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grapeman

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Wade created the subforum, but no posts here yet so I made this one for the topic to show up. Now all we need is to fill in a bunch of stuff.

I will comment here some as I get time as I took the route over the last few years.
 
So you have some place to begin, here is a link to a packet you can get from the Federal Government at the TTB. It will give you a small idea of what to begin with.
http://www.ttb.gov/applications/index.shtml

The whole process involves working with the TTB, your local jurisdiction and your state. Therefore the process will be different from one winery to another. If you want to apply, don't wait until the last minute. In NY the whole process can take from 6 moths to a couple years.
 
Do you employ enough people to harvest your grapes or do you solicit volunteers. I know some wineries in our area count mostly on volunteers to bring the grapes in?
 
So Rich, if I want to open an winery to sell the wines that I am making and bottling, I need to fill out the Winery/Taxpaid Wine Bottling House?
 
Hey Julie, I'm by no means an expert on any of this, but you will need some sort of permit to do that. You can call them and hope they can tell you the proper route. It took me months of digging to figure out the route I needed to take. Every state and municipality is different and it all depends on your business plan and structure. Here in NY we need to get the TTB permits first before we can submit to the state, but that varies.
 
UBB I do almost all the work myself. I get my boys to help pick sometimes. Eventually I will need a few pickers and at that time I may see if I can get some of the Jamaican apple pickers that are employed around here. They are employed and housed by growers that harvest hundreds or thousands of acres a year.
 
Thanks, my husband, Mike, thinks we should seriously look into this for when we retire as. I guess I should contact the state and see what they say. I'm glad this thread was started. I will post what I find out what PA wants from us.
 
Julie, I looked somewhat into here in Ct. and to sell any wine I made I had to have a certain amount of the fruit grown on my property. I never git any further then that but maybe someday!
 
Most states don't care about how much or little you grow, unless you call it a farm winery. Then you need to at least run a "farm" which means you need to generate a certain amount of income from the business. Here in NY we can only use grapes or juice grown in NY for us to use the farm winery classification which has lower bond and tax rates than a regular commercial license. With it we are allowed to make up to 150,000 gallons of wine a year- no danger of that here!
 
I know there are a few places around lik e Brew on premise places that can sell the wine they make from kits. That would be a damn good deal. I think High Gravity Brewing just did this a month ago.
 
We have a couple of wineries in our area that get their juice from Presque Isle, they make it on their premises, bottle it and sell it.

I actually was thinking of doing a ferment on premises with winemaking classes.
 
I know there are a few places around lik e Brew on premise places that can sell the wine they make from kits. That would be a damn good deal. I think High Gravity Brewing just did this a month ago.

The Feds would let us do that here, but not the state.
 
Julie I have heard great things about those wineries and have met or worked with a few of them. I am hoping to get down there to visit them some day soon. Have you gone to Doug's friends winery (Kavic winery). That would be a great one for you to talk to.
 
Julie I have heard great things about those wineries and have met or worked with a few of them. I am hoping to get down there to visit them some day soon. Have you gone to Doug's friends winery (Kavic winery). That would be a great one for you to talk to.

Dan, if you are able to come down some day, let me know, i'll take you around. Rustic Acres is very small but totally awesome. There is another one called The Vineyard by Mellon, this guy sells his grapes to Presque Isle and then their is Narcissi and Volant. The only winery around here that I will not take you to is Winfield Winery, this guy is a total jerk and the last time i had any of his wines they had a watery taste to them. He would be the type to add water to a finished wine to increase the volume.
 
I would be curious as to what licenses i would need to start up a winery. I know all states will vary on this, but is there a general idea of the licensing you would need??
 
I've done some checking on this here in Columbus, Ohio. Rocky and I just went to a FOP yesterday and they also make and sells their own wine. I am also looking into opening an FOP for when I retire (or sooner). I know the license is fairly cheap, but I don't know what the availibility is. It sounded to me, that keeping the department of Health happy was the hard part.
 
Julie I have heard great things about those wineries and have met or worked with a few of them. I am hoping to get down there to visit them some day soon. Have you gone to Doug's friends winery (Kavic winery). That would be a great one for you to talk to.

Julie, If you want me to get Dr Kavic's contact info for you I'm sure I could do that. He could be a wealth of information.
 
I would be curious as to what licenses i would need to start up a winery. I know all states will vary on this, but is there a general idea of the licensing you would need??

First you need a Basic Permit from the TTB - go the the link in post #2 I think it was. Early on you shoul also check with your local government such as town. You might need a variance depending on codes in place. Once they give you a preliminary OK, go to the state website and look for an information packet. That should tell you what you need. Here we deal with the State Liquor Authority and we need to fill out the "wholesaler winery " license which really makes little sense. That gives us the right to bypass the normal distribution network as we are our own distributor.
Good luck.
 
I would be curious as to what licenses i would need to start up a winery. I know all states will vary on this, but is there a general idea of the licensing you would need??

Somewhat depends on what you want to do. Like Grapeman posted, you need a license from the TTB first, but if you are doing a vineyard and want to do 85% Missouri product, you can choose to go by state regulations. I'm not exactly sure what all is involved down that road, but it is very different. See if you are doing that, you are state regulated vs federal regulated. Either way you need fed and state licenses, then if you want to have a tasting room (not just go through some distributor, which is a license again if you want to do that yourself) you will need a retail liqour license from the state too and you will need to have your premise bonded by an insurance company. Then there is county licenses and city (if applicable). If you want to look at what is needed, you can always stop by here.... :b

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16767
 

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