxury brand winery, Dynamis Estate Wines. Jennie recently joined the team at Shelton Vineyards, where she will continue to happily ply her trade as Director of Hospitality, sharing her passion for wine and her desire to make people feel welcome. Every day has the opportunity to be memorable.

Sharon Fenchak

VP Winemaker at Biltmore Winery

Sharon Fenchak spent many Sunday afternoons as a child visiting her grandparents, all of whom lived within driving distance of her home in Pennsylvania. Her grandmothers, in particular, were closely connected to the land and enjoyed feeding family and friends from the bounty of their gardens.

Their influence fueled Sharon’s growing interest in agriculture and food science, a focus she maintained even as a Communications Specialist in the United States Army. While stationed in Vicenza, Italy, Sharon discovered an appreciation for the wines of the region—particularly the bubbly moscato for which the area is noted.

After returning to the states, Sharon earned a bachelor’s degree in food science from Penn State University, followed by a master’s degree in the same field from the University of Georgia at Athens. With a deepening interest in the science of winemaking, she sought work as an assistant winemaker at Habersham Winery in Baldwin, Georgia, under the wing of winemaker Andrew Beaty. With skills gained from that experience, Sharon became winemaker at Chestnut Mountain Winery in Braselton, Georgia where she oversaw the wine development process.

In 1999, Sharon joined Biltmore’s winery production team as assistant winemaker to veteran French winemaker Bernard Delille. Despite their different backgrounds, Sharon and Bernard shared a philosophy of creating high-quality wines that reflect true varietal character while still being food-friendly and approachable. In addition to making wines, her role featured research of several grape clones and grape-production testing methods for the estate.

Sharon was promoted to winemaker in 2003 and continued handcrafting high-quality wines worthy of the finest Biltmore traditions of taste and style. In 2016, Sharon completed her MBA through Western Carolina University to have a better understanding of running a wine business.

On Bernard’s retirement in 2018, Sharon became Biltmore’s head winemaker and vice president of winery production, which includes oversight of winemaking, the estate’s vineyard and partnerships with west coast growers.

For the future, Sharon hopes to continue building the tradition of the Biltmore brand among wine enthusiasts locally, nationally, and globally.

Lee Hartman

Winemaker, Bluestone Vineyard

Lee has worked in the Virginia Wine industry as a grape grower and winemaker for his family’s farm, Bluestone Vineyard for the last 15 years. Formerly the president of the Virginia Wine Council, and currently the President of the Shenandoah Valley Winegrowers Association, he has always taken interest in the industry beyond his own vineyard. As a way of expanding the industry beyond his family’s farm, he also helps neighbors with vineyard management and custom crush programs. His 2019 Petit Manseng was his third wine to be included in the Governor’s Case, the top 12 wines in Virginia’s Governor’s Cup competition.

Crista Guebert

Golden Road Vineyards

Crista is a native Texan who grew up in Houston and attended a small, private liberal arts school called Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. Foreign languages came naturally to Crista during her studies, and she learned Spanish, French, and Mandarin throughout high school and college. Crista ended up triple majoring in International Business, Finance, and Chinese and graduated with a B.S. and B.A. in four years. During college, she spent her summers traveling the globe: Spain, China, and Denmark, and backpacking in Eastern/Western Europe and Thailand. Crista was a member of many cultural organizations and president of the Chinese Culture Club, where she led hosting Lunar New Year events. She was also the Vice President of Alumni membership at her International Co-ed Business Fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi. This role involved extensive amounts of networking.

She moved to the East Coast right after undergrad and began her federal consulting career. Crista has 15 years of professional experience in strategy, operations, and process improvement consulting. While Crista consulted Veterans Affairs and has proudly spent most of her career in Health I.T. as a Project Manager supporting the nation’s veterans and active-duty military, she kept involved in Diversity and Inclusion corporate programs. She had a leadership role in company-sponsored Diversity and Inclusion, International Business Resource Group (IBRG), and has coordinated events ranging from company-sponsored Olympic events to obtaining appropriate levels of sponsorship for the US Fulbright Program.

Though her educational and career background is far from vineyard management and enology, her work leads to her meeting her future husband and the evolution of her career goals. Crista and Chad met in Washington, D.C., when they met at a work lunch. Networking lunches were typical at the consulting firm where Chad was a new summer intern.

Fast forward to when Crista and Chad got married and decided to spend a year taking viticulture and enology classes in the Charlottesville, VA, area at Piedmont, Virginia Community College (the Virginia equivalent of N.C.’s Surry Community College). They purchased Golden Road Vineyards on July 7, 2017, and entered the N.C. wine industry immediately. While learning farming was their priority the first couple of years, they expanded their network by attending N.C. wine events at the annual conference, digital, visiting fellow wineries near and all over North Carolina, and networking with the local community and throughout the Yadkin Valley AVA.