Brief⁽¹⁾

The bill would permit licensed farm wineries to produce and sell "domestic fortified wine" under the same conditions farm wineries are currently permitted to produce and sell domestic table wine. Domestic fortified wine would contain between 14 percent and 20 percent alcohol by volume and be made from agricultural products grown in Kansas. The definition would not include distilled products.

Background

The substitute bill creates a separate definition for domestic fortified wine with a specific range of alcohol content. The introduced version of the bill would have included fortified wine in the farm winery statutes by removing the alcohol percentage limitation from the definition of domestic table wine.

Proponents of the bill included the Kansas Grape Growers and Winemakers Association and winemakers from Salina and Basehor. No opponents to the bill presented testimony to the Senate Committee.

The Division of the Budget's fiscal note for the introduced version of the bill stated that the Division assumed that the bill would have no fiscal impact. That fiscal note did not address any potential impact of the Senate Committee's amendment.

1. *Supplemental notes are prepared by the Legislative Research Department and do not express legislative intent. The supplemental note and fiscal note for this bill may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.ink.org/public/legislative/fulltext-bill.html.