The Garden State Wine Growers Association (GSWGA) said this week that its second annual New Jersey Wine Expo, held on Nov. 15 at Bell Works in Holmdel, “unfolded seamlessly.”
It assembled the largest gathering of New Jersey wineries ever brought together under one roof, offering around a reported 1,300 attendees a full day of tasting, learning, and celebrating the state’s wine industry.
“The NJ Wine Expo is the best way to taste wines, talk to winemakers, and take home your favorite bottles from New Jersey’s diverse wineries all in one beautiful venue,” Bellview Winery’sin David Gardner, events chair of the GSWGA board, said in a press release.
Added Dustin Tarpine, chairman of the GSWGA board and owner of Cedar Rose Vineyards, “The NJ Wine Expo is the largest gathering of New Jersey wineries, bringing the industry together like no other event.”
Tarpine, 37, has spent his career in businesses connected to wine, beginning with a summer internship with Dr. Dan Ward at the Rutgers Agricultural Research and Extension Center (RAREC) in 2009 and then, after graduation, following another internship opportunity in California that was focused on farm management and crop production in California in 2011.
Among the wines shown off at the New Jersey Wine Expo was Tomasello Winery’s Sparkling Brut Rose’, which earned a silver medal in the recent American Wine Society competition.PNDA Creative
By 2012, he and friend Steven Becker, 36, started to plant what eventually turned out to be 20 acres of vines in New Jersey’s Cumberland County.
In addition to owning Cedar Rose Vineyards, which opened in November 2018, the two — along with Becker’s brother Robert — also operate the Vinetech Vineyard Management Company, which establishes and manages the Cedar Rose vineyards in addition to others in and outside the state.
So if anyone has a feel for the state and future of the New Jersey wine industry, with its 60-plus producers and vineyards, Tarpine does.
He told PennLive by phone last week that the New Jersey industry mirrors what’s going on nationally, with economics and trends impeding sales and prompting some wineries to pull out vines because of an excess of fruit.
“We’ve seen a bit of a downturn in the last couple of years, but we have had, still had a fair number of new wineries come on. I think in the past five years, just off the top of my head, I would say at least five new wineries have opened up. But the really heavy-duty rate of wineries opening has slowed a little bit, I think mainly just due to market constraints. And we’ve seen that on the Vinetech side, too.”
Still, he said, the industry is in a good place in terms of maturation, noting the addition of a full kitchen at Sharrott Winery in Hammonton and the “beautiful facility” that the owners of Saddlehill Cellars of Voorhees, across the river from Philly, opened in April 2024. A recent visit to Beneduce Vineyards in Pittstown, he added, also showed that the “level of what [wineries] are doing ”is just going higher and higher. A lot of these places really feel now like really high-end places,” yet remain approachable and great at explaining everything while making people feel welcome.”
Tarpine noted that the GWSGA will emphasize digital marketing in 2026 vs. billboards and brochures. He said, “When we look at where people are getting their information from, where people are looking for recommendations, it is almost exclusively on social media, Google searches, that sort of stuff.”
Among the almost 30 wineries presenting at the New Jersey expo was Alba Vineyard & Winery, of Milford.PNDA Creative
Meanwhile, he said that they are in “sort of a transition period” while “trying to figure out how we’re going to be attractive to the new generation of wine drinkers and how we’re going to get more people in, especially with, you know, the headwinds that the industry has been facing in general.”
A Gallup poll released in August found that the percentage of U.S. adults who say they consume alcohol has fallen to 54%, the lowest by one percentage point in Gallup’s nearly 90-year trend. It coincides with a growing belief among Americans that moderate alcohol consumption is bad for one’s health, now the majority view for the first time.
Despite what Tarpine called the industry’s obstacles, he remains optimistic.
“When you look at the younger demographic, and you look at kind of the research, they all kind of at least say that they want local, authentic products. And it’s kind of this weird dichotomy. Because I think that things like White Claws and Surfsides are sort of what the younger generation tends to drink, even though that’s just really just commercialized flavored sparkling water with a little bit of alcohol in it, which is a far cry from authentic or local.
“So I think we have a good argument, and I think we have a really good positioning to convince people that if you really do want that product, we have wineries all over the state, producing wines … different from the mainstream products that people buy. A lot of it’s locally grown and is a much more authentic product. And I think it’s just a matter of getting our point across, and I think if we can do that effectively, in combination with the experiential thing, because that’s huge too. People really don’t just want to go somewhere and sit down and drink or taste wine. They want to go and have an experience. They want to go for a pairing dinner, they want to go for some kind of class, or they want there to be music. And I think a lot of wineries are getting that message.”
Beyond digital marketing, he said the association is planning more training with member wineries on best practices and helping them help themselves a bit more.
An event like the expo only helps to point out the number and variety of wineries that exist from north to south, from Ventimiglia Vineyard in Sussex County to Hawk Haven Winery & Vineyard in Cape May County.
Wines from Terra Nonno Winery in Millville, were lined up Saturday for attendees to the New Jersey Wine Expo.PNDA Creative
“Last year was the first time we did it, and I think that a lot of the people who walked into the room were just kind of shocked at the scale,” he said of the expo.
“The wineries are all spread across the state, and unless you’re really into New Jersey wine and you’ve been going around to different wineries, you don’t really get the full scale of the industry. But when you walk into that room, and there are hundreds of people in there, and 30 wineries all around the room, you know, people can really see, like, wow, this is a big industry in the state, and there’s a lot more going on here than I think a lot of people realize.”
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