New Virginia law could threaten small wineries in the state
New Virginia law could threaten small wineries in the state
By the end of the year, some of Virginia’s smallest wineries may be shutting down as a law passed in 2023 comes into full effect at the end of the year. FOX 5's Julie Donaldson explains.
LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. - By the end of the year, some of Virginia’s smallest wineries may be shutting down as a law passed in 2023 comes into full effect at the end of the year.
In Virginia, wineries mean big business. In Loudoun County alone, there are 50 wineries producing more grapes than any other region in Virginia, and that translates into tourism dollars to the tune of $4.9 billion just last year.
This new law will have a direct impact on those wineries, and depending on the size of your property, not in a good way.
The legislation:
Senate Bill 983 changes how wineries are classified by creating a tiered system for farm winery licenses. It’s based on the winery’s size and how much fruit must be grown on the property and in Virginia.
It’s designed to protect the integrity of Virginia wine.
"The Virginia ABC was giving licenses to a lot of different people who weren’t totally fulfilling the spirit of the law," said Bill Hatch with Zephaniah Farm Vineward.
"It became very simple, I’ll put it that way, to establish a business model where you don’t necessarily have to grow that much," Hatch said. "You could buy the wine or buy the juice or buy the grapes and not necessarily have to grow them there because growing of the grapes is definitely the hardest part of growing wine."
Local perspective:
The law is forcing some of the smaller wineries that don’t have the land and have leased property to grow grapes, or that have outsourced them from out of state, to either fulfill the new farm winery regulations or find a different business to run the property.
Bacchus is a winery in Fredericksburg that also teaches others how to make wine. They’re closing their doors and moving to a new location, partly due to the new regulations.
"You're going to lose a lot of the people that are in these small boutique wineries that say, ‘I can't buy another acre and a half around my winery and then have to plant grapes, wait eight years to get my first grape off the vine that I can use to make wine,’" owner Hal Bell said.
"You'll lose all of those wineries," he went on to say. "You're going to get people, people that are going to just jump out because it's so hard. You're living paycheck to paycheck anyway, and you're lucky to make a profit at the end of the year. So if you don't have all the requirements, it's going to feel like the world is really crumbling in on site."
What we don't know:
FOX 5 was not able to obtain information on just how many of the boutique wineries will be impacted by the new law, but many that we know of and reached out to declined to talk to us on the matter.
They are either selling or looking at ways to change their operations so they don’t have to go out of business.