Does anyone have and resources that might give me some information about this? I am trying to ballpark the construction and equipment costs to build a small (but expandable) winery from the ground up. Thinking of an outdoor crushpad and tanks with space in a building for smaller lots and storage.
I would be interested in this answer too. [suicide.gif]
If you google this topic you will come up with several options… Some are actually interactive spreadsheets that ask you pertinent questions, then makes some assumptions and calclulates for you. I simply googled “washington state winery estimated costs” or there abouts. I remember a real good one was put out by WS, but there are several.
On this same note, if you are only costing the facility, have you added the “real” costs to starting a winery ?
I see another on this board that looks like they are finding thier way thru start up, and my best advice is to get good advice, find a consultant, CPA’s and Lawyers that do wineries.
Money spent today on planning will save you tons later.
L
Wow, this is a tough one to answer. Are you looking for a metal building or a mini chateau? What kind of insulation would you need? So many options…Buiding it yourself or hiring a contractor?
I built my own winery(2500sq. ft) L shaped, two rooms- one heated and cooled for barrel storage/ production/ fermentation, etc. One for case storage(cooled only). We also just poured a 1000 Sq. Ft. crush pad in front this year. I can’t tell you how nice that is.
We bought a panel system through a company called Acsys in Idaho. They cut the panels to your specs and have a outstanding R value, easy to construct, and bullet proof- can’t rot, burn, and completely resistant to bug/insect damage. Our building cost us around 30K(2003) with glu lams for roof support and metal roofing. The initial 1500 sq. ft slab slopes toward a 20 ft long grate drain, was around 10K and I poured the other 1000 sq ft with a bunch of friends and finished it myself. Our outdoor crush pad(poured and finished by pros) cost us about 5K- no drain or cover. I did all of the electrical and plumbing myself, and we just hand stuccoed the building with a group of friends. It performs very well with regards to heating a cooling, although it is burried into the side of a hill.
Equipment costs are, again, totally relative to production size and equipment preference. We chose to not go too deep into debt, and only buy new/used equipment as we can/could afford it.
What many folks do is rent a space in an industrial wharehouse kind of sit.- think the wine ghetto in Lompoc.
Where are you planning on doing this, Tim?
I wish this were for me, but it isn’t. The company I work for, the owner started his own “negociant” label as an additional venture to the core business. I work in Finance for his company and also support his winery from a Finance perspective (does that technically make me ITB???). I’m trying to help him think through a series of options/scenarios. Captial isn’t an issue, but my thinking is start small and expand. Location could be up in Napa or an urban location. Green/sustainable building is a must.
The things I think I am having a hard time estimating are
- are there any rules of thumb for how many sq ft you need (based on your case production)
- how much tank space is needed (and extra for settling, bottling, blending) based on production
- costs of building a building ($200/sq ft?) vs a cave (heard the costs are less) knowing extra work is needed for electrical and water
- costs of renting warehouse space and investment to convert to a winery
thanks for the insights john!
1 - 2) Depends on how much you’re willing to do outside, and whether you want to store case goods or not. We’ve made as much as 12,000 cases in 5,000 sq ft, but that was hell. Everything was done outside, with just enough room inside to push the crusher inside and park the forklifts. If you have the money, being able to process everything inside is awesome. In our new place, we crush and press inside the building. No issues with weather (hot or cold), sun, wind, etc. But that does eat up about 2,500 sq ft. That 2,500 could be used as tank space as well, if processing outside. Beyond that, I’d say about 1 sq ft per case works out pretty well, assuming you don’t keep wine in barrel longer than 10-11 months. So a 5,000 case a year winery in 7,500 sq ft (including production space) wouldn’t be bad. Make it 1.25 sq ft per case if you want to store bottled wine (ie 8,750 sq ft for 5,000 cases a year). If the wines need to stay in barrel longer than 10-11 months, you’ll need to double the sq ft per case number. Or triple it if the wines age more than 23 months.
My advice is build as big as possible - within reason. The more space you have, the more efficient you’ll be… and you’ll make better wine because you’ll have more time and better access. Our winery is probably overkill at 20,000 sq ft to make (and store) 7,500 cases of wine. But that enables us to never have to stack full barrels - and do all our processing inside. The space alone makes it so that we don’t need to have any employees.
-
Our building cost about $100 per sq ft. But it was just a shell - no equipment/tanks/glycol cooling etc. It’s a damn nice shell… but not normal in the sense that we don’t ferment in stainless steel tanks, nor do we have any fixed tanks at all. We ferment in plastic and all our tanks are portable.
-
Equipment costs and infrastructure (cooling, plumbing, etc) will probably be the same as if you built your own building. It’s just all those tennant improvements go to the landlord. Plus, normal industrial buildings don’t have the power or sloped floors with drains needed for a winery. The expense to modify the building to be really useful is fairly high. If you can afford it, building your own from scratch is the way to go.
I work full time as a commercial construction estimator and do a lot of conceptual estimating.
There are constuction firms that offer pre-construction services for a fee and sometimes no fee if they will have the opputunity to bid on the project or be hired as construction manager.
I was reading Wines and Vines this morning and saw and add for this company
http://www.ledcor.com/en They are based in Canada but have offices in California. They showed Larkmead Winery as one of their projects in California.
The vice chairman of the company is Cliff Lede.
Another place to start is to contact an architectural firm that specializes in winery construction here is an artilce from 2007 wiht a number of architects listed.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3488/is_4_83/ai_85242680/
They probably can recommend builders with whom they have worked successfully who offer pre construction sevices. The first Architect mentioned has 16 wineries on their resume.
From the same Article is
http://www.nonella.com/wineries.html
Cost of the capitalization is pretty simple to estimate, the working capital and the costs of marketing are perhaps less so.
You can initially/always buy wine from a bulk processor, or as bottled and labeled requiring essentially no capital, and no delay from permit to cash.
The question would be do you have a business plan that matches your capacity, to establish and promote a brand? And how is that dependent on your location, Napa or urban in terms of traffic ?
What if you make 1k cs and only sell 400? What if you make 1k cs and sell it all in 4 months?
Tim,
I’ve e-mailed you with the info but anyone else interested we have good customer that owns a construction company and has built several wineries. He’s done solar, green, etc etc. and knows all the ins & outs of building a winery. His work is very highly regarded. His name is Tom Andrews from Andrews & Thornley Construction.
If anyone else wants his contact info send me a PM and I’m happy to pass it on.
We also invited him to join our Berserker Board.
Hey Tim. Have you thought about custom crush?
Hey, Elyse. Good to see you here.
-Al
Hello, New to the site. I read this post and thought I would throw in my 2 cents.
With respect to the Equipment only:
If you call a generic commercial winemaking supplier and simple ask “Do you have packages for a complete winery to produce 5/K a year”, you will get a couple of questions like tanks? bins? etc but what you will walk away with is a quote for about $85,000 to $120,000 for a complete winery including tanks, pumps, complete lab, hoses, fittings, gamajet, pressure washer, crusher, press, etc, etc. 
Can you do better pricing the pieces out individually… Of course that is if you have the time. I suggest finding the time cause only you are going to know your layout, winemaking style and workflow through your winery and all that makes a huge difference on what you buy.
Steve,
What kind of equipment do you get for $120K?
Who are these suppliers?
Ian
I would suggest that one should come at this issue not from the generic perspective of what does a small winery cost - but rather, what do you want to do? What you make there changes what you build, and the systems to support it. All of that will change dramatically depending on what you want to do.
That said, I can help you piece it together if you want to contact me directly.
Ian, You would get basicly everything you need to open a winery from the big items likes presses, jacketed tanks, small glycol machine, crushers, pumps, bins, bottling set up etc. all the way down to the small stuff like hoses, fittings, washers, measuring tools, a full lab for all readings etc. Basicly over a weekend, you are up and running.
Someone like Vintners Vault in Paso and there are others that will package the deal for you based on your layout and requests. They will offer big discounts for this size purchase. You could do it for as little as $60K up to $120K.
As mentioned above, this is for the equipment only. You also need a building with temperature control and possibly an outside crush pad. Then you need grapes, barrels, bottling costs, and a couple years later you start seeing some revenue (reds) but also need to start spending some money on marketing/distribution. It all adds up to a chunk of money. So, it may make sense to start with a modest production in a custom crush facility or a rented space in an area like the Lompoc wine ghetto.
-Al
I agree. Staring with an alt. prop. or custom crush lets you build your revenue with very little risk. All said and done you could spend over $500K before you start seeing money come back in.
A proper business plan with a good custom crush place could let you actually build up to 5K cases in as little as 5 years and at an average of $20.00 a bottle you are at $1.5M in cash in 5 years. Now it’s time to take the plunge and go for your own facility. Your marketing is set, your slaes are there, your brand is established and all for a huge fraction of the risk.
Almost anyone who has got to this lever and is not drowning in bills started this way simply because of the risk factor. If your brand doesent take off, your marketing doesent work, then you are only out your rent and inventory and not the huge bill of the facility you bulit as well.