Upstart Wineries Need a Plan

It strikes me as a bit odd. While many established, well-known wineries grow just a few varieties of grapes and focus on a relatively small number of wines, some of the newer wineries, foten with newer winemakers and newer proprietors do the opposite. They grow seemingly every variety of grape known to man, make some as varietal wines and others parts of blends and have a website adorned with perhaps 20 to 30 different bottlings.

Who is that winery? What is that winery? How can we know what to expect from them? I'm reminded of some episodes from the TV show "Shark Tank" when the sharks are turned off by an entrepreneur's busines because as a start-up, they have hundreds or thousands of SKUs.

In wine, it is even a bit different than that. The grapes themselves cannot possibly fit the same estate. Perhaps they are importing (from other vineeards) grapes or juice, but how can you grow, for example, Syrah (a very warm or hot weather grape) and Zweigelt (a cool weather grape) in the same vineyard?

I suppose it could be done. You could have a vineyard where due to a very unusual slope, some grapes might be planted north facing and others south facing or some getting direct sunlight and others very rarely so, but that's not the norm.

I was prompted to write this because I was on a winery website that Facebook had been good enough to send me an ad for (I was curious). It told me that all of their grapes were estate grown. And, it touted their Syrah as big and bold while touting their Zweigelt as big and bold. 

Zweigelt if not big and bold.

In fact, it touted all there red wines as being some version of big and or bold. And, it proudly proclaimed about each of their roughly 15 white wines that they are rich and creamy.

The good news is that I know what that winery is about. The bad news is that they need roughly 30 SKUs to produce two wines -- a big and bold red and a rich and creamy white.

New wineries need a plan. They need to figure out who and what they are going to be and live with it. If you grow grapes in a hot, dry climate, skip the Pinot Noir unless you have some very shaded areas perhaps with morning and evening fog to cool the grapes. If your daytime highs during growing season tend to be roughly 60F/15C degrees, you're not going to produce Grenache or Zinfandel. 

So, as a new winery, be who and what you can be not who you always dreamt you could be. You have the land you have. Grow what that land wants.