About this course
Profits from Grape to Bottle compares three ways to get wine into a bottle under your own brand: growing grapes on your own vineyard, buying bulk wine, and buying shiners. For each path, you learn what it costs in time, how much control you keep over the wine, and how quickly you can reach the market.
The course starts with the traditional vineyard path. You buy land, plant, learn winemaking or hire a vineyard manager, get a wine grower's license, and buy equipment. Expect about five years of costs with no return: roughly three years for the vines, plus one to three years to get wine in the bottle. A vineyard gives you full control and the same fruit every year, and an estate wine may let you charge a bit more. However, changing varieties means replanting, and weather or disease can cut your harvest. You also learn that a winery is a licensed facility that ferments wine, and it does not have to be located on a vineyard.
Next, you learn to buy bulk wine by the gallon. Bulk wine ships in ISO tanks or Flexitanks of about 300 gallons and is often ready to bottle or blend. For a first vintage, Dean recommends sourcing a bulk wine comparable to what you plan to make, so you can launch while you build the brand. You learn what you can still adjust after fermentation and why aromatics are very hard to add later. You also learn how to judge a sample's nose, mid-palate and finish, and why you should have a lab plate the wine for yeast and bacteria. The course covers how blending affects your AVA label and why grape contracts on vineyard rows give long-term consistency once a bulk lot sells out.
Finally, the course covers shiners: finished, unlabeled wine with a generic cork that can be sold only to another bonded winery. Shiners can reach the market in weeks, but you can only add a capsule and label. This course is for anyone building a wine brand who wants to choose a path to the bottle, or combine paths, such as testing a shiner before buying bulk or planting.
Lessons
- 01Ways to Put Wine in the Bottle: The Vineyard Path vs. Buying Bulk WineLearn the main ways to get wine into a bottle, starting with the difference between a vineyard (grape grower) and a licensed winery (wine maker). This lesson walks through the traditional estate path of land, planting, licensing, equipment and years of waiting, along with its pros and cons. It then introduces buying bulk wine as a faster way to launch your brand. Knowing these options helps you choose where to start based on your time, cash, skills and land.17 min
- 02Bulk Wine Mastery: Buying Wine by the GallonHead winemaker Dean Guzman of McClain Cellars explains when to buy bulk wine by the gallon instead of waiting years to make wine from your own fruit. You will learn what you can and cannot change in a bulk wine, how to check it for contamination before you commit, and how blending affects the region you can put on your label. This helps you launch your brand faster without buying a wine you cannot fix.15 min
- 03Bulk Wine vs. Shiners: Pros, Cons and Choosing Your Path to the BottleLearn the trade-offs between buying bulk wine and buying shiners (finished, unlabeled bottles) when you don't want to start from your own vineyard. You'll see how each option affects speed to market, minimum volumes, control over the wine, and brand consistency from year to year. This helps you choose the fastest, most affordable way to get your own label on a bottle. You'll also see how to combine bulk wine, shiners and a vineyard as your brand grows.15 min
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