A Basic Guide To Wine Import

As a lover of wine is it those from the Italian region including those from Tuscany, Piedmont, and Umbria; French region (Rhone region); Spanish (Murcia and Rioja regions); Washington State (Columbia Valley) varieties. You will need a guide to be successful if you plan to import these varieties of wine because there are already lots of French wine importers around.

Get A Compliance Paperwork

After coming up with a solid and a workable business and marketing plan, sourcing for adequate funding and identifying and targeting the appropriate supplier and customers, it is time to obtain the necessary credentials that will qualify you to import this revered commodity.

The necessary licenses, permits, and documents you will need include: the Employer Identification Number which is a prerequisite for getting a federal import permit and also necessary for opening up a bank account for any entity other than a sole proprietorship.

Federal Import Basic permit is often the first industry license to be obtained and also the most important. The Alcohol and Trade Tax Bureau(TTB) require you to present a letter from a winery willing to export to you before you can supply; Broker Power Of Attorney is required in order to have a Customs broker act on the behalf of an importer, a Broker Power of Attorney must be executed by an officer of the company that will be looking to import.

Other documents you will need include: the Certificate of Label Application(COLAs), Home state Licenses, FDA product Registration, and Customs Continuous Bond.

Determine Your Terms Of Sale

It is critical for an importer to understand their individual responsibilities when negotiating terms of sale with their suppliers. Some commonly used terms include:

Ex Works: which means the seller delivers when he places the goods at the disposal of the buyer of the seller’s premise or another named place like warehouse, factory, etc. This term thus represents the minimum obligation for the seller, and the buyer has to bear all costs and risks involved in taking the goods from the seller’s premises.

FOB: Which means seller delivers when the goods are loaded on board a vessel at the named port of shipment. This means that the buyer has to bear all costs and risks of loss or damage to the goods from that point. The FOB term requires the seller to clear the goods for export.

CIF: This term means that the seller will deliver when the goods are loaded on board a vessel at the named port of shipment. This differs from the FOB in the sense that it bears all the cost excluding risks or damages.

Figure Out Duties And Taxes

Unlike commodities, the value of the wine being imported has very little to do with the duty/tax calculation since it is determined primarily by liter/case.

Some experts in wine import recommend Deborah M. Gray’s book, “How to Import Wine, An Insider's Guide.”  Gray did a great job explaining the realities of getting a wine import business off the ground and covers everything from building a business model to purchase.