Winery Operations and Compliance Guides
Reference guides for people who run wineries, written by a winemaker. Federal compliance from permit application through excise returns and recordkeeping, the operational side covering harvest planning, cost of goods sold, bulk inventory, and barrel programs, and a neutral look at evaluating software. Conversion charts and lookup tables live separately under reference tables.
Federal compliance
| Guide | What it covers |
|---|
| How to Get a TTB Winery Permit | Bonded winery versus bonded wine cellar, the PATH Act bond exemption at $50,000, what the application package contains, and why the premises boundary is a tax line |
| The Wine Excise Tax Return, Explained | Rates by tax class, the three filing frequencies and their thresholds, due dates, and how the CBMA credit applies |
| What Records a Bonded Winery Has to Keep | The required record set, three year retention and its extension, source records, and the most commonly cited audit finding |
Form specific walkthroughs and country specific filing guides are collected separately under reporting guides, including line by line instructions for TTB Form 5120.17, the CBMA credit, California state requirements, and French wine declarations.
Operations and cost
| Guide | What it covers |
|---|
| The Winery Harvest Readiness Checklist | The six to eight week runway, tank space collisions, dry goods that scale with tonnage, lab throughput, safety obligations, and pick sequencing |
| Winery COGS: How to Cost a Gallon and a Case | The three inventory pools, the multi-vintage lag, cost per gallon and per case, overhead drivers, and blend cost propagation |
| Bulk Wine Inventory: Tracking Gallons in Bond | What every transfer needs recorded, loss categories, tax class travelling with the lot, and reconciling on the reporting cycle |
| Barrel Management and Topping | Topping intervals against measured loss, tracked topping wine, per barrel records, fill number economics, and barrel cost per case |
Choosing software
| Guide | What it covers |
|---|
| How to Choose Winery Management Software | The four product categories, how pricing accumulates beyond the subscription, the capabilities that decide fit, and demo questions worth asking |
| Moving a Winery Off Spreadsheets | Why spreadsheets are legal but weak evidence, what breaks first, when the crossover arrives, and how to sequence a migration |