Want To Own A Winery? Are You Sure?

If you won the lottery today would you buy a winery?  They say that if you want to make a small fortune in the wine business, start with a big fortune.  It is such a high cost and highly regulated business, never mind the impact of weather and growing season, that it is a real challenge to get ahead.  All in all, it is a very interesting process that might drive someone to start operating a winery.  There is the romanticism of living in wine country and having to wake up in the morning with sunshine and grapes growing on the vine.  The image is that your day translates into pouring wine for gracious and appreciative friends in the tasting room and finishing the day with gourmet wine dinners paired with the fruits of your labour.

It sounds really great.....but it is the stuff of fiction.

The reality of the situation is more about nervous grape growing where the weather never cooperates, birds get a taste for grapes, and the customers can be 'challenging'.  Plus, you have to harvest as soon as the grapes are ready (regardless of what is going on in your life), get the wine made in as close to a sterile environment as possible, all the while trying to sell your goods.  Oh, and do payroll, the accounting, and so on and so forth.  It is a thankless job 6 out of 7 days a week but that one day where you get a good rating from a highly reputable source (or interesting blog) or the tour buses come and go with ease.  Those are the days where you might fall into bed exhausted but at peace.

So, as the 2012 harvest comes to a close in the Northern Hemisphere we salute those winery owners who toil in their fields and then turn around and give us a product that we can fall in love with.  This year's California harvest is considered perfect and the French harvest was forgettable (according to accounts online).  Hurricane Sandy has flooded and harmed grape vines along the East Coast of the US.  Red Hook Winery in Brooklyn, pretty much lost everything during the hurricane.  Still want to own a winery?  If so, good for you and we would love to have your bank account.  Okay, okay we would probably leap into it too. :)

Keep on tasting,

Chris & Shannon