Special Alert: COVID-19 Bulletin

Dear Friends,

Wineries considering extensions of, or changes to, the hospitality and guest service areas on their licensed premises will find value in this summary of OLCC’s Reopening Guidance for businesses in counties approved for Phase I commercial activities. It has been prepared by Davis Wright Tremaine, legal counsel for the Oregon Winegrowers Association. DWT’s interpretation includes links to three OLCC documents including the no-fee application required when redefining or expanding a winery’s square footage dedicated to wine service. Business owners will want to pay special attention to DWT’s finding that an update to the winery’s TTB filing may in some instances be in order.

As part of adapting the Oregon Wine Month promotion in response to COVID-19, the OWB has launched a new consumer rewards program called Oregon Vine Perks. Shaped by industry member input, Oregon Vine Perks encourages wine buyers to pick up Oregon wines online, in store, at curbside and in tasting rooms. As those purchases add up, our best consumers earn rewards they’ll claim when they start revisiting wine regions around the state. OWB has been in close contact with the media to generate coverage such as this about the program, so make sure your winery is included by signing up right here.

After you’ve listed your business on the Oregon Vine Perks roster, don’t forget to update your winery profile in the OWB’s database. Our visit.oregonwine.org site is the go-to resource for consumers, media and partners looking for tasting rooms offering onsite hospitality. One of those key partners is Travel Oregon, whose Oregon Tourism Information System is linked to OWB’s tasting room database and is used by Travel Oregon affiliates.

County-by-county openings can be confusing for consumers and planning a visit to wine country is not as easy as it once was. So tasting room profiles will soon be filtered to enable searches that identify the wineries welcoming guests for onsite service and those offering other options to wine buyers. To ensure your listing reflects your current status see this message sent yesterday and help us keep the information up to date.

If anyone somehow missed the earlier mass distributions of best practices for reopening, here are the Guidelines for Oregon Wine Tasting Room Operations in Response to COVID-19. They reflect the input of winemakers and tasting room managers from around the state who are joining with many other Oregon wine business owners to urge friends and neighbors to open back up only after thorough staff training is completed and guest safety standards can be consistently maintained. Here is the OWB’s announcement to that effect from May 14.

By way of reminder, Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) continues to urge agriculture business owners to review its Temporary Administrative Rule Addressing the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency in Labor Housing and Agriculture Employment. The rule has been in effect for about 10 days, although OSHA’s expressed intention is to defer rigorous enforcement through the end of this month if possible and focus for now on achieving compliance by working with the industry collaboratively in light of sanitation equipment supply shortages.

As part of an industry effort to keep the Department of Agriculture informed about the extent of PPE supply shortages, we’re consolidating estimates of PPE required for vineyard and winery workers between now and the end of the growing season.

Send your estimates for any or each of these three categories to [email protected]:

Portable toilets with handwashing stations
N95 masks / face shields
Cleaning supplies

A final note on PPE. Since the need is urgent for some businesses, the Oregon Winegrowers Association has prepared a list of providers that may be able to fulfill orders for masks, sanitizers and gloves.

While looking ahead to what we hope will be a safe and memorable Memorial Day holiday for all, don’t miss one or more of these upcoming webinars over the next couple days:

Silicon Valley Bank’s “State of the Industry: Special Edition” is set for this Thursday morning at 9 a.m. Register for it here.
The Oregon Wine Council’s session to share learnings on wine tasting room reopenings throughout the state is this Thursday at 1 p.m. Register here.
And finally, the next webinar in the Tonkon Torp series is this Friday morning at 11 a.m. The subject is “PPP Loan Forgiveness.” Tonkon Torp lawyers will address questions such as: “Is there any flexibility to the eight-week covered period?” and “How are loan forgiveness reductions calculated and how do exemptions from reduction work?” Register here.