T here are several ways to approach making wine. One may seek out a piece of land or a vineyard, study the soil and nurture the vines through various growing seasons until bearing fruit. At the precise right moment, a skilled winemaker would decide the ideal window to harvest the ripening grapes. From that day on, it’s a journey in the cellar of navigating through a labyrinth of wine and sensory science to ferment, age, analyze, blend, and bottle the wine. Dozens of critical decisions arise that carry with them a tremendous impact on the wine. While winemaking does involve a myriad of steps and decisions, this does not mean you have to accept all these challenges if deciding to start your wine label. Rest assured, there are faster and easier ways.

Starting Places for Winemaking

Parallel to how the discussion of making chocolate can quickly gravitate to its origins—is this tree-to-bar, bean-to-bar, or was the chocolate already produced and then simply blended by the purchaser to their own taste? Wine can also follow this dialogue. The final method in each case circumvents months or years of time and investment to create the first bottle (or bar!).

The story of wine often leads one to believe the path to making it needs to begin by taking the long view. This can be attributed to the highly publicized traditional and romantic view of farming and winemaking. While this certainly is one way to make wine, the concept of buying wine that is already produced and nearly ready to bottle is also steeped in history and tradition.  A negociant, is the French word for one that buys wine in “bulk,” meaning still in barrel or tank with the near-term goal of bottling. Someone looking to create wine in this way would be joining in the long-standing tradition of seeking out batches of wine and tasting many samples (often in the hundreds) to identify a taste profile that suites their desired wine style. As soon as a decision is made, the wine can be purchase, bottled, and sold.

Compare the above description of a negociant-style of bottling to the role of a producer, where one purchases grapes to carry out the fermentation process on their own. In this case, one may need to plan a year in advance to source grapes, harvest, ferment, age, and bottle the wine. In addition to the timeline, a greater level of winemaking expertise is also required. See the included flow chart for the major winemaking steps involved. When talking about what is needed to make wine, each of these steps also includes many related decisions that significantly impact the outcome of one’s wine. For this, you need a winemaker with a concept of how this would evolve. For example, one obviously critical step to winemaking is the “ferment” step from the image above. Fermentation is when grape sugars are converted to alcohol, along with other chemical changes that take place in the newly formed wine. When we talk about fermentation and consider exactly how we want that fermentation to carry out to achieve a given wine outcome, we ask ourselves questions such as the following (and yes, these only pertain to fermentation!):

• How does the fruit taste?
• What is the juice chemistry and what are the implications of all the analysis?
• Do any ameliorations need to be made to the juice?
• What type of fermentation vessel would be best. Stainless? Oak? Concrete?
• Will this fruit benefit from doing a cold soak? If so, how long?
• Shall we inoculate with a specific yeast strain or ferment with only native yeast?
• How warm do we want the fermentation to get? And for how long do we want the juice/must to be that warm?
• What kind of extraction programs do we envision for this wine. Punch downs or pump overs? How many, how long, and how frequent for each?
• What nutrient levels for this fermentation are needed?
• If this is a red wine, what dryness level and sensory factors will we look for to press/conclude the fermentation?

Each of these questions are big discussions. Now, imagine expanding this to all the steps in winemaking and you can see how complex and demanding winemaking can be if you really want to understand all the details—and have complete control over each of those steps. At Gravity, we are winemakers that crave to dig into and understand each of these details and monitor every aspect to produce the best wine. But that does not have to be the case and there are many other entry points into winemaking, each of which is rooted deeply in their own tradition and history.

One can start a wine label by farming a vineyard, buying grapes, or buying wine in barrel that has already been produced.

1) Vineyard to Bottle: The Grower Model

What does this mean? Take control of a vineyard by purchasing or leasing. Farm your own grapes from a specific plot of ground for your wine brand.

Those that enter the wine business by first acquiring a vineyard are in for a long commitment. We do have customers that enjoy the outlook of starting with land and farming for their vineyard, and it certainly makes for a more holistic process. Looking for a permanent vineyard to farm involves correlating a style of wine with the region and soil types that best align with those objectives. Obviously, the major difference here is farming. Taking on the responsibility of farming adds a very complex layer to your business with a full range of positives and challenges.

2) Grapes to Bottle: The Producer Model

What does this mean? Purchase grapes to ferment and use for your own wine. You will also need to obtain or rent space to carry out the winemaking, whether done at an in-house winery or custom crush facility such as Gravity Wine House.

Purchasing grapes can be seen as a middle ground of methods. One can have more involvement in the production of the wine, but still fewer costs and more flexibility than farming a vineyard. While this allows a faster turnaround time than farming, producing wine from grapes can easily take a year of production time, or more—and this does not count the planning stages. As you might imagine, the planning includes more decision making and expenses before production even begins.

3) Bulk to Bottle: The Negociant Model

What does this mean? Taste and purchase wines that are already fermented and aging in another winery’s cellar. Then transfer these wines to Gravity and bottle under your own label for quick turnaround. This can be wine of any quality tier depending on what you are looking for.

If you want to make wine quickly with a more efficient (and predictable cost structure), then this method is for you. Once you identify the type of wines, volume and target bottling dates, it’s time to start looking at blends. At Gravity, our consulting often includes reaching out to our network of wineries and brokers to obtain samples, sometimes tasting through hundreds of lots to achieve the ideal blend for our customer.

4) Hybrid Models

Starting a wine brand is a large commitment in time and cost. Why not look at more than one method? Depending on one’s timeline, goals, and available capital, we often find ourselves advising customers to combine approaches. Maybe you have decided to produce your own wine from grapes and envision your first wine being bottled in eighteen months. How about acquiring some bulk wine soon, to bottle and establish you brand (and cash flow) as you wait for your other wine to age in barrel? This can build awareness to your new brand and start generating revenue to help fund the budding business. Having multiple production models can also benefit in sales and marketing.

Compliance

The minimum you will need is a license to sell your wine wholesale to other distributors. In order to sell your wine Direct to Consumer, other permitting is involved. See our blog for compliance needed to start a wine label.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are big decisions to make about carrying out your production. How do you decide which path to pursue? Our first recommendation to aspiring wine producers is to create a business plan. Outlining a plan for your budget, sales, marketing and production approach will illuminate the best path for you to start—and make it easier to obtain help. Remember that each path is rooted in traditional winemaking, and offers a personalized approach. Some very preliminary questions in choosing the right fit may be:

• How much wine do you plan to make and sell?
• Are you planning to make a small amount of more expensive wine and sell to a small group of collectors?
• Do you want to get started soon and have some production “in the pipeline” before committing further?

If you are interested in starting your wine brand and have questions, we would be happy to help.