Hey everyone,
More winery progress!
Sam and I installed the air conditioner, hung a shop light, and painted the barrel rack yesterday. The place is really shaping up.
Also, Saturday: Jeff, Sam, Margaret, and I went to the winemaking 101 class given by the Sacramento Home Winemakers. It was educational, but maybe a tad long. J Page, who was hosting the event at his house, has a pretty nice wine room setup, however, and that gave us some ideas about what to do and what not to do in ours.
We also found out about this year’s club project. The club project for the Sac Home Winemakers is the annual thing where people in the club all buy their grapes from the same winery at the same time and make wine out of them. Then, next year, you bring 2 bottles of the wine you made to the annual club project evaluation and Darryl Corti tastes and evaluates them. It’s an amazing opportunity to see how our technique and skills as winemakers stack up. This year, we’re getting Cabernet Sauvignon grapes from a vineyard in elk grove. The vineyard has been around for 25 years and is under contract with Gallo, and apparently grows some great grapes.
They’re currently expecting the grapes to be ready in late September.
So…we put in our order for 1500 lbs of grapes @ 65 cents per lb. This will make something like 90 gallons of finished wine….or roughly 38 cases (456 bottles). If we only count the cost of the grapes, our cost will be about $1000, or a little over $2/bottle. I’m estimating that other expenses will add another $1 per bottle this year. This will cover the yeast, chemicals, refinishing the barrels, and the bottles and corks (hopefully), and the other annual expenses associated with making the wine.
How I’m proposing we split up the costs is to sell shares of the wine at $36 each (one case). I don’t know quite how to put value on work put into making the wine…but maybe we should just say that if you buy shares you’re expected to help out with making the wine.
I’d like to buy at least 8 cases.
Please let me know how much you want, and if you know anyone else who might be interested in pitching in, please let them know too.