So You Wanna Start a Winery?
First and foremost, contact us with your email and phone number, so we know who's calling down the road when you're looking for equipment, tanks, barrels, supplies or information. Subscribe to the ENOTOOLS University podcast. Next, download this document to keep handy when converting tons of grapes to bottles of wine. You'll need it when ordering supplies and equipment: it helps you plan tank sizes and how many barrels, bottles, corks and capsules you'll need.
Turning the light of the sun into the shimmer in the glass is a very romantic pursuit. I live it vicariously, thanks to our customers, and our office has been home to a few interesting "hobby winemaker" projects. It's become apparent to this supplier that this pursuit will simultaneously satisfy the core of your being and torture your mortal soul. Well, sort of.
Do you plan to hire the winemaker or make the wine yourself? Already making wine, but want to get better at it? One tremendous resource is VESTA: a way to keep your day job and become a winemaker on your schedule. Consider colleges and universities in your area if time permits. And ask your local winery if you can be a free intern, to get familiar with a bucket, scrub brush and hose before you take the plunge.
How Do I Start a Winery?
Learning from those who've gone before you is priceless. Talk to the neighbors. Observe the experts. And beware the conspiracy for mediocrity. Take note of methods and machines while considering the law of large numbers. If it saves labor, preserves or increases quality, or saves time and money, it may be a good idea to copy someone else. If it looks like a really complicated solution without a problem, avoid it.
If you want to make better wine than your neighbors, start with good fruit; then don't ruin it. Keep it clean and relaxed. Do it with love. It will work!
The Ways to Start a Winery
1. Inherit One
Marry well, divorce well, or pick a great family to be born into. Caution: those who marry for money earn every cent. It's better to surround yourself with charming, wildly successful, unusually talented single people and wait until you fall in love with one.
2. Buy One
Self-explanatory. If you have the cash for this, beware of friends trying to marry you.
3. Plant (or Own) a Vineyard
This is NOT a cliché: "Great wine is made in the vineyard." Prove me wrong.
Start by growing grapes. Make friends with a vineyard consultant to get off on the right row. Plant the best vines for your property from the beginning, and plant them so the vineyard will be profitable. Growing wine grapes is truly a partnership with Mother Nature, so start off on her good side. Don't try to tell her what grows where. She eventually wins every time, and it won't take her long to figure out you're trying to grow Syrah in Manitoba. Don't do it!
The questions about site selection, soil, aspect, varietals, rootstock, spacing, trellising, canopy management, pests and disease are seemingly limitless. Your state or regional agriculture resources are probably more helpful than you imagine, but still ask an expert how to align your vineyard with your planned harvest method.
Vineyard already planted? Sell fruit starting in year three, use that revenue to show income, then either:
- Borrow a ton of money and build the perfect winery (with a perfect crush pad) next to the vineyard. Wind a meandering path from the road through the vineyard to reveal the property's best perspective. Remember the excitement of getting out of the car at a winery, and be that for someone else! It's cheaper to build up than to build out, so take advantage of gravity feed whenever possible (the tourists love it) and plan for overhead clearance. Tall ceilings aren't just for tall people.
- Or use a more humble retail location and pay a neighbor to make wine from your grapes.
4. Open a Storefront Winery
Focus on retail wine sales first. Live and breathe selling your story, your label and your passion. If you start with a genuine love for wine with your name on it, and it's good, you will succeed. Plan B is "see Plan A."
Then be a destination. Get a fantastic location and plant two rows of vines for scenery. Get product on the shelf by having a neighbor make some wine for you, and gradually take on more of the production as retail margins grow enough to justify the equipment. You'd buy your fruit in this model, so why not put the growers' names on the labels? This industry is synergistic by nature, the only one where competition helps everyone. Maybe start by bottling at home, then fermenting at home, then doing crush at home. That's when you'll need all those shiny things. But don't feel obligated to buy a huge automated bottling line unless you have no way to hire a mobile bottler.
5. What? You Didn't Know There Was a 5?
Ask us about a turnkey winery. You bring the money and the vision; we'll do the rest. We know literally everyone. We can play quarterback and let the people who design and build wineries do what they do. You just walk in and pop a cork when it's done.
The Business Plan
Any path to a winery starts with a business plan. In the spreadsheet sense, that takes about 16 hours, if you're good. The part that takes longer than anything (other than actually doing the WORK) is choosing the equipment, barrels, tanks, refrigeration, pumps and hardware that keep your initial capital expense down. In all seriousness, read How to Buy Winery Equipment: buying it right the first time is a decision you need to make. You'll also endure the torture of licensing.
All reliable sources say it takes up to seven years to reach profitability.
Some Hints for Profitability
- Keep salary expenses down with interns and volunteers. People love wineries. Harvest helpers can be free and even somewhat handy, and festival volunteers are easy to find on social media.
- Offer a share of ownership after several years to key people, to make compensation appealing and keep staff (and avoid retraining).
- Buy used big-dollar items when you can support them locally. Buy new when you can't; the warranty will serve you well.
- Use common ("cheap") bottles. Fewer change parts on the bottling line, off-the-shelf capsules and corks, and lower freight for lighter glass.
- Put quality in the bottle. The real cost of a bottle is roughly double the grapes, corks, marketing and labor, once you count the time value of your money and the opportunity cost of your career. Wine well made is time well spent. Live up to the expectation of the vineyard.
- Put a nice label and a nice capsule over your natural or natural-based closure. Don't agree? Here's a compelling argument.
- Print this out and hang it on your fridge:
Choosing Your Suppliers
There are many stages and stations in life that lead to winery ownership. Somewhere along the way, you'll notice many suppliers offer what you want, and only a few know what you need.
Your experience with wine industry vendors should be more like a marriage and less like college dating. The more a vendor knows about your operation, the more time and money we can save you. That doesn't mean what we sell should be cheap. What you pay for is the total experience of knowing you bought what your business needs, got what you expected, and didn't sacrifice a thing.
Put us to the test. Ask us about packaging, barrels, oak alternatives, corks, destemmers, presses, pumps, tanks, ozone, barrel washing, and even things we don't sell, because we know who does. ENOTOOLS is the comprehensive resource for commercial wineries east of the Rockies.
Have a great day!