How much to start a winery in Napa?

Maybe you’ve spent a sunny afternoon in wine country and wondered … what would it take to plant my own vineyard? Well, wonder no more because researchers at the University of California, Davis, have itemized the expenses from rootstock to disease prevention to harvest crews.

So how much does it cost? The short answer is: a lot.

Full results of the study can be found here. I’ve pulled out a couple of things I found most interesting below.

It should be noted that the researchers started with the assumption that you have access to a 35-acre farm in the Napa Valley with slopes of less than 5 percent (a big deal in terms of planning permissions). That’s quite an assumption with vineyard land going for upwards of $125,000 an acre.

But just the costs of planting and farming are plenty daunting when you consider that your payback, an average of $4,400 per ton of grapes, isn’t guaranteed and isn’t even going to happen until three years out.

You start by clearing the land (and that alone is $15,000 per acre) and planting cabernet sauvignon, the grape for which Napa is famous. The study takes you meticulously through the steps of pruning, training and irrigation. After that comes a section on disease and pests that is positively gruesome. I had no idea there were so many things out to get a grape. Leafhoppers, mites, mealybugs, powdery mildew — it’s a wonder we don’t have a valley full of white-haired viticulturists. Total cultural costs, which includes weeding, spraying and pruning, $1,099 per acre.

As mentioned above, you don’t have to worry about harvesting until Year 3, but when you do, you hire a crew that is going to cost an average of $520 an acre. And here’s an expense I never would have thought of, portable toilets and sanitation stations at $1,295 per farm or $432 per 10 acres annually.

Operation costs per acre for Year 1 are estimated at $30,318 per acre. Your first yield, in Year 3,  is 1 ton per acre on the new vines, or $4,455. So you don’ t have to be a math whiz , to see that it will take quite a few fabulous harvests to start breaking even let alone making coin.

I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking one of those “winemaker for a day” programs may be the way to go here.

Cheers, logistically.