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Choosing Winery Compliance as a Career
I’ll often go to the wine industry website Wine Jobs and enter “compliance” in the Keyword box and then view what comes up. Why do I do this? I’m curious to see how the tasks around winery compliance show up under a range of winery position titles. All sorts of positions come up by entering […]
TTB Label Approval Search Advice From Eliot Ness
The TTB’s website really does have a lot of good information. (If you know where to look) I myself can vouch for this firsthand as I’ve been viewing it as part of my profession since 1998. It has come a long way since then! Now they are going back to their roots by including a […]
Who Needs Power of Attorney at Wineries?
I recently conducted a survey about the top wine compliance challenges winery staff are facing. One of the questions asked them if they had power of attorney for their winery. This was in reference to the TTB, or federal level. The overwhelming majority (70%) said no. I was really surprised by this. (And somewhat concerned)
Winery Compliance Shopping Tips?
Capability, reliability, available customizing. Sounds a lot more like shopping for a car than wine compliance. Actually in this case these are all topics to consider recommended by Jim Vahl, founder of The Winemaker’s Database, a wine production software platform. These topics are covered during his presentation at the free seminars Winemaker’s Database has been hosting this year around 7 wine […]
The Changing of The Guard…Winery Style
Seems like I see headlines on Wine Business Monthly’s website about wineries being bought and sold on a steady basis these days. It seems as though there are some parallels between the level of sales activity for wineries and sales of homes right now. By that I mean it appears investors are taking advantage of it still being more of […]
Like to Get In on the Wine Compliance Game?
In the last 2 years I continue to come in contact with a steady stream of people who are interested in either getting a job in the wine compliance area or would like to start their own winery compliance business. Good news! Good news you say? How can that be good news for me as a compliance […]
Wine Compliance Survey Says!
The survey results are in! Thank you to everyone who submitted their input on my Winery Compliance Challenges survey. It was sent out to winery staff who have varied levels of involvement with compliance at their facilities. I was asking for their input to help in the development of some of my upcoming training programs. In some […]
The TTB Gets Smart
I have given kudos to the TTB for several years now for their ongoing efforts to provide resources and helpful information to the wineries and wine businesses across the country that are their “clients”. This is a smart move on their part since any tools or resource information that help wineries be successful interacting with […]
Tax Paid Wine? Where?
There is a type of wine business that until recently I had only read about on the TTB’s (Alcohol & Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau) website. They are called taxpaid wine bottling houses, or TPWBH on their TTB permits instead of BWN’s or BWC’s. What are they and what do they do you ask?
Small Wineries, Are You Not Getting The Credit You Deserve?
Did you know the majority of wineries in the US are below 5,000 cases in annual production? They are small in production numbers and also usually small in staff numbers too. This also means they experience the “many hats” syndrome, where each of their staff members is responsible for multiple duties to keep the business going. […]
Survey : What Are Your Top Wine Compliance Challenges?
Winery compliance is a complicated area which is only made more complicated by the fact that there is little to no formal training for those responsible for it. I realized this first hand 15 years ago when I first began managing winemaking records at Sterling Vineyards. I want to help all of you who are […]
So You Want To Get Into The Wine Business?
The wine business has a romantic image to it. How much of this can be attributed to the processes of winemaking and grape growing and all the images they conjure up is debatable but regardless it continues to draw a steady crowd of newbies to it. The numbers of both wineries and wine wholesalers (custom crush clients) has continued to rise […]
Teaching An Old Wine a New AVA.
A recent discussion came up on Facebook around the use of newly created AVAs (American Viticultural Areas) on wine labels made from vintages pre the AVA’s existence. The discussion was around the recently created AVA of Coombsville in eastern Napa. The question that came up was would that be allowable under the TTB’s labeling regulations? i.e. If you are […]
Does Your Wine Have an Outdated Identity?
Did you know that all wines have a standard of identity? All US wines that is, and this is in relation to how the TTB (www.ttb.gov/wine) defines them. A required item for any wine label is what the TTB refers to as a “class & type”. In most of our cases the class we are […]
Steps For Setting Up a New Wine Brand
Did you know that there are currently over 7,000 wineries in the US? That number doesn’t even begin to tell us just how many brands of wine come out of those thousands of winery sites but safe to say it is easily well over 10 times that amount. So just what is in a brand […]
