GARAGE VINO

Every great communist regime announces a five-year plan upon taking office – I fail to see why my capitalist winery shouldn’t employ the same principles. After much research, experimentation, deliberation, and acceptance of the goddamn time it just takes, the five-year plan for the Staeger Wine Company’s path to success goes something like this.

Year 1: Get wine, and I mean any wine, made professionally. Done – 60 cases of Nebbiolo. Permitting process begun. (2008)

Year 2: Establish winery permits and bond. Secure fruit from best vineyards/regions for your desired varieties. Make 500+ cases of wine (equivalent of $150K of sales at $300/case or $25/bottle). All underway. (2009)

Year 3: Establish winery location (downtown Santa Barbara leased facility) that will also function as tasting room on wine trail. Purchase/lease winemaking equipment, hire necessary p/t help. Make approximately 1,000 cases of wine, spread across numerous small lots of different varieties so you will be able to accommodate a wine club membership. (2010)

Year 4: Same as Year 3 but with additional caseload increase. Begin selling wine crafted in Years 2 & 3 (goal: 50% of full year of Year 2 inventory, i.e. $75K of sales, effectively paying for most of Year 4 harvest/processing costs). (2011)

Year 5: $300K of revenue, full year of sales of Year 2/Year 3 product. (2012)

Of course there are marketing schemes, wine club recruitment and hospitality, internet strategy, varietal selection, and various other details along the way. This, however, is a nice, Soviet-grade 5-year plan that ought to put this business of mine into the making-a-living range by the sixth year from launch. Thanks to a modicum of perseverance and determination, I’m already in Year 2 on the five-year arc.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 6th, 2009 at 10:56 pm and is filed under Look Before You Leap, Starting Out. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.