that they produced, without food for almost 40 years - my family owns one and we've never sold food. Tasting rooms got approved then because that's when the Virginia Farm Winery Act (Circa 1980) was approved - a change in law allowing small farm wineries that grew their own grapes to make, distribute and sell retail - under same ownership - nothing to do with amount of food sold.

After prohibition alcohol laws required three tiers - manufacturer, distributor and retail - partly to try and keep organized crime out of alcohol. You could not be an owner in more than one tier. Virginia wineries that actually grew the grapes and made the wine changed that and never had to offset alcohol revenue with food sales.

Small micro breweries piggybacked by using that precedent to be able to sell the alcohol they make, with some slight changes in regulations, some based on if they also sell food and other non self made beer, as in a micro brewery in a restaurant. The big boys (Bud, Miller, etc.) still have to use distributors with separate ownership.

The link contains some draft policies we were involved with when they tried to require small wineries to use distributors in 2006, in which a compromise was reached where we can still self distribute but with more reporting requirements - essentially the state became the distributor in name - and added work - and collected taxes.

Quote from article

State Policies:
In 1980 the Virginia Farm Winery Act was passed allowing Virginia Wineries to by pass
the traditional three tiered distribution system and distribute their product directly to retailers.