VJB Cellars
Web Accessibility Remediation for VJB Cellars website to make it conforms with the WCAG technical standards and comply with the ADA.
This VJB Cellars accessibility audit and WCAG 2.1 AA remediation tackled a site where the buying happens across several journeys, not one simple cart. VJB Cellars is a family-owned winery in Kenwood, California, producing Italian varietals in the Sonoma Valley, with an online wine store, several wine clubs, a tasting-room and events booking flow, and an Italian deli and marketplace alongside the wines.
A winery site like this asks a visitor to do far more than read: choose and buy wine, enrol in a wine club, reserve a tasting, join the newsletter and clear an age check before any of it. Every one of those steps is an interactive form or control, and for a visitor using a screen reader or a keyboard, the accessibility of those controls decides whether they can become a customer at all.
Table of Contents
Why accessibility matters for a winery and online shop
E-commerce is one of the most active areas of United States web-accessibility law. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title III, an online store is treated as a place of public accommodation, and courts and settlements have repeatedly pointed to WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the working standard for an accessible shop. For a winery the stakes are practical as well as legal: an age gate a screen-reader user cannot operate, a wine-club form without clear labels, or a checkout that traps keyboard focus all turn an interested buyer away — often a buyer with a disability who simply wanted to order a bottle or join the club.
Scope and standard
Our VJB Cellars accessibility audit assessed the site against WCAG 2.1 Level AA, mapped to ADA Title III, across the journeys that carry the most weight for a winery: the age-verification gate, the wine and product pages, the cart and checkout, wine-club enrolment, tasting and event reservations, the newsletter signup, and the deli and marketplace shop.
How we ran the VJB Cellars accessibility audit
- Screen-reader testing with JAWS and NVDA on Windows, VoiceOver on macOS and iOS, and TalkBack on Android
- Automated audits with Deque axe, Google Lighthouse and WAVE
- Keyboard-only operation of every step, with attention to focus order and a clearly visible focus indicator
- Colour-contrast analysis, plus 400% zoom and reflow testing for low-vision users
What accessibility means on each part of the site
Because VJB Cellars is built around shopping and bookings rather than static pages, our VJB Cellars accessibility audit focused on the components a winery store depends on:
- The age-verification gate needs to be fully keyboard-operable and announced to assistive technology, so a screen-reader user is never stuck at the door before they reach a single wine.
- Wine and product pages need meaningful names, prices and tasting notes in text, with clearly labelled “add to cart” controls rather than icon-only buttons.
- The cart and checkout need labelled fields, errors that are announced, and a focus order that never traps the keyboard — this is where the sale is won or lost.
- Wine-club enrolment and reservation forms need programmatic labels, clear instructions and announced error messages, so membership and tasting bookings are open to everyone.
- The newsletter and marketplace shop need accessible controls, sufficient colour contrast, visible focus, and content that reflows cleanly at high zoom.
Outcome
This VJB Cellars accessibility audit, combining manual and automated testing with remediation, brought the winery’s store, wine-club enrolment, reservations and marketplace into line with WCAG 2.1 AA and ADA Title III expectations, so a visitor using a screen reader or a keyboard can buy a bottle, join a club or book a tasting without barriers. Because each of these journeys ends in a real transaction, every fix was verified with assistive technology rather than assumed from an automated pass, so the site works in practice and not only in a scan.