Wine Standards Management Plan

If you intend to make any wine for trade or retail sale, then under the Wine Act 2003, you must register a Wine Standards Management Plan (WSMP) with MPI before you start to make any wine.  Once registered, your WSMP compliance must be annually audited (“verified”). There is no longer any requirement for a winemaking “licence”.

You are a “winemaker” if you perform any of these functions from receipt of the grapes through to the dispatch of packaged and labelled wine:

• crushing or pressing the grapes
• fermenting grapes into wine
• making additions to juice or wine
• storing, blending or mixing wine
• bottling or otherwise packaging wine.

Some winemakers are exempt from registering a WSMP – in particular, winemakers who both:

• intend to make less than 20,000 litres of wine over a two-year period and
• intend not to export any of their wine.

This also requires an application to be made to MPI. You can find out more about this “very small winemaker” exemption here, along with the exemption for those who only affix labels. 

A WSMP demonstrates how you meet requirements under the Wine Act 2003 . It is made up of several components:

• WSMP outline (which provides details about you)
• approved New Zealand Winegrowers WSMP Code of Practice 
• generic Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan
• winery site plan
• your own records and documents.

To register your WSMP,  please visit the MPI website here.