Viewed from the bottom up it looks something like this:
Glass, cork and label is about $1 a bottle in small volumes (pallet at a time)
Small quantities of grapes cost between $.5-3 per lb to buy, It takes about 4 lbs to make a bottle.
(assuming 2 bbl/ton juice, racks down to 500 bottles a ton accounting for lees, evaporation, spillage etc. Larger tanks should be more efficient)
So neglecting labor you have $3 to $13 cost of materials per bottle at the boutique level.
Figure there’s overhead, taxes and some level of profit and the cost from the winery is $5 to 20.
If you buy your wine retail at the winery, they have costs of mopping that shiny tasting room floor.
Looking a bit deeper, if you want to grow your own:
land costs go $5k to > $1M per acre depending on where you buy it, and if it’s got yielding vines.
Lets assume you already own the land for simplicity.
Entav Inra clone vines go about $5 each last time I bought small quantities (2008)
Depending on planting/trellis/thinning yields are 5-20lbs/vine. Say you target 5 ton/acre (assume 5 lbs each on 2000 vines) you toss in some money for field prep, trellis costs, irrigation, chemicals and you’ve got a three year cost to first harvest of > $15k per acre (above the land costs) before any labor is factored in.
If you use family labor (i.e. unpaid) you can figure your annual costs there after are simply depreciation, water & chemicals. If you pay labor, its going to be more, (given recent government action, if you pay over the table maybe a LOT more)
My neighbors have 1.5 acres and their annual costs including paying cash to some non english speaking pickers, (may be citizens, may not) come in about $3k, while they do all of the spraying, tilling and only pay for pruning and harvest. (annual harvest party costs $500 alone) They’re considering buying a used tractor for $10k to save on the hassle of renting one for tilling, you will need a truck too.
So figure your costs are $500/ton as a minimum not including taxes on the land at the small end, the guys who are running the central valley vineyards do a bit better.
That brings your grape costs to $.25 a pound, and gets you to $2/bottle or $25 a case cost of materials. Add in depreciation, power (it gets really hot here in the summer) numerous taxes and fees interest, insurance and the costs to fetch materials and it adds up pretty quickly.
So when you go to the boutique winery, and you buy that “50% off case” for < $100, the winery is not making a whole lot of money. At full boat retail, they may be making a reasonable return on their time for a job that involves working most weekends, dealing with the public in a state of occasional intoxication and the charming minions of your local, state and federal government.
And yet the good people you meet make it worthwhile.