If you want to make a small fortune in the wine business, the old saying goes, invest a large fortune. Winery owners in the Inland Northwest say thats not too far from the truth, yet the attraction of making and bottling fine wines keeps

Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co., the big Spokane-based financial-services company, is being challenged by the Internal Revenue Service over a $28 million tax benefit it claimed on an investment loss.The company disclosed in its most in a

When Nova Services, a nonprofit corporation that provides job training and placement to disadvantaged and developmentally disabled people, approached John Crow eight months ago about contracting with it, Crow hesitated. Hed employed disabled as a

Dan Morris doesnt know exactly where he wants to be in the future, but thinks he knows precisely what he needs to have to get there.The 32-year-old is working full time as a project manager at Spokane-based Itron Inc. and is attending Gonzaga

COEUR DALENEA new company is building an assisted-living facility here that it hopes will be the first in a chain of five such operations in the Northwest.The company, Four Seasons Assisted Living LLC, already has completed the first of at

As many Americans retirement wealth has fallen during the last two years, some older residents here have curbed plans theyd made for their sunset years.Retirement-industry and elder-service experts here say the sour investment market among

Special to the Journal of BusinessSuddenly, your mom has broken her hip, stayed her limit in the hospital, and now needs 24-hour care. The word nursing home becomes part of your vocabulary.But I promised Id never put her in one of a

A small, white dry-erase board hangs on the wall in Tom Wilsons modest office on North Market. Its been scribbled on and erased hundreds of times, but Wilson believes one of those scribbles, a diagram drawn almost two years ago on the heels of

Medinex Systems Inc., of Post Falls, says it will ask the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for permission to liquidate its assets. Medinex, which in November filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, says if the it

Spokane business owners Bill and Jane Sauther have bought an office building in Liberty Lake for $1.2 million and plan to move their advertising-production company there.Their company, Sauther & Associates Inc., does business as Banner and for