In last week’s blog post I wrote about how winery compliance is a conundrum of a task for the vast majority of winery staff responsible for managing it. What is the main factor behind this? In my opinion it comes from the following two sources:

• (1) They are given little to no training specific to it
• (2) The wrong staff person (or persons) are managing it

I was in the fist group back in my early days at Sterling Vineyards in the late 90’s, when I first began the compliance leg of my wine industry career. Essentially I felt like I was stumbling around in the dark as I attempted to make sense of the 6 figures of wine gallons I was tracking on and off site and how their details (vintage, varietal, appellation, etc) translated into what the TTB required to meet their regulations and keep in their good graces.

Fast forward from there to 2006 when in large part as a result of my less than ideal winery compliance learning experiences I began teaching the topic at Napa Valley College. Since then I’ve continued to offer compliance training courses through other venues, in both face to face and via online style.

I’ve decided to expand these training opportunities to a wider area and will host my next in person training in the Sierra Foothills region of California – where there are well over 200 wineries currently.

The course is being offered on Tuesday, May 12th from 9 am til 2 pm at the Cary House Hotel in Placerville. 

Full course info & sign up details are here:  

Winery Compliance Training: On the Road

This course is for you if you too have felt like you’re stumbling around in the dark as far as understanding what your winery is supposed to be doing to keep up with TTB regs and you’d really like some piece of mind that comes from a training like this.

Topics covered include:

What specific records you need to be keeping on your wines & what they need to look like

What reports you need to be sending to the TTB and how to fill them out to avoid any red flags

Time savers for your TTB filings: required reports and label approvals

TTB & CA BOE excise taxes: Is your winery filing and paying them at the correct rates