Totally, but this video was not about what lifestyle is in it for the owner, it was about financials for most wines at $150. Most $150 wines don’t own their own vineyard, nor will they. Most would love to have their own, high-quality vineyard but it’s simply not an option for most. If suspect if you were to buy your own property now at current market prices, you could not afford it. So although it is a great lifestyle advantage, it’s not really applicable to the financial discussion for 95% of the $150+ wines out there, so I did not address it.
Don’t pay an expensive consulting winemaker (I think you said you don’t, Roy) if you don’t have to. Excellent fruit goes a long way. Don’t pay for that big-shouldered glass at $4.00 a pop - at these levels of production you are not looking for an image of being a big boy on the retail shelf. Pay a buck; it costs less to ship, too. Custom crush where they have their own bottling line.
At $150, these are the standards. Go with fifty cent corks and $1 bottles and unknown winemakers and winery will struggle in my opinion, unless they are able to somehow get the non-monetary, emotional attachment from the buyers, or have already created their brand and have success already. That takes a lot of time. Once the price hits three-figures, many buyers don’t like taking chances and gravitate to either the winemaker or the vineyard, or both. Packaging helps send a signal that it is a serious operation, but is less important than the fruit and winemaking. But at this price point it ALL matters. Two out of three just ain’t good enough. You have to fire on all cylinders.
You can minimize the cost for new French oak barrels by cutting the percentage of new oak. This gets into style, but you are not wrong on the cost for a new oak barrel. I pay way more (I think) for labeling. Artist costs, photo costs, and per bottle printing costs are high for screen-printing, as I do.
Costs can be cut in all sorts of ways, but one can’t cost cut your way to a $150 wine and expect to succeed. It’s a different world where everything has to be right. Buyers will sense they are not getting the packaging they expect and it will cost the winery in lost sales because potential buyers will wonder if costs are being cut in other areas.
I agree about labeling. Most $150 wines spend $20,000-75,000 just to get their label designed. And $5000-20,000 for photography and $10,000-50,000 for their website. I did not include these costs because I am looking more at yearly costs than amortizing start up costs. But yes, labels matters. Presentation matters. Silk screening is still not overly expensive though, just $1-2 per bottle? Bottle costs for most $150 wines far exceed the costs of a silkscreen.
I disagree about photos being critical, though. Screaming Eagle has none and they have no problem. Harlan had none for 15 years and they did fine. I have yet to know of ONE wine buyer that bought because they liked the photos on someone’s website. I will tell you as fact that 80% of all Cab buyers only see the order page of a website. They go to it to purchase when the offer goes live. That’s about it. I’ve seen the metrics that prove that.