Three Sisters Vineyards in Northeast Georgia Wine Country

OFF SITE EVENT PARTICIPATION A Primer For City & County Festivals & Events
When our schedule permits, Three Sisters Vineyards is always interested in participating in art and food celebrations and festivals. (We also enjoy doing private events.) In order to do a public event, a couple of things have to be satisfied and supplied by your governing authority and to the State of Georgia. Firstly, we need a signed letter of approval from your city or county government stating that they grant permission to our bonded winery name (Chestatee Valley Vintners, LLC) to participate and conduct tastings and wine sales during a specific date (or dates-if multiple days), location and event. We will in turn file ATT-4SP Rev- the Application for State of Georgia One Day or Special Event Alcohol Beverage Permit with the Department of Revenue. They require at least 10 business days prior to the date of the event. If you'd like to review this form, you can download this form from the list at http://www.etax.dor.ga.gov/alcohol/alc_forms.aspx Please note: It is important for your governing authority to allow us both tasting and wine sales privileges for your event, as we can not economically afford to cover the expenses incurred with every group tasting event. Several of Georgia's wineries (including Three Sisters) met with DOR Director Howard Tyler and Assistant Chief of Special Operations Shawn Douglas in a special December 2006 meeting. During this meeting we discussed the necessary paperwork required to conduct tastings and sales at festivals and events. They assured us that as long as the local government issues a letter of approval and that we file ATT-4SP with the DOR, we could conduct tastings and sales at any event. The wineries will be responsible for collecting and remitting all Georgia sales and excise taxes related to the wines offered. Adding Georgia wine tastings to an event will attract folks. We’ll need ice for chilling wines, dump buckets for samples, and fresh water for tasting. Glasses are usually supplied by the host organization. It is important to note that we need the wine glasses to be “glass” instead of plastic cups to enhance the wine tasting experience. Glasses can either be supplied by your hosts at the gate or door and collected at the exit or this is a great opportunity for a non-profit to man the gate with wine glasses to collect a donation fee. (There are several companies including Boelter Glass in MN and Arton Glass in VA that can produce festival glasses for the wine trade and corporations at reasonable fees. We'll be glad to connect you with these companies.) In our experience, entry is between $5 to $10 for an empty souvenir glass and the host organization is responsible for any sale tax due on the glasses-if any. You can order imprinted wine glasses with your event from many different suppliers. Georgia has several companies that specialize in doing imprinted glasses for wine events. It is customary for you to hire a uniformed police officer to discourage underage access and check IDs at the entry. While you'll have to be responsible for following all local and state laws regarding alcohol consumption, we suggest you post a sign at the entry that says "21 or older only may enter." DOR has nifty signs that can also be downloaded from the state website. A simple wristband can be issued with the wine glass to identify participants as 21 or older. We’d suggest you consider this for your event-otherwise; the winery has an obligation to ID everyone who wants to taste and that could slow down the experience making people un-happy. We reserve the right to not serve anyone who appears intoxicated or is underage and may ask the participant again to show proof of age. While all of this may sound difficult, this is really not a very complicated matter. All of Georgia's farm wineries have extensive experience with festivals and events. Please let us know if you’d like to book us for your next event and contact Sharon or Doug Paul at 706-865-9463 with any questions.