Hudson-Chatham Winery in Ghent is among at least 15 New York wineries being sued by a Brooklyn law firm on behalf of a visually impaired client, who claims the wineries’ websites violate the Americans with Disabilities Act because they do not offer screen-reading software and thus prevent the visually impaired from using the sites.

Hudson-Chatham has already taken down its website; visitors to the URL, hudsonchathamwinery.com, are automatically redirected to the winery’s Facebook page. This shifts the responsibility for ADA compliance to the social-media giant, because it hosts the page.

Potentially at risk, according to those involved and outside observers, are online sales through wineries’ websites, which industry figures show account for about 10 percent of the U.S. wine market, or $2.7 billion annually. (Customers could still order by phone.) Updating a website with the necessary software to make it fully ADA-compliant for the visually impaired can run into the thousands of dollars, according to published reports, and while New York law caps damages in such cases at $500, if defendants are found liable for attorney fees, the costs could be far higher; businesses that have settled disability-access lawsuits suits rather than taken them to trial typically pay about $20,000, according to a defense attorney quoted by the Daily News.

Hudson-Chatham Winery is closed today. I’m hoping to get a comment later this week.

The Daily News story is here, Wine Spectator’s here, Wine Searcher’s here.