Whether your winery has been passed down for generations or is a new passion project, you must have adequate coverage to safeguard your assets. A winery is a complicated business venture. Without a thorough knowledge of your insurance needs, you will find yourself not covered in a case where you thought you had insurance coverage. One of the most critical aspects of your winery operation is the growth of your grapes. If you don’t have winery insurance coverage to protect your grape harvest, you won’t have your most important asset covered from potential loss.

Importance of Your Grape Crop

While there are numerous steps to wine production, the grapes that go into your wine are what provide your signature taste. You can't go to the store and purchase a flat of grapes to make up for a lost crop. More importantly, without a viable grape crop, you can’t produce wine. As a result, the protection of your grapes through their harvest should be your number one priority.

Potential Damage to Your Grape Crop

What types of grape issues can occur when growing your crop? There are several different events that can cause your grape crop to be destroyed before harvest. Some of the various events include natural disasters such as floods, fires, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. Other events that can cause your crop to be less than optimal include vine or grape infestations. However, many types of insurance policies do not include earthquake coverage, so you will likely need to purchase an additional kind of insurance coverage if you are in an earthquake zone.

Types of Insurance to Protect Your Grape Crop

You will need to purchase crop insurance to have your grapes covered. When you purchase grape insurance, you will be covered through the harvest of your grapes. However, when your grapes have been harvested, you will need different types of insurance to cover the production, storage, and transportation of your wine products.

In Conclusion

Owning a winery is a complicated endeavor. You will need numerous types of insurance coverage for a successful operation. To ensure the protection of your grapes, you must have crop insurance. Without crop insurance, your grape crop is subject to the devastation of a natural disaster or infestation. Also, you will need insurance coverage to protect your wine during production, storage, and transportation. If you need expert advice to guide you through the process of selecting winery insurance, contact us at Harmony Insurance.

If you are an owner of a winery, you cannot get by with a regular insurance policy. Even a brewery insurance policy would leave you exposed to financial loss. While there are some similarities between winery insurance and brewery insurance, there are also some differences that separate the two distinctively. What are the specific insurance requirements for a winery?

Crop Insurance

Rarely will a brewery harvest its own hops and barley. However, a winery operator will grow his own grapes on his own land. The taste and color of your grapes will be the signature for your wine. You can't go to the store and buy a pallet of grapes and get the same fragrance and flavor of the wine. As a result, your entire process of developing wine requires an abundant growth of grapes. That said, the well-being of your crops is necessary to maintaining your business. What happens when an early frost destroys your crop? Or a fire burns down your vines before the harvest? Your entire years’ worth of wine production is lost. As a winery operator, you must have wine insurance for your crops.

Guests

Many wineries encourage guests to come to the site to take tours, participate in wine tastings, and sell bottles or crates of wine on location. To properly insure yourself against accidents caused by guests or injuries incurred by guests, you need additional liability insurance. Not to mention, you may want to hold special events to celebrate your wine and thank loyal customers. These events can include caterers, musicians, and rental companies. Your winery insurance must also cover these types of special events.

Leaks and Contamination

While both a brewery and a winery must worry about leaks and contamination of their product, the process to brew beer takes a fraction of the time that wine takes to reach perfection. As a result, brewery insurance would not cover a product that takes months longer to prepare and years longer to age.

Property

A brewery can pop up anywhere. One can be located inside an urban core or show up in a barn out in the back 40 acres. However, a winery will be located on a large area of land, and the owners will likely reside on the same land as the winery. Therefore, the amount of winery coverage must account for the residence and land of the winery operator.

As a winery operator, you need special insurance to cover all your products and services. If you need expert advice to guide you through the process of selecting winery insurance, contact us at Harmony Insurance. We are an experienced insurance company. Contact us today.