Vintage Intelligence, Inc. · Napa, California
Financial clarity for the wine business, built by the people who've run one.
Excise tax by spreadsheet. Bottle cost buried in QuickBooks. Enterprise value nobody can answer. Vintage Intelligence connects four modules, WANDA, CAIT, EVE, and LUNA, to the systems you already use, so the numbers are ready before a lender, buyer, or bad vintage forces the question.
Running a winery means carrying numbers no one has time to untangle.
Four questions that usually get answered too late, with a spreadsheet, a scramble, or a guess.
Excise tax by spreadsheet
Federal and state filings assembled by hand, month after month, with no real-time visibility into liability.
Bottle cost, unknown
True cost per SKU and vintage buried across QuickBooks, production logs, and dry-goods invoices.
Enterprise value, unknown
No clear answer to "what is this winery actually worth" until a buyer or lender asks.
Lender calls, scramble mode
Bank and CPA requests trigger a fire drill instead of pulling from something already current.
Connects to the systems you already run. No rip-and-replace.
One platform. Four tools. Every number connected.
Start anywhere. Every module strengthens the others: the same source of truth feeds an assessment, a cost model, a valuation, and a bank-ready narrative.
Winery Durability Assessment
Know exactly where your winery stands, before a lender, buyer, or bad vintage forces the question. A 10-dimension evaluation across financial health, pricing architecture, inventory, operations, compliance, and market position. The entry point: most clients start here, and the fee is credited in full against your platform subscription.
| Dimension | Score |
|---|---|
| Revenue Quality | 8.7 |
| Club Health | 7.9 |
| Operating Profitability | 4.8 |
| Asset Quality | 8.8 |
| Durability Index™ | 7.13 / 10 · Adequate |
Illustrative sample winery scorecard, for demonstration purposes only.
Cost Accounting Intelligence
What your wine actually costs, by SKU, by vintage, by channel. Invoices, AP exports, and production records sorted automatically, with a confidence score on every figure, margin-compression alerts that flag cost creep early, and NVC consultant validation on every run.
| Flagship Cabernet, 2022 | Per bottle |
|---|---|
| Fruit | $7.80 |
| Winemaking & cellar | $1.95 |
| Barrel + storage (22 mo) | $4.96 |
| Glass, closure, capsule, label | $3.37 |
| Additives, bottling & overhead | $1.64 |
| Total per bottle | $19.73 |
Illustrative sample SKU, for demonstration purposes only. Bottle-cost figures are derived from the information provided and input into CAIT.
Tax Intelligence & Compliance Engine
Federal and state excise tax, calculated automatically from records you already keep, not assembled by hand every filing period. Your CPA still files; TICE makes sure the numbers are already right.
- Calculate federal & state excise liability straight from operational data
- Produce filing-ready reports (PDF, Excel, CSV, JSON)
- Reconcile inventory and removals before anything is filed
- Track the filing calendar and remind you before deadlines
- Ask TICE directly: "Why did excise tax increase this month?" · "Which lots have not yet been reported?"
Enterprise Value Engine
A living 10-year model of your winery, not a static spreadsheet someone built once and forgot. Connected to QuickBooks so actuals flow in monthly; channel-level projections for DTC, club, wholesale, and import; an enterprise-value bridge; and scenario stress-testing for a bad vintage, a rate hike, or a sale.
| 10-Year Outlook · Base case | |
|---|---|
| Revenue, Yr 10 | $5.1M |
| EBITDA, Yr 10 | $1.9M |
| Gross margin | 73.5% |
| Illustrative enterprise value | $5.4M+ |
Illustrative sample model, for demonstration purposes only.
Lender & Advisor Bridge
The next bank call stops being a fire drill. LUNA drafts a banker-ready underwriting narrative straight from EVE's financials, WANDA's durability scorecard, and CAIT's verified costs: plain-English answers for winery owners, underwriting-ready packages formatted the way credit committees expect, and a narrative where every figure traces back to source for CPA and advisory firms.
Sample output: Enterprise Credit Score 76/100, Risk Grade 4, Acceptable Pass. Illustrative credit score, sample winery, for demonstration only.
This isn't theoretical. It's already finding money.
The same analytical rigor now built into the platform, from real engagements (client names withheld).
$129.76 true COGS per bottle, uncovered on a $185 release
A true-cost analysis on a flagship $185 release uncovered a structural cost gap eating deeply into margin, invisible in the standard chart of accounts and hiding on every case sold until it was found. Caught before it reached the next pricing decision.
$47,900 in annual savings, one logistics transition
A full review of DTC shipping and storage arrangements identified nearly $48,000 in annual savings, driven by consolidating fulfillment and cutting redundant storage costs the team didn't know they were carrying.
Built inside the wine business, not sold into it.
Three founders. One winery lens. Every module reflects a problem one of us has lived, closed the books on, or financed.
Jim Silver
Wine industry veteran General Manager. Has run winery operations from the cellar to the boardroom.
Chris McDonald, CPA
Napa-based CPA and wine industry veteran. Knows exactly where winery books break down.
Matt Davis
Builds the platform architecture and owns the numbers behind every model.
Not a new cost. A place your current costs go down.
When budgets are tight, adding a tool can feel like the wrong move, until you see where the current manual process is already costing you. A planning estimate based on a mid-size winery profile, not a guarantee; scales up or down with winery size and complexity.
| Module | Role absorbed | Hours/yr | Est. value |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAIT | Bookkeeper (5 hrs/wk) | 250 | $8,750 |
| CAIT | Cost accountant (20 hrs/wk) | 1,000 | $55,000 |
| EVE | Controller (4 hrs/wk) | 200 | $15,000 |
| EVE | Winemaker, data entry (8 hrs/wk) | 400 | $36,000 |
| EVE | GM (8 hrs/wk) | 400 | $32,000 |
| LUNA | GM + Controller, combined | 100 | $7,750 |
| CAIT/TICE | Outside CPA, excise prep support (est.) | 30 | $5,250 |
| Full profile, ~2,470 hrs/yr reclaimed | ~$166,000/yr | ||
Smaller operations typically see roughly half: ~$75,000/yr. Not counted: avoided one-time valuation/appraisal fees of $15,000–$40,000 each time a lender or sale conversation calls for one.
A place to start. A place to grow.
Roughly 0.5–1.2 FTEs reclaimed per year, across every tier.
Durability Assessment
- Full Durability Index™ score
- Priority heat map
- 90-day action plan + 3-year roadmap
- Credited in full toward platform
Core Platform
- True bottle cost by SKU
- Automatic excise tax (TICE)
- Living 10-year model
- One source of truth, always current
Full Advisory Partnership
- WANDA, CAIT, EVE, LUNA
- Direct CFO-level advisory
- Lender & buyer conversations
- Succession planning support
How an engagement runs.
Assessment
A 10-dimension read on where you stand today. No commitment beyond the diagnostic, and the fee is credited in full if you move forward.
Roadmap
A 90-day plan and 3-year strategic direction, prioritized by where value is leaking.
Platform
CAIT, EVE, and LUNA connected to your systems. The numbers stay current from then on.
Common questions
What is the Vintage Intelligence platform?
Vintage Intelligence is a connected financial platform for wineries: WANDA scores durability across ten dimensions, CAIT computes true bottle cost with its TICE excise-tax module, EVE maintains a living 10-year enterprise-value model, and LUNA turns those numbers into lender-ready narratives. One source of truth feeds all four.
How is this different from my accounting software?
QuickBooks records transactions; Vintage Intelligence interprets winery economics. The platform connects to the systems you already run (QuickBooks Online, InnoVint, EKOS, ShipCompliant, Commerce7) and answers the questions they can't: true cost per SKU and vintage, current excise liability, and what the winery is worth.
Does TICE file my excise taxes for me?
No. TICE calculates federal and state excise liability straight from operational data, reconciles inventory and removals, and produces filing-ready reports with a complete audit trail. Your CPA still files; TICE makes sure the numbers are already right.
How does an engagement start?
With a Durability Assessment: a 10-dimension evaluation of financial health, pricing, inventory, operations, compliance, and market position. You get a Durability Index score, a priority heat map, a 90-day action plan, and a 3-year roadmap. The fee ($15K-$25K) is credited in full against your platform subscription.
What does the platform cost?
Three tiers: the Durability Assessment at $15K-$25K (credited toward the platform), the Core Platform (CAIT + EVE) from $12,000 per year, and the Full Advisory Partnership from $3,500 per month. A mid-size winery typically reclaims roughly $75K-$166K per year in manual work the platform absorbs.