Home Bonded Winery

Has anyone in San Francisco been able to get a winery bonded in their home? I have built an insulated room behind my garage Approx 13’ x 13’ with a separate entrance. I presently make a few barrels a year, with friends as amateurs and I am thinking about trying to become bonded so I can legally sell it. Has anyone done this in San Francisco?

The biggest issue you will run into in a residentially zoned area is waste water. Most bonded wineries are limited on production size based on calculated industry averages of water usage even if your usage is much less.

You may be able to get a AP at a bonded facility and use your 13x13 as your second bonded space. This is usually reserved for tasting rooms.

You have to make over 200gallons to get a type 02 Winegrower bond. Anything less and your just operating under the home wine exemption created by the repeal of prohibition and can’t sell the wine.

In addition to Joe’s comments, I think the place to start is with the city office. You need a use permit from the city before you can get your ABC and TTB licenses to produce wine. Some cities allow small commercial wineries in homes, most probably won’t.

Its extremely unlikely a residential area would be zoned for commercial wine making. In Sacramento for example a property needs to be zoned for heavy industrial use before it can be used as a bonded winery location. That’s the extreme but most municipalities consider winemaking at least light industrial.

You will find that there is no other human activity that is more regulated than trying to ferment a sugar solution into an ethyl alcohol solution.

Some cities do allow it. Here’s a thread where it was discussed.

FWIW the following wineries were in basements or garages of homes in the Santa Cruz Mountains: Chain D’Or, Cronin (RIP), Ahlgren (closed in the last couple of years), Page Mill (moved to Livermore), Salemandre (bulk of their wines are made at Bargetto but still age some in their garage) and Woodside Vineyards (garage, but since have moved to Menlo Park/Redwood City). I don’t know what the current status of local laws are but my guess is you would have much better chance of bonding a winery in an un-incorporated area as opposed to in city limits.

On that, there are city restrictions. The city of Woodside imposed a production cap, which is part of why Woodside Vineyards fiinally moved out of town to an industrial space. When Chaine d’Or wanted to get going they faced major opposition from their neighbors. It took a big battle with Duane Cronin and Bob Mullen standing up to bat for them. Tasting rooms aren’t allowed in town.

Neighboring Portola Valley also doesn’t allow tasting rooms or even participation in Passport-type events or open houses.

The biggest issue with San Francisco is zoning. If you can convince someone at the SF Planning Department over the phone that you’re only making a few barrels a year, that you’re not going to be having semis full of grapes, pallets of glass and massive bottling lines going up and down your street, that all of your sales will be over the internet, and that your home won’t be a wine shop where people can stop in and pick up their wine, they may say ok. Be prepared for them to try and extract a conditional use permit (CUP) from you. Those seem to be money makers for the city, even when the zoning is ideal for a certain business, SF still tries to say you need a CUP.

Water, by the way, is a non issue in SF, since all sewage and storm water is treated in SF. Yes, during rainy weeks (looks like we finally have one coming!) this becomes a problem when the two treatment plants can’t keep up. But this won’t be an issue for your application.

Look on this page (https://www.abc.ca.gov/forms/PDFApp.html) and click on ABC 255 Zoning Affidavit to see what the ABC is concerned with regarding zoning, before you call the Planning Dept. to speak with a planner. Also, look on this page (San Francisco Planning | SF Planning), click on the map, then it turns into a pdf, just increase the % to zoom in. This shows you the current zoning for every block in SF. Ideally, for a winery, you’re looking for a PDR or Industrial zone, but don’t give up if your location is purely a Residential zone. I’ve lucked out with the 3 wineries I’ve opened up in SF, they’ve all been in the PDR zone.

After that first step of making sure SF will be okay with your winery, you’ll need to go to City Hall to register your business with the tax office and then register your fictitious business name with the County Clerk. Then the TTB and ABC are next. That paperwork seems overwhelming, but since you can fill out and save pdfs now on your computer, it’s nothing like in the past when you had to fill in blank forms by hand. You’ll get your TTB Basic Permit in a matter of 6 or so weeks, once you submit, but the ABC office can take 4 to 6 months to approve you. A few perfectly timed phone calls asking, “Hey, just checking to see how my 02 application is coming along,” can make a big difference. Start the process soon, and you should be approved in time for the 2015 harvest.

Ed thanks for your informative reply.

I live in the Richmond District in a single family house and I am zoned RM-2. I appreciate your help, as well as everyone else advice. Looks like a hard road but we are probably going to give it a try. Are you Ed Kurtzman of Sandler, August West and others?

James, yes, you have the right Ed. What kind of wine do you make at home? Residential of Moderate Density zoning might be hard to convince the planners that they should allow you to have a winery. They’ll almost definitely require a conditional use permit. The only thing I know about those is that they’re worth paying a lawyer to write for you. Good luck.

Ed, this year we took our 2012 grapes and made a Zin with @12% Petit Syrah and @2% Petit Verdot and it is drinking well right now and we also did a tribute to L’Aventure Winery in Paso Robles 60% Syrah, 30% Cabernet and 10% Petit Verdot. Next year we are going use 2013 grapes to do a Tribute to Dominus. We make very extracted big wines and would love to give you some in exchange for your thoughts on our efforts.