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Compliance Lessons Part 2: What Alternating Proprietors Need to Know

  Last week’s post was a milestone for my website. The post on custom crush compliance lessons has received (as of this writing) over 1,000 viewings! It was a definite rush for me to see this response but it also tells me (reminds me really) that there are a lot of behind the scenes compliance […]

Compliance Lessons From Crushpad: The Custom Crush Client Trail

  I’ve been keeping track of the daily news stories about the transitions happening for custom crush winery Crushpad. I’m interested from a compliance (surprise!) perspective and what all the ownership changes and potential moving around of wines means for their customers. There is a kind of crazy connect the dots compliance trail happening there that […]

Harvest: A Good Beginning For A Wine Compliance Career

It’s August. Harvest 2012 is approaching. (here in the N hemisphere) To follow up on another recent blog post about wine compliance careers this time I’d like to focus on a specific example of a great beginning job opportunity for someone who’d like to get their feet wet learning winery compliance. This job exposes them […]

Elise Baril: Common Misconceptions and Advice About Wine Compliance

I recently met with my friend and fellow wine compliance colleague, Elise Baril. Elise is President of Baril Compliance Service, located in Santa Rosa, CA. We have  recently been developing a referral relationship between our businesses and in that spirit I wanted to tap into and share some of her advice and input from over […]

Harvest is Coming…Is Your Compliance Prepared?

The beginning cycle of winemaking is about to start in the northern hemisphere: the grape harvest. Otherwise just called “harvest” or “crush” by those directly impacted by it. What does this part in the winemaking cycle mean from a compliance viewpoint? This is where all the records of a wine’s life begin which include many of the details often referred […]

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. […]

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