Wineries and vineyards
Your winery is three properties in one. Depreciate each one on its own terms.
A winery runs a production building, a tasting room, and a vineyard, and each one holds different kinds of assets. A study looks at the tanks, the finishes, and the vines separately instead of writing the whole operation off over 39 years.
The baseline
No single box fits a winery. We work it in three pieces.
There is no dedicated winery row in the standard classification tables. A production and tasting building is closest to a light manufacturing and hospitality mix. The vineyard itself is not a building at all, so it follows its own body of farm and vineyard case law instead. Rather than force one label onto the whole property, we work each piece on its own terms and show you a real number with the free estimate.
What reclassifies
Three properties, three sets of assets.
Crush pad and tank equipment
Presses, tanks, pumps, and the plumbing that moves juice and wine from step to step are production equipment, not part of the building shell.
Tasting-room finishes
Counters, display shelving, and branded finishes built for the tasting room are furnishings and fixtures, the same as any retail or hospitality buildout.
Vineyard land improvements
Trellises, wells, and underground irrigation are the classic vineyard assets, and the leading case on this exact question comes down on the vineyard's side.
The leading case
Trentadue: trellises are farm equipment, not a building.
InTrentadue v. Commissioner, the Tax Court looked at a vineyard's trellises, wells, and underground irrigation. It found the trellises were depreciable farm equipment rather than a permanent structure, and it treated the wells and irrigation as 15-year land improvements.
The court also accepted the owner's own testimony and photos as real evidence, not just paperwork from the original construction. That matters for a working vineyard: a study can document what you can show and describe today, not only what survives in a decades-old invoice.See what makes a study audit-defensible.
- What a winery study sorts out:
- Production equipment versus the building shell
- Tasting-room fixtures classified to the evidence
- Trellises, wells, and irrigation at their own life
- Owner testimony and photos accepted as real evidence
One more thing
Some farm structures get their own 10-year life.
Congress carved out a category for single purpose agricultural or horticultural structures, buildings built for one farming use and nothing else, underIRC Section 168(i)(13). Those structures get a 10-year life instead of the default.
Whether a specific building on your property, like a dedicated propagation or storage structure, meets that narrow test is a fact question your study works through with you. Most winery production buildings and tasting rooms do not meet it, since they serve more than one purpose.
See what your winery is worth in deductions.
Enter your property and see your savings range in seconds. The estimate is free and no call is required.