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US wineries: Will you need a TTB wine bond starting in 2017?
As a winery compliance consultant it makes sense that I’m signed up for the TTB’s email updates. Some of these announcements are useful, while some have no effect on me at all. Yesterday’s was a rare breed in that I was surprised by what I read. What was so surprising? Starting in Q1 of 2017 […]
California wineries: Have you filed your 2015 reports?
It’s the beginning of a new year and with that in the world of winery compliance it also means for many wineries the required filing of one federal (TTB) and one state (CA BOE) report related to their 2015 winemaking activities. Has your winery filed? They are both due by Friday, January 15th. Does your […]
Wineries: How to electronically file your TTB Report of wine premise operations
This post is part 3 of a series on the most common TTB required report that all US wineries must file, the 5120.17 (or 702) Report of wine premise operations. The last two blog posts have both been building up to this one. The first told you about qualifying to file this report on an […]
Wineries: Requirements for showing wine production numbers on your TTB report
This week’s blog post is the 2nd in a series I’m posting for winery staff to help them understand and be aware of how they need to be reporting some specific numbers annually (at least) on their required TTB Report of wine premise operations, or 5120.17 (702) filing(s). In assisting wineries with this report I […]
Wineries: How to file your annual TTB Report of wine premise operations
Not only is it the end of yet another calendar year, but in the winemaking world this time of the year also tends to coincide with the “end” of the winemaking life cycle. That end I refer to is the completion of alcoholic (& for some wines malo-lactic) fermentation of the most recent vintage’s finished […]
Year end winery compliance wrap up tips
2016 is quickly approaching and 2015 is quickly winding to a close. From a wine making compliance perspective there are some specific areas that are in the best interest of all wineries to give attention to before the year ends. Wine “production”. We reference this term a lot in the wine making world but what […]
Dec 8th Napa county supervisors meeting: Review of APAC winery regulation recommendations
If you’re involved in the Napa winery industry you’ll likely be interested in attending the next Napa County supervisors meeting on Tuesday, December 8th at 9 am. The topic of great interest: discussion of the recommendations of the APAC committee. This is a list of their 11 final recommendations after their session of meetings began […]
TTB label approvals: now allowing your application to not match your label!
TTB label approvals, or COLAs as the lingo goes for industry insiders are a topic that generally causes those of us who deal with their submission and approval to roll our eyes and have no shortage of “war stories” to share of our experiences with them over the years. Despite our often frustrated view of […]
Napa County Use Permit holders: Understanding the 75% rule VS production.
The topic of winery use permits has been a hot one here in Napa County since early this year. From my viewpoint of growing in Napa and working in the wine industry since 1993, we’re reaching a “critical mass” sort of point in the industry’s evolution. Napa County is essentially writing the textbook on how […]
Wineries: Tell the TTB what you think
There is no shortage of confusion and often frustration for US wineries in their dealings with the Alcohol & Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau, the TTB. As part of my business I hear about it quite often and at times am directly affected by it myself. The TTB is taking strides to improve on areas […]
Napa County winery annual reporting may be coming soon
There are currently several hundred wineries in the unincorporated area of Napa county which hold a use permit issued by the Napa County Planning office. Currently these wineries are not required to file reports to the planning office related to their wine making activities. That may change though as a result of recent proposals from […]
Wineries – Do you know if your records paper trail is complete?
Wine making compliance has a lot of moving parts. Those moving parts primarily consist of the records that detail the activities that happen to a wine throughout it’s “life”, generally from grape to bottle though it could also be a much shorter story. These (required) records consist of 3 main items; weigh tags, work orders […]
Correction for use of sub AVAs on a wine back label
In a recent blog post from April 28th I shared about a wine label compliance discussion I had with Rob Mondavi. In that blog I posted (incorrectly!) that listing two sub AVAs of Napa Valley on a wine’s back label would not be considered in compliance per TTB regulations. My statement was based solely on […]
Decoding a wine label decoding infographic
This interesting infographic posted by Vinepair titled “How to decode an American wine label” came across my radar recently. If you’re a regular reader of my blogs you know wine labels are a “near and dear” topic for me. (So much that I even wrote a book about them.) First of all let me give appreciative […]
Talking wine label compliance with Rob Mondavi
Winery compliance as a profession is a rare and generally unknown one. Most people I meet have no idea what the term “winery compliance” means. One of the easiest ways to explain what it is that I do is to point to a wine label and state “everything that you see there is regulated by […]
