Viticulture and Winemaking

What do you mean when you say “winery?” We get a lot of people coming to us saying the want a winery, and the first thing we have to do is find out what they are really interested in. The term winery can mean a lot of things. A “label” This is a legal brand

Economics You can make more money selling wine than selling grapes – but you also take a great deal more risk. Wineries have success rates similar to restaruants and it is not a venture to be taken on lightly. There are excellent margins in a well run winery operation, but you have to be able

What’s a year in the life of a vineyard actually like? Well, the winters are nice. In winter, the vines are dormant, little work is being done in the vineyard, except for the 100 year storm that seems to come every year, so drainage repair and erosion control are the primary tasks. Sonoma gets 35″

There are a few key things you need to keep you eye on growing grapes. It lays out pretty simply here, but the vagaries of the weather and the way these things interract makes it a constant struggle. Water The main gas peddle on growing a grape is water and you’ll here a thousand different

A Complex Process Although the basic steps of purchasing a country property are the same as when purchasing a house on a city lot – offer, negotiation, contract, disclosure, inspections, release, funding and close – each step is quite different for country and vineyard property and the time frames overall are usually much longer. Offer

There are two main ways that all real estate is valued. The first is by comparable – similar properties that have sold recently. Comparables are used to establish the value of 99% of real estate sold and are by far the most reliable way to value any piece of real estate. The other main way

Other sources of information Santa Rosa JC has a great viticulture program. UC Davis offers weekend and weekly courses and Sonoma State University now offers a wine MBA program. There are variety of textbooks, mostly of dubious quality. Sunlight Into Wine by Richard Smart is the most recommended.

Some people have vineyards because they like to grow grapes and are perfectly happy having someone else turn those grapes in to wine. Other people grow grapes because THEY WANT TO MAKE WINE. Making your own wine is actually a lot of fun even if it never sees the light of day. There are lots

Dollars per ton for grapes – $2,000 Barrels per ton – 2.9 Barrels per acre (at 5 tons to the acre) – 14.4 Cases per barrel – 23 Cases per acre – 335 Dollars per case for grapes – $36 Dollars for winemaking per case – $12 Dollars for materials per case (box, bottle, foil,