2020. A year that many have been ready to be over for awhile. For wineries here in Napa County this year’s harvest was a nightmare, of course due to the two rounds of wildfires that hit us across the majority of the grape harvest. (not to exclude wineries across California and the northwest who were also impacted directly by wildfires) Napa County is where my business is based, but Napa is also my hometown and watching the devastation that has hit the place I grew up, my friends and community saddens me on so many levels. 

Business wise some of my clients here in Napa County have lost their wineries or suffered partial damage. Others have decided not to harvest any of their grapes, and others that did bring in their grapes are still deciding whether or not they will keep them past the fermentation stage.

For all of these scenarios I’ve been inspired to create my next two videos.

One is for wineries that lost either part or all of their winery due to fire. It is focused on the basics of how to (1) file a TTB claim report and (2) how to report the gallons lost on the TTB 5120.17 report. Those are the two steps in the process for this type of loss due to disaster.

The second video shows how to report on the TTB 5120.17 report if your winery decides to dump any lots of 2020 fermentations due to smoke taint.

Take a look at each of them:

 Info on filing a claim with the TTB due to wildfire loss

Reporting smoke taint damaged gallons dumped due to smoke taint