TTB Carpet Bombs Hill Wine Co With Felony Allegations

This is one of two articles published today on Hill Wine Company. See, also: Confused Hill Wine Co Chapter 11 Lurches Forward That article was written just before the documents on which this article is based, were filed.

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The Hill Wine Company Chapter 11 and Jeff Hill’s fast exit from the company began on April 23 when TTB investigators carpet-bombed the winery with major felony allegations of fraud, tax evasion, deception and other charges pulled from a 15-inch-high stack of evidence revealed during a five-hour meeting with Hill and winery attorney Vincent Spohn.

The charges were summarized in a six-page letter from Spohn to Gordon Munroe, Hill Wine Company’s new CEO.

The letter was filed as an exhibit in the winery’s Chapter 11 Chapter 11 proceedings in Santa Rosa Federal Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California.

It is vital to remember that the 19 charges have not been proven in a court of law and that Jeff Hill must be considered innocent until and unless that happens.

Wine Executive News subscribers please click here to read the complete article.

That complete, original court exhibit — TTB Meeting, Investigation Summary (.pdf) — is available to Wine Executive News premium subscribers.

Also In This Article:

The full text of the following sections is available to premium subscribers of Wine Executive News.

– Five-Hour Meeting Called Unilaterally By TTB

– TTB Demands Surrender Of All Hill Wine Co Permits For Its Winemaking At Carneros Vintners, The Ranch, Hill Winery

– Jeff Hill Agrees To Cede Control Before Evidence Was Presented

– Two Permits Surrendered Immediately, Deadline Looms For Third

TTB’s 19 Charges

1. Prior Felony Concealment

2. Lake County Cab Sold as Napa County Plus Forgery

3. Failure to Pay Taxes, Ever

4. Mislabeling of BevMo Cabernet Sauvignon

5. Attempted fraud

6. ASV North Coast Cabernet Sold As Napa Valley

7. Agajanian Sonoma Coast Chardonnay Sold As Napa Valley

8. Merlot Sold As Pinot Noir

9. Livermore Grapes Sold As Coombsville AVA

10. Changing Weigh Tags and AVA – Knightsen Contra Costa Vineyard

11. Wrap-it Transit Taxes Unpaid

12. Toolbox Brand Sold, No Tax Paid

13. Manuscript Winery Taxes Kept By Hill

14. Whiskey River Ranch Winery

15. 300 Tons Of Solano & Mendo Cab Sold As Napa County To Lodi Buyers

16. Purple Pear and Affiant Get Solano Fruit Labeled as Napa Valley Cab

17. 50 tons of Lake Merlot and Malbec Sold As Napa Valley Cab To Lodi Buyers

18. False Charitable Donation & Organic Claims

19. Lake County Truck Shipment Fraud

Previous Wine Industry Insight Coverage

• Hill Wine Co Bankruptcy Snares Big Names, Big Time

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