Our first Wine show....

[Hokapsig]

we are getting ready to release our port also. Label approved, now to get it in the rotation.

 

[Hokapsig]

well, its been some time since we posted about our winery.....

We are now 9 years into our winery and STILL no location for a storefront. This has good and bad implications. The bad is that we have no where to point customers in the winter months for tasting and bottle sales. The good, from a business perspective is that our overhead costs have been kept in check, allowing us to flow more to our bottom line and keep our cash flow positive.

The pandemic caused us some problems (having a winery is all about solving problems). The state closed down the alcohol state store system, yet allowed wineries to be labled as essential businesses and stay open, though we weren't allowed to offer tastings. This was a HUGE positive impact for us. We were able to post on social media about what wines we had available and we created a tag which stated "Covid Survival Pack" which we put on our 3 bottle boxes. People loved the marketing and sales soared. Even with the pandemic shutting down our festivals, the farmers markets were still open and we sold well there. However, we ended up about $5k under the previous years sales.

The pandemic also caused us issues with sourcing grapes as the vineyards were unable to keep up with the demand for juice and we ran out of some key varietals for selling and blending. Enter our farmers at farmers markets. They approached us with over ripe fruit which they could not sell and gave us about 400 pounds of peaches, and pallets of strawberries and raspberries. We then juiced the fruit and came up with several fruit wines which saved our season. With leftover pinot grigio, we took the shredded coconut from not having a cookie exchange and blended it with some lime wine (from a test batch) and created a Pinot Colada wine. Other wines found their own following due to no other grape wines in the wine tanks. We created a "party wine" by combining small lots of dry reds and named it Winemaker's Blend, which now sells well enough for us to recreate the wine now that more juice is available.

Although our search for a location was put on hold, we were able to make some contacts for a local storefront, which has yet to come to fruition. However, by offering a wine tasting to parents during Halloween, we were able to meet a new neighbor who didn't taste the wine, but just stood by observing the parents tasting the wine and thier comments. We then talked with our new neighbor and found out he manages a large grocery store (Giant Eagle) and asked us to sell our wine in his store. This has provided us with a passive income by just selling to the store who uses their liquor license to resell the wine.

The summer of 2021 started with our farmer's markets again and we expanded our markets from 2 markets to 4. Although the markets were not as robust as the economy was opening up, the wine festivals which opened up saw an increase in sales of 40 to 50% which made up for downturn of the farmer's markets. The farmer's markets still allow us to move some wine and to test new wines to see how they would be recieved.

We took first place in a local wine festival and will return this May to defend our title. We are still missing 3 BIG wine festivals, but supplemented the loss of those with smaller shows with better attendance. Hopefully those festivals will return in 2023. In the meantime, we were able to recall our festival staff for working the wine events, though we did lose some good employees. We are still looking to increase our production as the festivals are coming back in 2022 and with the farmer's markets and our grocery store, it has been tough to keep up. The grocery store wants us to increase the number of stores by 200%, with eventually being in every store from Pittsburgh to Altoona. Though this would be a blessing, this would also strain our logistics for making the wine for sale. Our bottle source has increased their pricing and bottles have moving toward a scarcity, though we keep at least pallets available at all times.

Just more problems to solve.

 

[baratras]

I moved from a country where wine is a way of life, yet I don't particularly like wine.

 

[Hokapsig]

update, we were able to defend our Best Beverage title at the wine festival. That makes 2 years in a row and we were able to get some more loyal customers to follow us to other festivals. Those are the easyist sales as they come to us and want to try the new wines. We were also invited to another wine festival which we had not been able to participate in due to us not either being "known" enough or not having a storefront. We sold well (almost a 100% sell out despite 12 other wineries) and were able to gain new customers when we get back to that area in July for another nearby festival.

Costs due to the economy have skyrocketed. Our bottle costs and sugar have both increased about 25%, gasoline for picking up supplies, going to the farmer's markets and festivals is a challenge and we have not increased our prices to make our wines more economical for our customers. We did have to increase our Blackberry wine cost a dollar a bottle due to the shortage and increased costs which went from $10 per gallon of juice to $45 a gallon, and it's now not available.

Manpower to work the shows is also a challenge as availability has gone down and costs per hour have gone up. Our family has graciously chipped in thier time to help during the markets and an occasional festival.

We are flattered that other wineries are not only copying our wines, but also copying our printed materials (at times verbatim). We are still flattered, but whatever helps the local wine trail is helping us all. We are waiting on a decision to finally access a property for a storefront and will prepare to make it a destination for our community. Hopefully this takes off and i can retire to just doing the winery business. Currently working from 6 to midnight is getting old along with a full time day job.

 

[HANKfxr]

I know this thread is kind of old, but it still gets updated from time to time.

I just wanna say thanks for this! Its a great thread with a lot of helpful information for someone who is wanting to get into the business (winery/cidery), your story is a very similar one to how ours is turning out.

We have a pretty big following on social media, due to our homesteading page Log in or sign up to view which will help us when it comes to the cidery/winery. Our town officials and community members are incredibly supportive of our dreams. We get recognized all over the island, its a very weird thing.

I would like to discuss more about this, if you don't mind. Thanks. I'm looking to increase our production, and trying to figure out the best way of going about it.

 

[Hokapsig]

as 2022 comes to a close, we can look back on our year and see what was done right, and where some challenges remain.....

We are moving into our 9th year of being fully licensed and our sales continue to escalate. We will hit an all time high sales for the year, even without our best selling wine for 6 months and some other popular wines slow to come to market as the supply chain has hit us hard.

Our meetings with a local farmer's market are looking to come to fruition as we should have a tasting room and sales location in our town. This will present an all new list of challenges as we have always been "roadies" and have never had a stationary place to call our own. Learning from other wineries, manpower and staffing will be an issue (but, hey, who doesn't want to work at a winery???), as well as increasing production to cover the tasting room, festivals, farmer's markets and the Giant Eagle grocery chain which will be adding additional stores in 2023 to the 3 which we already have.

The local grocery chain has been a blessing and a learning experience. We never needed UPC codes as our wines were only sold in farmers markets and festivals. Our stores want to be able to track which wines are selling and how fast. The liquor director for the grocery store chain questioned why we had so many different wines at his stores, and we told him to check his movement reports - our wines are moving twice as fast as other wines offered by the store. The UPC issue will be an investment for us, but will allow more stores and other grocery chains to also sell our wines (something about costing money to make money). We continue to support our wines by conducting tastings in the stores and this appears to increase the sales of our wines. A win/win for the store and for us. We are also scanning the forums on this website for new and unusual wines to add to our menu. We were thinking of a pumpkin wine for fall, but the deer got to the pumpkins before we could and decimated the crop. Looks like we need to move a bit faster next year.

Festivals appear to be coming back on line in 2023 post Covid. Our largest 2 shows will be back in March and April which should give us a boost in sales going into farmer's market season. We have made the decision to cut back on some markets from attending weekly to attending bimonthly. We find that these markets have become our de facto tasting rooms and allow us to reach a bigger audience than people actually driving to a tasting room. Although we will continue to have wine sales at these markets, our purpose will be to drive people to our new tasting room.

To increase our future production, we were contacted by another winery which was going to close. We ended up purchasing the equipment, but not the building and land (as this winery was located too far from our home base). Unfortunately, until we are able to get our tasting room location, all of this equipment is in storage. We will need to go through the TTB to have an additional manufacturing location approved and added to our license as well as the state license to add an additional satellite location for sales. We hope that with the added location comes the sales to justify the added expense of monthly rent, insurance, utilities, and additional manpower costs. PA is also requiring all wineries to register and be audited by the PA Dept of Agriculture, which will be an additional cost and burden for compliance. We were approached by the Dept of Ag in 2020, but they had backed off due to Covid and businesses were already dealing with all the Covid guidelines. This will be another learning process for us.

We would really like to have one year where we have all of our wines available, no supply chain issues, no pandemics and manpower available to see what our sales volume really could be. I look forward to backing away from my full time job and just doing the winery, but the medical benefits appear to be the only sticking point. My personal goal is to finally get the tasting room established, have it be successful, and then sell the entire winery within 5 years and let someone younger reap the benefits of my dream while we fade into the sunset to our forever home or farm.

 

[Hokapsig]

well, the first Q of 2023 is complete and we enter our 10th year of being commercial.

With the wine festivals returning, people have put Covid in their rear view mirror and appear to returning to normal. Sales have been brisk and we have been expanded our distribution into 9 Giant Eagle food stores. Several of the store employees have remarked that they have never seen wine that has moved as well as ours. We found that befriending the people that work in the liquor area can pay dividends as well as stopping in and providing a bit of face time. Dealing with a corporation has its challenges, but it can be rewarding if you crack the code.

The tasting room which we have been working on for 2 years has hit a snag. The new owners have changed the entire parameters for renting to us, which is very disappointing. Instead of simply renting a space to us, they want rent plus a significant amount of our monthly sales AND they want to call the shots on live music, events and our store hours. Needless to say, this is a deal breaker and we are very disappointed at this turn of events. Maybe we weren't meant to have a tasting room.

Even without a tasting room, sales so far have almost doubled over the same time as last year. Other opportunities are presenting themselves, such as a new winery offering to purchase the equipment of the closed winery which we purchased in the past year and offering to partner with us and share their tasting room. Another restaurant has offered to carry our wines too, so that can be an outlet for sales too.

After 10 years of building our brand and developing a following, we are now turning our sights toward an exit plan. We are looking for another person to take over the winery and continue to build on what we have built. It's still fun and profitable, but my wife is tiring of the work. I'm still game for making and selling wine, but it is a 2 person job at a minimum. We are still looking forward to the rest of 2023 as a successful and profitable year.

 

[Hokapsig]

time for our annual update. Into our 10th year of operation, we have had to negotiate some challenges this past year.....

Obviously with the government caused inflation, our expenses took a hit, but we were able to offset this by cutting back on labor by doing less, but more profitable, farmer's markets. We decided to work smarter, not harder and were able to choose our top 3 revenue producing farmer's markets to do this year. Instead of working longer hours for low attendance markets, we worked a market a day on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. This worked out well for our "work/life" balance.

The Super market food stores (of which we had been up to 9 stores), decided to add an additional 3 stores and expand our reach. The challenge here was that these extra stores were not factored into the production schedule. Each day, after still working my full time job, we would work until midnight to meet production demands and keep our distribution outlets happy. So far, so good. We are hearing rumblings of an additional 3 more stores in 2024, so we are ramping up our inventory now in anticipation. Although the store takes their cut, having my wife drive to the store, unload the cases and drive away with payment make for quick and easy money. No having to work the market, check IDs or set up our booth. Quick and Easy.

Bottle prices, sugar and supplies have all increased about 30% across the board. Juice prices held to last year's prices, but the suppliers added a barrel filling fee instead of raising prices. Gasoline prices surged, so when we went on juice runs, we maximized what the truck would carry to make the trip worth our while. We were able to find a sugar source to save us about 25% per bag, but are still paying more than 2022. We have been absorbing these prices and making up the difference in the volume of sales, We have been thanked many times by our customers for not raising our prices, but may have to correct some prices moving forward. But we can only raise prices so much as we get into the price range of some lower priced medium quality California wines. People will usually choose Cali over PA wines given the choice, but this is where our sweet wines win out. Cali doesn't make sweet wines and this is what sells for us.

Sales increased another 10% YOY, slowing due to production issues and just not having the time to get more bottled. Again, we are learning first hand about economies of scale, where we can only produce and store our product in the limited space we have. Though we have looked at expanding our production area, landlords are VERY proud of their spaces for lease. We still have the equipment of the winery which closed and we had purchased, still in storage as we don't have the space to expand, We continue to keep our overhead low and focus on quality and consistency for our wines. We have learned that in January, we need to be focusing on the fall wines, in the fall, we are focused on next spring's wines.

As 2024 begins, we are hopeful for continued success, look forward to releasing a new wine or 2 and continuing to remain relevant in the wine market. At 10 years old, the winery is still fun to do, but we are looking toward the horizon to begin to determine our exit. We have made the wines, established our brand and recipes, found our outlets for selling and built up a following and goodwill with our customers. Time to begin to look for a younger team to take the reins Anyone want to step in and own a winery???

Let's see what the year holds.

 

[Christopher Anderson]

time for our annual update. Into our 10th year of operation, we have had to negotiate some challenges this past year.....

Obviously with the government caused inflation, our expenses took a hit, but we were able to offset this by cutting back on labor by doing less, but more profitable, farmer's markets. We decided to work smarter, not harder and were able to choose our top 3 revenue producing farmer's markets to do this year. Instead of working longer hours for low attendance markets, we worked a market a day on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. This worked out well for our "work/life" balance.

The Super market food stores (of which we had been up to 9 stores), decided to add an additional 3 stores and expand our reach. The challenge here was that these extra stores were not factored into the production schedule. Each day, after still working my full time job, we would work until midnight to meet production demands and keep our distribution outlets happy. So far, so good. We are hearing rumblings of an additional 3 more stores in 2024, so we are ramping up our inventory now in anticipation. Although the store takes their cut, having my wife drive to the store, unload the cases and drive away with payment. No having to work the market, check IDs or set up our booth. Quick and Easy.

Bottle prices, sugar and supplies have all increased about 30% across the board. Juice prices held to last year's prices, but the suppliers added a barrel filling fee instead of raising prices. Gasoline prices surged, so when we went on juice runs, we maximized what the truck would carry to make the trip worth our while. We were able to find a sugar source to save us about 25% per bag, but are still paying more than 2023. We have been absorbing these prices and making up the difference in the volume of sales, We have been thanked many times by our customers, but may have to correct some prices moving forward. But we can only raise prices so much as we get into the price range of some lower priced medium quality California wines. People will usually choose Cali over PA wines given the choice, but this is where our sweet wines win out. Cali doesn't make sweet wines and this is what sells for us.

Sales increased another 10% YOY, slowing due to production issues and just not having the time to get more bottled. Again, we are learning first hand about economies of scale, where we can only produce and store our product in the limited space we have. Though we have looked at expanding our production area, landlords are VERY proud of their spaces for lease. We still have the equipment of the winery which closed and we had purchased, still in storage as we don't have the space to expand, We continue to keep our overhead low and focus on quality and consistancy for our wines. We have learned that in January, we need to be focusing on the fall wines, in the fall, we are focused on next spring's wines.

As 2024 begins, we are hopeful for continued success, look forward to releasing a new wine or 2 and continuing to remain relevant in the wine market. At 10 years old, the winery is still fun to do, but we are looking toward the horizon to begin to determine our exit. We have made the wines, established our brand, found our outlets for selling and built up goodwill with our customers. Time to begin to look for a younger team to take the reins Anyone want to step in and own a winery???

Let's see what the year holds.

Read ALL your posts. And all you originally wanted was to make a few bottles of wine to save some $$$!! hehe. Having owned several businesses (some successful and others not so), I can sympathise and have empathy for what you are going through. Lots of learning was done and all those LONG hours are starting to pay off. You are now in a grocery chain. That could ramp up even more. Keep on keeping on. You can do it!

 

[Hokapsig]

thanks for those positive words Chris!! Although the main goal was to have a tasting room and bigger production area, we are learning from friends that the overhead costs and relying on employees may not make this dream in our cards. Our CPA advises against it. We are of the mindset of "if it ain't broke, don't mess with it".

 

[Hokapsig]

getting close to starting our 11th year (October) so a look back on this year is due.....

Although we are still selling well, we down about 5% due to some issues outside of our control. A tornado in June went through our area and the State Park which we are named after suffered significant damage and cancelled a huge revenue weekend for us. Life also got in the way as we had to take time off due to the death of a relative and my wife wanting to get away for a girl's weekend (which she deserved). But life is to be enjoyed.

Our supermarket business has grown to 12 stores, providing a nice passive income for us. However, we are being strong armed to join a service to get paid, which will cost us an extra $500 just to get our pay. This is grinding the winemaker's gears for sure. The third party company said we can get our pay sooner, to which we responded that its a state law that we must be paid upon delivery. The third party provides no value add for us, only an additional expense. GRRRRRRR......

we were able to win the Best Beverage again for the third time in 4 years at the spring wine festival. Its not just having good wines, its how you SELL the wines. We seem to do a good job at that. We are considering entering our wines into some contests, but we would rather keep the costs in our bank account and let the customers tell us our wines are good by the sales. We never claimed to be the best winemaker or have the best wines, but we wanted to have the best bank account at the end of the year.

We took a chance to try some new wines this year, adding a Blueberry and a Pomegranate and bringing back some older wines which haven't been around in a while. The Pom will be bottled for the fall and will be rolled out for Labor day. It's only a small 25 gallon batch, so if it doesn't sell, no harm, no foul. The Blueberry was balanced nicely and sold out within a week. We will do that one again soon.

We have tried some new wine festivals and events in order to counteract our shortage of sales. One festival was very impressed with our wines and sales and has already requested us back next year. We continue to seek out events where we can maximize our sales. Farmer's Markets have been increasing in sales, even through prime vacation season. We do a deep dive into our sales at the end of the year, so we will reserve judgement until then.

Although we remain open to a tasting room, costs have been prohibitive. The location which pulled the rug from under us continues to struggle to attract any business due to their excessive terms. We feel that would not be a good match for us, reflecting back on what has transpired with the owners of the location. Oh well....

We begin to transition to our fall and winter wines. Our cranberry has come out in August and sold out the first week, so more bottling will take place. Fall juices are in next week and should be fermented by the end of September in time for the fall and winter holidays. 55 gallons of wine that used to take 3 to 4 months of hard selling now are gone in 1 month. That's a good problem to have, but requires a hard look at logistics and keeping the tanks full when harvest comes.

 

[Rocky]

getting close to starting our 11th year (October) so a look back on this year is due.....

Although we are still selling well, we down about 5% due to some issues outside of our control. A tornado in June went through our area and the State Park which we are named after suffered significant damage and cancelled a huge revenue weekend for us. Life also got in the way as we had to take time off due to the death of a relative and my wife wanting to get away for a girl's weekend (which she deserved). But life is to be enjoyed.

Our supermarket business has grown to 12 stores, providing a nice passive income for us. However, we are being strong armed to join a service to get paid, which will cost us an extra $500 just to get our pay. This is grinding the winemaker's gears for sure. The third party company said we can get our pay sooner, to which we responded that its a state law that we must be paid upon delivery. The third party provides no value add for us, only an additional expense. GRRRRRRR......

we were able to win the Best Beverage again for the third time in 4 years at the spring wine festival. Its not just having good wines, its how you SELL the wines. We seem to do a good job at that. We are considering entering our wines into some contests, but we would rather keep the costs in our bank account and let the customers tell us our wines are good by the sales. We never claimed to be the best winemaker or have the best wines, but we wanted to have the best bank account at the end of the year.

We took a chance to try some new wines this year, adding a Blueberry and a Pomegranate and bringing back some older wines which haven't been around in a while. The Pom will be bottled for the fall and will be rolled out for Labor day. It's only a small 25 gallon batch, so if it doesn't sell, no harm, no foul. The Blueberry was balanced nicely and sold out within a week. We will do that one again soon.

We have tried some new wine festivals and events in order to counteract our shortage of sales. One festival was very impressed with our wines and sales and has already requested us back next year. We continue to seek out events where we can maximize our sales. Farmer's Markets have been increasing in sales, even through prime vacation season. We do a deep dive into our sales at the end of the year, so we will reserve judgement until then.

Although we remain open to a tasting room, costs have been prohibitive. The location which pulled the rug from under us continues to struggle to attract any business due to their excessive terms. We feel that would not be a good match for us, reflecting back on what has transpired with the owners of the location. Oh well....

We begin to transition to our fall and winter wines. Our cranberry has come out in August and sold out the first week, so more bottling will take place. Fall juices are in next week and should be fermented by the end of September in time for the fall and winter holidays. 55 gallons of wine that used to take 3 to 4 months of hard selling now are gone in 1 month. That's a good problem to have, but requires a hard look at logistics and keeping the tanks full when harvest comes.

Really glad to hear this. I was concerned when I saw your sale of equipment posted a few days ago. Glad to hear that things are going well.

 

[Hokapsig]

Really glad to hear this. I was concerned when I saw your sale of equipment posted a few days ago. Glad to hear that things are going well.

no that was when we purchased the assets of another winery which the owner had passed. We were going to double out production and move to a bigger facility, but the owners of the facility had different ideas. We wanted to rent the spece, but the facility owners took that to mean that they would be directing how we ran our company, were going to get rent AND 30% of all of our income AND were going to run a brewery, distillery, and an out of state meadery under our TTB license (as well as have us be liable for any incidents arising from the brewery, distillery and the out of state meadery). Not only was this going to be in violation of state law and licensing, but they wanted to control and dictate our hours of operation, what wines to make and direct our manpower to support their events (with us footing the bill for the manpower and not being able to recoup that cost). So we will incur the financial hit when we sell off the equipment which was purchased to expand and we will learn from it. It's an expensive lesson.

 

[Rocky]

no that was when we purchased the assets of another winery which the owner had passed. We were going to double out production and move to a bigger facility, but the owners of the facility had different ideas. We wanted to rent the spece, but the facility owners took that to mean that they would be directing how we ran our company, were going to get rent AND 30% of all of our income AND were going to run a brewery, distillery, and an out of state meadery under our TTB license (as well as have us be liable for any incidents arising from the brewery, distillery and the out of state meadery). Not only was this going to be in violation of state law and licensing, but they wanted to control and dictate our hours of operation, what wines to make and direct our manpower to support their events (with us footing the bill for the manpower and not being able to recoup that cost). So we will incur the financial hit when we sell off the equipment which was purchased to expand and we will learn from it. It's an expensive lesson.

Wow! Who owns that bigger facility, the Mafia?!

 

[Hokapsig]

Christmas Eve, 2024 and a look back on our winery.....

Although the sales were down about 10% due to some shows being cancelled, moved or just poorly attended. We have experienced the negative side of the economy and inflation. People that used to buy 6 bottles or a case are now only buying 3 bottles or a single bottle. We had venues change locations which the locations were not well publicized or not well promoted. In one instance, our usual place (where our customers have come to expect us) suffered a broken water pipe which flooded the location, causing us to be relocated to a back room in another location which caused sales to suffer.

On a positive note, we brought out some new wines thanks to our Farmer's market farmers supplying us with different fruits. Our Blueberry and Pomegranate wines were well received and were selling out during the events. We are still toying with doing some blending during the off season and hope to come up with a suitable new wine. Friends from Erie have offered some late harvest Chambourcin to have us come up with a new near Ice Wine. Customers need a reason to come back and sample their favorites and experience new wines.

Another issue is physically, we are getting older. My wife is having issues picking up the wine cases (although I am still slinging cases at 63). We are beginning the task to eventually sell the winery to a younger couple, so if you know anyone, forward them to us. I was able to retire at the end of September when my company decided to retire some of the older management team, which i gladly accepted. The winery then took up all my previous work hours and allowed us to fulfill orders for the winery.

we will be scheduling some other wine events in 2025 to make up some cash flow in the winter months until the farmers markets and bigger wine events start up again. IF you choose to do those events, our philosophy is to go big and go deep, meaning to take the 6 biggest sellers and taking a lot of cases of those. Remember your job is to taste quick, sell fast and move people.

We figure that we have to do the winery another 5 years which gets my wife and i to Medicare age. We will run the cost of the medical insurance through the winery and be able to write off the cost. Based on our sales, our CPA said that if we continue to do the sales that we did this year, we will be able to live off the winery and our investment dividends without having to touch any of our savings. This gives us a little incentive to sell at our shows.

The good news is that we still remain relevant in our area. We are seeing a new wave of wineries enter as older ones close. We try to offer lessons learned from experience, but when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Until then, we keep fermenting and bottling.