It’s always a good time to gut-check your wine production record-keeping, but it’s especially valuable to do so each year before harvest begins.
Every producer of wine or hard cider is required to keep thorough compliance records for the TTB and FDA. This documentation requires immaculate tracking of liquid movements across each tax class and bond, all ingredients added to your products, analysis history, and compositional history tracking back to the source fruit, juice, or wine.
It’s near impossible to manage this with spreadsheets! If you are, you’re likely spending far too much time and effort making sense of your production notes, and, let’s be honest, fudging a few numbers here and there. So, how can you ensure you’re tracking everything correctly and efficiently?
The Importance of Accurate Record Keeping
In the realm of legal compliance, numerous requirements need to be meticulously tracked and documented:
- Liquid movements and evaporative losses: Each gallon of wine must be accounted for as it transitions between vessels in your winery and even as it evaporates over time.
- All products added to grapes, juice and wine: All additive quantities must be documented, right from the wine to the manufacturer batch and purchase order, in accordance with FDA regulations.
- Wine transfers between tax classes and bonds: This includes instances such as blending wines with different ABV percentages and moving wines between bonds or APs at your winery. If you blend a wine that’s 15.5% ABV into a wine that’s 16.1% ABV, this transferred volume needs to be documented currently on the 5120.17 report as being removed from <16% tax class and transferred to the 16-21% tax class.
- Physical inventory record: A physical inventory count is mandatory at least once a year, and it should align with the 5120.17 report submitted to the TTB.
- Comprehensive history for every wine produced: This includes additives, volume changes over time, analysis history, associated work orders, and evidence of label compliance.
Managing these requirements manually can be an overwhelming task, which is where the value of dedicated winery management software like InnoVint truly shines.
InnoVint: Your Partner in Winery Compliance
InnoVint’s winemaking software is designed to automatically capture, categorize, and report all necessary compliance data, streamlining the process and reducing the chances of error.
For instance, when submitting the TTB 5120.17 form, InnoVint users can generate a pre-populated form of their winery’s activities by tax class with just a few clicks.
InnoVint’s software offers additional features, including:
- Providing information on the actual Report of Wine Premises Operations form with an option for further editing
- Supporting multiple bonds or locations under the same organization
- Alerting users of potential compliance issues
- Allowing backdated editing of tax class decorations
- Granting access to your compliance team or 3rd party consultants to generate reports
In the event of an audit, InnoVint generates a comprehensive, single report that satisfies TTB and FDA requirements, with a completely digital work order history attached.
By aligning technology with winemaking processes, InnoVint makes compliance simpler and more efficient. Let us help you focus on what truly matters – crafting exceptional wines.
