14 Nov, 2022
How to Start a Winery
Wineries are some of the most romanticized backdrops in history.
Who wouldn’t enjoy drinking a glass of delicious wine while watching the sunset over a beautiful vineyard?
Better yet, what if you owned that winery?
Owning a winery can be a wonderful, romantic business. However, that does not mean it is easy. In fact, starting a winery is an incredibly tough field to break into. It takes large investments in time and money and a lot of determination and good work ethic.
If you are up for the challenge of opening your own winery, this article will act as a guide in your initial research. It is meant to walk you through the general steps you’ll need to take when opening a winery and give you information to better estimate the budget you’ll need when opening your winery.
How to Open a New Winery
Below are eight steps to follow when opening a winery. Of course, each step will need to be modified to your specific business, but the following guide will help get you started.
1. How to Create a Brand for Your Winery
Before anything else, it’s imperative that you build a vision for your winery.
Branding is a huge part in selling to customers. Your wine may be the best wine in the world, but without proper branding to entice your target marketing, no one will know!
Consider the reason you want to open a winery – what is its purpose?
On top of that, what kind of wine are you planning to make? Is there a vibe that your wine will bring to consumers that you can hint at on the bottle? What kind of experience do you want your consumers to have while drinking your wine?
Once you can answer the brand’s purpose, identity, and mission statement and start building the brand design around that.
Choose a name, logo, colors, fonts, etc. Choose these wisely, as you’ll want your winery brand to look good on all your products. How will your brand look in your establishment and in marketing materials? Will it look good on tote bags and t-shirts? Most importantly, will it look good on wine glasses and bottles?
Consider consulting a design/branding agency for this stage. They can give insight on what designs will be eye-catching and help bring your vision to life.
It’s important to note that, being in the wine industry, there are a lot of trademark and copyright laws to research when building your brand. Make sure you do in-depth research that your brand’s name, logo, bottle design, etc. are all unique to your brand and not stepping on any other wineries’ toes. The last thing you’ll want as a new winery is to have to pay legal fees on top of the costs of opening a winery!
2. Selecting Your Grapes
Steps two and three can be flipped depending on what is more important to your winery: the location or the grapes.
Regardless of which step is of higher importance to you, the most vital factor in opening a successful winery is, you guessed it, the wine! Therefore, the order of these steps does not matter as long as the grape type and land are compatible.
If location is more important, you can skip to step three first, then find the right grape for that land after. However, if you have a specific type of wine you’re looking to make in mind, then you’ll need to decide on the type of grape you want to use in your vineyard before choosing a location.
This factor will greatly impact step three, as you’ll need a location that will allow that grape type to grow well.
There are hundreds of types of grapes to choose from to make wine, and each grape type and even batch of each grape type will influence the final product of how the wine tastes. However, a small amount of these hundreds of grape types are most common and recognizable.
3. Choosing a Location
Where you grow your grapes is an essential component in being a successful winery. As mentioned above, your location either depends on the type of grape you plan to grow or the grape type depends on the location.
In general, grapes grow better in warm climates – which is why you see so many wines from California, South France, and Spain.
It’s not uncommon for wineries to open near one another, because it’s less of a risk to grow a vineyard in the same climate as another successful vineyard. Plus, while you may think this would cause nothing but competition, it could also spark networking opportunities and local support.
Other considerations when choosing location include size – how many wines are you planning to grow? – and any soil preferences and restrictions.
4. Your Winery’s Business Plan
This one should not come as a surprise, as anyone planning to open a business of any kind will need a business plan prior to laying down any money.
In your business plan, consider your brand and your long-term plans to keep it afloat and thriving. Now that you know your grape type, location and size, you can better estimate a budget.
Consider production and distribution costs and operations. Prepare for the future.
How long will it take the grapes to grow? How long will the wine need to be produced and matured? When will you break even? Will you need to take out loans for this business venture? Who is your biggest competition?
Consider all factors that could influence your business to succeed or fail, and have thought out answers to any issues that may arise while your business is already in full swing.
