Wine Act 2003

The Wine Act 2003 is the core Act governing the making and export of wine under this regime in New Zealand. Its objects include standards for identity, truthfulness in labelling and safety, minimising and managing risks to human health, supporting official assurances for overseas markets, safeguarding the reputation of New Zealand wine in export markets, promoting industry consultation and enabling industry levies.

For a business owner, the practical point is simple. Wine compliance is built into operations. It affects production steps, packaging, labels, records, verification and export decisions. It is not something to leave until a shipment is ready or a verifier asks questions.

If you make wine commercially, one of the first checks is whether your business must operate under a registered wine standards management plan. If you export, you also need to check exporter registration, prerequisites for export, export eligibility requirements and whether an official assurance is needed for the destination market.

The Act defines making wine broadly. It covers any or every process or action from receipt of the commodity through to dispatch of the wine. That is why businesses involved in production steps need to check the regime carefully rather than assuming it only applies to vineyard owners or large wineries.

The Act applies more broadly than many people expect. It is not limited to vineyards, cellar doors or brand owners. The definition of making wine covers any or every process or action from receipt of the commodity through to dispatch of the wine.

The Act says making wine includes crushing or pressing the commodity for juice, fermenting the commodity or juice into wine, storage, blending or mixing, bottling or otherwise packaging wine, and labelling wine. The commodity can include plant material or honey used for the making of wine.

The Act also defines grape wine, fruit wine or vegetable wine, and mead. It separately defines extension products. These are products such as food, wine vinegar or commodity-based spirits that meet the statutory definition, including being made by a winemaker, at the place or area covered by the winemaker's wine standards management plan or a relevant exemption, produced from wine, and processed so they are no longer wine or a wine product.

For export, the Act defines an exporter as a person who exports wine from New Zealand for reward or for purposes of trade. That definition also includes the New Zealand agent or representative of that exporter.

Whether a business is fully in scope can still depend on the Act's application and exemption provisions. The Act includes general scope and exemption sections, a limited exemption from the requirement to have a wine standards management plan, and a power for certain persons to be required to have one.

A wine standards management plan is one of the central compliance tools in the Act. The Act covers what a wine standards management plan is, who must have one, duties of operators, plan contents and requirements, and multi-business plans.

The Act also deals with registration. Wine standards management plans must be registered. There are provisions for applications, registration, refusal to register, suspension of operations under a registered plan, deregistration, surrender, and removal of a business or part of a business from coverage of a wider plan.

In practice, your plan should match how the business really operates. If the registered plan says one thing but your staff follow another process, that can create problems across verification, records, tracing and whether the wine has been made in line with the applicable requirements.

The Act distinguishes between significant amendments and minor amendments. Significant amendments require registration. Minor amendments must still be notified. The Director-General may also require amendment to improve the clarity of a registered wine standards management plan.

Multi-business plans can help where businesses share facilities or systems. But they also create practical risk. Each business should know exactly which activities are covered, who operates the plan day to day, and how records are kept for each business within the wider arrangement.

The Act recognises that some businesses are involved with both food and wine. It includes specific provisions about persons involved with both food and wine, and about intermittent use of a food control plan as a wine standards management plan.

That matters for mixed operations such as businesses that handle wine alongside other food activities. The crossover is dealt with through specific statutory provisions. The Act also allows regulations to grant or provide for exemptions from this Act or the Food Act 2014 in some cases.

If your business runs both wine and food operations, check carefully which activities sit under which regime, whether intermittent use is available, and whether your documents and procedures clearly separate the two where needed.

The Act is built around safe wine, truthful labelling and systems that let problems be identified and managed. It provides for wine standards and their application. Regulations may prescribe standards.

The Act also includes general obligations for tracing and recall, verification, and record keeping and reporting. These are not side issues. They are part of how the regime works in practice.

For a business owner, the practical test is whether you can tell the product story from start to finish. You should be able to connect the commodity received, the production steps taken, the wine produced, the labels used and the product dispatched. If something goes wrong, you need to identify affected wine quickly and act on it.

Verification matters because the Act provides for recognised agencies, recognised persons and recognised classes. If your records are incomplete or inconsistent, a verification issue can quickly become a wider compliance issue.

Labelling also matters beyond marketing. One of the Act's objects is truthfulness in labelling, and the offence provisions deal with false or misleading statements, misuse of labels and tampering with descriptions, certificates or official assurances.

The Act has a dedicated export regime. One of its objects is to facilitate entry of wine into overseas markets by providing the controls and mechanisms needed to give and safeguard official assurances. It also enables export eligibility requirements to safeguard the reputation of New Zealand wine in overseas markets.

Exporting is therefore not just a sales step. It is a separate compliance step. The Act deals with prerequisites for export, export eligibility requirements, exemptions for certain consignments, wine or persons, duties of exporters, market access requirements, official assurances and exporter registration.

The Director-General may notify or make available access requirements for overseas markets. The Director-General may also issue official assurances, and the Act deals with their form, content, obtaining, withdrawal and reissue.

The Act also keeps a register of exporters and covers applications for registration, refusal to register, deregistration, surrender and review rights in some cases.

For many businesses, the key lesson is that domestic compliance and export compliance are related but not identical. A wine that is ready for sale in New Zealand may still need extra checks before it can be exported to a particular market.

The Act includes specific rules about border information. It says border information supplied using JBMS must be supplied in the approved form and manner, and it creates a duty to use JBMS to supply border information.

If your business relies on a freight forwarder, customs broker or other intermediary, do not treat this as someone else's problem. You still need to make sure the underlying wine and consignment information is accurate and consistent with your own records.

The Act also contains provisions about automated electronic systems. That matters for businesses using approved electronic processes to meet compliance steps under the regime.

The Act gives the Director-General and wine officers a range of enforcement tools. These include notices, directions, recalls, powers of entry and examination, improvement notices, search warrants and court compliance orders.

The offence provisions are detailed. They include offences involving deception, offences involving endangerment of human health, sale of non-complying wine, exporting unless registered or in compliance with export eligibility requirements, obstruction, automated electronic system offences, breach of compliance orders, breach of duty and failure to comply with the Act in some cases.

The Act directly supports some penalty references. For deception offences, a body corporate is liable to a fine not exceeding $500,000, and an individual is liable to imprisonment for up to 5 years and a fine not exceeding $100,000.

For endangerment of human health, the Act sets different maximum penalties depending on the offence. For some offending, a body corporate can face a fine not exceeding $500,000 and an individual can face imprisonment for up to 5 years and a fine not exceeding $100,000. For offending under section 98(2), a body corporate can face a fine not exceeding $300,000 and an individual can face imprisonment for up to 2 years and a fine not exceeding $75,000.

Sale of non-complying wine can also lead to penalties. A body corporate can be fined up to $250,000 and an individual up to $50,000.

Personal exposure matters too. The Act says a body corporate's state of mind can be established through a director, employee or agent acting within actual or apparent authority. It also says directors and managers can be guilty of a like offence if the company is convicted and the offending happened with their authority, permission or consent, or they knew and failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent or stop it.

The Act also allows the court in some cases to make an order to pay an amount because of commercial gain.

Compliance problems often start with ordinary business changes. A new site, a new process step, a new label, a new export market or a new shared production arrangement can all change what the Act requires from you.

The safest approach is to link legal checks to operational decisions. If management signs off on a process change, site change or export launch, someone should also check whether the wine standards management plan, records, verification arrangements or exporter setup need to change first.

Good habits early on can prevent expensive problems later. Records should be made as part of the work, not reconstructed afterwards. Staff should know that labels, samples, certificates, official assurances and compliance records are controlled documents.

The Act received Royal assent on 30 October 2003. Its main commencement date was 1 January 2004, with some provisions commencing on different dates under section 2.

The current consolidated legislation states the law as at 30 November 2022. Businesses should also check any later amendments, regulations, notices, standards and market access requirements before acting for a live compliance decision.

The Act also contains transitional provisions that mattered when the regime first started, including transitional periods for wine standards management plans and exporter registration. Those provisions are mainly historical now, but they remain part of the Act's structure.