American Canyon Facility Remains State’s Only Custom Crush Site To Obtain Top Quality and Food Safety Certification

Graton, CA – After a vigorous review process, Sonoma Wine Company’s American Canyon Facility attained ISO 22000 certification for a second consecutive year, remaining the first and only custom crush wine facility to achieve this designation in the state of California. The certification includes a well-defined and documented Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) food safety program qualifying the facility to handle imported bulk wine. The American Canyon facility provides contract services to third party winery clients in the following areas: custom crush, bulk wine storage, barrel storage, bottling, and case goods storage.

To obtain ISO 22000 certification, the American Canyon facility passed a rigorous two day audit consisting of document review and physical site inspection. This year’s certification is especially noteworthy as the facility doubled its bottling, storage, and crush volumes in 2011 from 2010.

Meeting ISO 22000 standards means that a facility has an excellent level of management, well-documented operating procedures, and high quality food safety practices. An ISO 22000 is the only certification that is recognized as an internationally consistent standard and allows companies to do business in a global market.

“The attainment of this quality and food safety certification for the second consecutive year is a significant achievement for this site and provides us with a distinct and significant point of differentiation from our competitors,” says Mark Castaldi, General Manager of the American Canyon Facility.

About Sonoma Wine Company
Sonoma Wine Company is a full-service crush-to-bottle contract winery partnering with California wine producers to crush, ferment, barrel, bottle, and warehouse wine programs of all sizes. With five modern facilities located in both Sonoma and Napa counties, the facility can accommodate any size program. With superior customer service and a wide array of equipment including state-of-the-art crush facilities, over two million gallons of stainless cooperage, and six modern bottling lines, the facility can tailor its services and highly experienced staff to match client’s programs, so that clients can spend time connecting with distributors, building a customer base, and growing brands. Sonoma Wine Company has tailored its business to match the size of almost any wine program from private label to large contract producers. Whether companies are producing 500 cases or 500,000 cases, Sonoma Wine Company can scale a company’s growth accordingly. The obtainment of ISO 22000 and HACCP certification also allows Sonoma Wine Company the ability to facilitate bulk-imported wines.

For more information about Sonoma Wine Company, their management team, or to arrange interviews, please contact Lisa Ehrlich at lehrlich@purplewine.com or (707) 829-6132.