Do you allow people under the age of 21 to tour your winery?  Do you let them into your tasting room?  How about the picnic area, are kids allowed in there?  If so, then you may soon have a problem.  California’s Legislature is considering legislation – Assembly Bill 2004 – that would permit (but would not require) wineries to serve wine to their customers anywhere on their licensed premises.  If passed, the Bill will greatly enhance the experience that wineries can provide to their visitors, and will permit wineries to diversify their income streams.  But it will also make every winery’s licensed premises off limits to minors.

Assembly Bill 2004 is intended to solve the “picnic area problem.”  In California, wineries operate under a Type 02 “Winegrower” liquor license issued by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (the “ABC”).  A Winegrower can conduct winetastings at the winery and, if it holds a duplicate license, at one branch office.  The ABC interprets “winetaste” to mean a one-ounce pour.  A Winegrower can serve multiple winetastings, but may not allow their customers to drink full glasses or bottles of wine.

Some wineries, however, permit their customers to drink full glasses or bottles of wine in unsupervised “picnic areas” that are on winery property, but that fall outside of the wineries’ licensed premises.  These picnic areas have long been a gray area in California’s liquor license law, because some customers drink bottles of wine in the picnic area that they purchased in the winery’s tasting room.  Why should a winery be allowed to sell wine that they know that customers will drink in the picnic areas, some ask, when they can’t sell that same wine for customers to drink in the tasting room?