FIELD OF DREAMS

By Richard Rocca

Photo by Steph Barnes

We’ve all been there, sitting on the patio of your favorite winery, sipping a delicious glass of wine, and thinking, I could see myself living the ‘winemaker’s life.’

How hard could it be? All you have to do is stomp on some grapes, ferment the juice, put it in a bottle, then show up in Paris to accept your awards—right?

Not quite.

The romanticized image of a winemaker is far removed from reality. Don’t forget that a vintner is a farmer who grows grapes instead of more common crops like wheat, corn, or potatoes. Making a living by farming has always been difficult and is getting harder with each passing year due to climate change.

So, what does it take to turn the winemaking dream into a reality? To find out, I sought the advice of Dan Matthies, owner of Chateau Fontaíne Lake Leelanau, Michigan, Jim Baker, the owner and winemaker of Chateau Niagara Winery Newfane New York, and retired winemaker Jean Manspeaker, former co-owner with her husband Todd, of Briar Valley Vineyards and Winery Bedford, Pennsylvania.

These winemakers agree that traits all successful winemakers have in common include an unwavering commitment to their dream and the tenacity to maintain it through adversity. Without this iron-willed mindset, failure is inevitable. Read on for their top tips for making a career out of wine when it comes to locking down a business plan, developing professional relationships, and more.

1. Your Vision and Business Plan

Before you begin your journey, you must first know where you’re going and have a sound plan on how you’re going to get there.

The vision for your winery is a big picture view of everything you want it to be and your business plan provides a framework on which to build a profitable operation. To help us better understand this process let’s see how Jean Manspeaker addressed her mission statement. Jean kept her goals simple and easily understood while setting a high standard for all aspects of her operation. She wanted to grow and produce the highest quality vinifera grapes and wine in South Central Pennsylvania. Provide her customers a pleasurable experience and her employees an excellent standard of living. She set forth and achieved these lofty goals in a concise strategy that was the cornerstone of Briar Valley’s business philosophy. If you ever feel you are losing your way on your wine journey you can follow Jean’s example and look to your mission statement as your guiding light to point you in the right direction.

2. Capitalization and Financing

It is very important to have a complete understanding of your finances before you start allocating your funds. A good CPA can keep your project on track and prevent you from making serious financial errors that could jeopardize your business both near and long term.

Patience and in-depth research were key factors leading to Jim Baker buying a 31-acre working cabbage farm on the Niagara Plain, near Lake Ontario. The purchase of this property provided him with a solid foundation on which to build his award-winning Chateau Niagara Winery. Wellthought-out decisions made in the beginning can put your business on a positive path that will greatly increase your chances of achieving your dreams.

While finding a capable CPA is vital it won’t be the only specialized help you will need. Jean regarded her hiring and the development of a working relationship with her wine consultant as crucial as her choice of a CPA. The CPA can help make your financial statements look good while the wine consultant can help make your wine taste good.

Dan Matthies started growing grapes on the Leelanau Pennisula in 1985 and produced his first chardonnay in 1995. Dan’s background in finance gave him a practical view of how to approach the economics of building and expanding a winemaking operation. He will be the first to tell you that this is a capital-intensive business and that how you deploy your assets is pivotal to your success or failure.

3. Education & Professional Relationships

You also need to critically examine your winemaking abilities and formulate a plan to address how to improve them. You might consider doing an internship at a winery or attending classes at a local college or online. Never stop learning about wine, subscribe to trade journals and newsletters. You should also read reports from colleges and trade groups to keep current. Attend seminars and trade shows to network and build relationships with others in the wine community. Dan got the best advice of his wine life when Dr. Stanley Howell from Michigan State University visited his property and after taking soil samples and assessing the land told Dan that it would be perfect for growing Chardonnay grapes.

4. Land & Grapes

How much land you will need for your winery will depend on the concept set forth in your business plan. There are several options you can pursue when it comes to supplying your winery with grapes. Jim makes this recommendation for securing grapes “If you chose, you can source your grapes locally. This makes good sense because you can usually buy grapes for less than it costs to grow them.” Jean offers this guidance for those considering planting a vineyard. “The advantage to having your own vineyard is that you are able to ensure the quality of your fruit and grow it to your own specifications.'' It also means you will need to secure alternate sources of grapes if you are in a region prone to frost. An untimely frost or other disasters can severely limit or completely wipe out your harvest. Planting and maintaining a vineyard is a costly venture. A recent Cornell University report put the cost of bringing a new Vitis vinifera vineyard into production at $43,443 per acre. Remember, it will take four years to get your new vineyard into production.

5. Winery Buildings & Equipment

This is the area of your business plan that has to be specific, carefully thought out, and well-financed. You need to decide whether to locate your winemaking operations on-site with a tasting room along with a machinery storage building or if you will have an off-site tasting room and utilize a custom crush facility. A functional size for a working shop is around 1500 sq. ft. and at an estimated $55 per sq. with basic amenities is about $83,000. If you plan on attaching your tasting room to your winery operations the cost can easily exceed $100 sq. ft. or more for an elaborately appointed addition. Your tasting room should be a reflection of how you want your brand to be perceived by potential customers. It should be a place where your customers feel comfortable and want to visit often to purchase your wine.

When equipping a 500-5,000 case per year winery, Jim Baker recommends investing in better equipment because it will prove to be cost-efficient and allow you to make better wine. Winery equipment is best divided into three categories. The first are your receiving tools which are used in handling the grapes being brought into the winery for processing. This This would include your crusher-destemmer, must pump, and must hose. Next, wine processing equipment is essential in producing high-quality wine. These are your tanks, oak barrels, and wine hoses. Finally, the bottling equipment moves your finished wine into bottles and prepares it for sale. In this phase of production a bottler, corker and labeler are indispensable. A rough estimate for new production equipment comes in at $67,425.

If you are unable or unwilling to purchase this costly equipment you might be able to utilize a strategy Dan Matthies used during the early days of Chateau Fontaíne. Dan accepted a generous offer from a winemaker to use his facilities to get experience using its equipment and to judge whether investing in it would be beneficial to the next phase of his operation.

6. Marketing your wine

Before the first drop of wine goes into the bottle you need to know who your target customer will be and how you are going to secure their business. Do your market research to find exactly what is in your favor and what barriers you need to address. Beneficial situations could be that your winery is near a wine trail that you could join or being situated near an affluent metropolitan area or vacation destination.

Negatives could be that you are in an isolated community that isn’t easily accessible or there aren’t other wineries in the vicinity to help attract potential customers.

The distribution method you choose for your wine will figure heavily into the success or failure of your winery. Most, if not all, small boutique wineries choose to sell directly to the public through their tasting rooms, festivals, farmer markets, community events, or online. Direct sales afford the best margins because the standard discounts for wholesale direct are 33% and usually 50% for using a distributor. Jim Baker shares a few secrets about the winning strategies he employs at Chateau Niagara.

“For small niche wineries such as ours, selling direct to the customer is the main focus. Hand selling to each customer, providing education, information, and a personal touch builds relationships that make lifelong customers. As you get larger the use of wholesale accounts is needed to move larger quantities of wine”. Like Chateau Niagara, Chateau Fontaíne finds selling directly to its customers productive while nurturing satisfying relationships with their customers. Chateau Fontaíne employs a sommelier who executes their self-distribution to restaurants and wine shops. They also use ldistributors to gain access to lvendors and internet sales. These outlets spark interest in the tasting room in Lake Leelanau.

As you can see, starting a vineyard and winery is a complex venture that not only requires monetary investment but an investment of years of your life. Living a “Winemaker’s Life” can be very fulfilling but it also involves hard work and sacrifice. Here’s some priceless wisdom from Jean Manspeaker. “As I visualize the starry eyes of passionate prospective winery owners, my inclination is to yell “DO YOUR HOMEWORK!” "Think long and hard about this venture then ask for help.”

I hope one day to be sitting on the patio of YOUR winery sipping your award-winning wine while watching the sun dip out of sight over your lush vineyards.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rich Rocca is a Western Pennsylvania-based writer with a special interest in unusual wine grape varieties, who also writes and publishes the wine blog wpawinepirate.com. His degree in Nature Conservation provides him with a unique insight into the growing movement toward organic and biodynamic viticulture. Rich can be reached at wpawinepirate@gmail.com.