September 2026
We checked 330 California winery websites.
Seven regions, one automated accessibility check per homepage, the same engine a plaintiff’s firm would run. The average score was 77.5 out of 100. Only 22 sites came back clean.
- homepages checked
- 330
- had a serious problem
- 79%
- scored under 70
- 92
- were clean
- 22
What we found, most common first
- 49%Text too faint to readLight grey on white, white on pale gold. Hard for anyone with low vision, and for everyone in bright sun.
- 42%Links a screen reader can’t nameIcon links for Instagram, the cart, the logo. A blind visitor hears “link” and nothing else.
- 18%Photos with no descriptionThe screen reader skips them, or reads out a file name.
- 17%Zoom switched off on phonesOne line in the page header stops people enlarging the text.
- 9%Maps and embeds with no titleAnnounced as an unnamed frame, so nobody knows what it is.
- 8%An age check nobody can hearThe “Are you 21?” pop-up has no name — and every visitor meets it first.
By region
| Region | Sites checked | Average score |
|---|---|---|
| Napa Valley | 49 | 80.9 |
| Paso Robles | 73 | 79.9 |
| Santa Barbara County | 46 | 77.5 |
| Temecula Valley | 49 | 77.3 |
| Lodi & Amador | 43 | 77.3 |
| Livermore Valley | 28 | 74.1 |
| Sonoma County | 42 | 71.7 |
We don’t publish which sites failed. A list like that is a shopping list for the firms that send demand letters, and these are the businesses we’d rather help.
Why it matters for a winery
In 2021 and 2022, more than six dozen website accessibility lawsuits were filed against California wineries, and the letters have not stopped. In 2025 there were over 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits in the US, and 64% of them were against companies with under $25 million in revenue.
A tasting room, a wine club and an online shop are exactly the mix these claims target. The good news is that the problems above are small ones: most take a developer a day or two.
Where does your winery stand?
Run the free check on your homepage, or have us fix what it finds for $750, with a dated before-and-after report you can keep on file.
How we measured
One automated pass per homepage with axe-core 4.9, in a desktop browser, between 18 and 19 September 2026. Score: 100, minus 8 for each serious rule the page fails and 3 for each other rule. Sites we couldn’t reach, and domains that no longer belong to the winery, are not counted. An automated check finds many common problems, not all of them, and it is not legal advice. Press and winery associations: write to contact@clearshield.legal for the regional breakdown.