Monday, December 17, 2012

An Emerging Trend For Wine Exporters


By Cary Greene

If you’re exporting wine, or thinking about it, you should be aware of an emerging trend relating to foreign registrations and inspections.  The implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) has been hot topic recently, particularly with respect to the new registration requirements contained in that law.

But FSMA also gave the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) greater power to inspect foreign and domestic facilities.  While wineries are largely shielded from these new powers due to a first of its kind exemption that limits FDA’s authority over wine regulation, FSMA’s inspection provisions seems to be starting a problematic trend—in the form of retaliatory foreign registrations and inspections.

China, Canada, Russia, Vietnam and Indonesia, are in the process of implementing legislation that directly responds to FSMA.  In apparent protest of FDA’s new powers, these countries are giving their local agencies registration and inspection authority over U.S. producers.

While we’ve have heard no reports of actual inspections, we’ve expressed our concern with the Alcohol & Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau (TTB).  Foreign inspections would pose a host of practical and business problems for American wineries.  It should be up to TTB to determine whether a producer is complying with U.S. production laws, and we will work with the agency to ensure there is a clear plan to deal with this potentially significant problem.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

New Mobile App Becomes Market Share Leader for American Wineries and Wine Trails


America's Wine Trails has partnered with two of the largest names in the wine industry, Wines & Vines  and WineAmerica to launch the most comprehensive winery app for today's mobile consumer.

America's Wine Trails, LLC announces a new Free mobile app showcasing over 6,000 wineries and 270  wine trails in the United States. The app is available at the Apple and Android app stores. It also available as an HTML5 version that can be used on any mobile browser.

"Our goal is connecting people with wineries. Our mission is to promote local wine in all regions of the country. Providing mobile access to thousands of wineries across North America is one way to do it. We know that this is a great way to reach millions of wine consumers in an environment where they are most engaged; their Smartphones."  - Vince Manzer,  America's Wine Trails, LLC.



Even in a slow economy, the wine industry is growing at a steady pace bolstering winery tourism.  With an industry push to reach Millennials and with over 100 million Smartphones in the US today, it provides the perfect environment for a user friendly app to find wineries and wine trails across the country.

America's Wine Trails, LLC is a young company filled with a passion and dedication to produce a quality app that will become a useful tool for users to seek out new adventures while discovering great wine and wineries throughout our nation.

Teaming up with WineAmerica and Wines & Vines provided the resources and experience to put together the most comprehensive listing of wineries and wine trails available today. Using a sophisticated search matrix, the app allows the user to find wineries with several options, including by "type of
Varietal" used to make it's wines. Other popular features to the app are; "Find A Winery Near Me" and "My Wine Journal". The journal allows the user to log their favorite wines and wines they have tasted in tasting rooms for future reference.

Note to Wineries: Wineries are encouraged to become members of America's Wine Trails which provides them an expanded description about their winery helping generate a stronger interest from future customers.  Be sure to check out our wine trail video tours.  This is a great way for wineries to reach out to future customers on a personal level with an invitation from the owner to visit with a message about the winery and its wines.