Craft beer. Small batch spirits. I've definitely paid more cold hard cash for the "artisanal" branding, and this weekend in Portland I did the same thing (and no regrets, btw). Only thing was I wasn't drinking beer. Or whiskey. I was in the wine tasting room of the Southeast Wine Collective in the hip area of South-East Portland, a self-described urban winery, throwing back some Oregon Pinot Noirs. Basically, Southeast Wine Collective offered the equipment, expertise, and services to turn those delicate Pinot grapes for new wine brands and into the glorious bottled, labeled, local, and, yes, artisanal Oregon wine. In short, a custom crush facility. It allows a lower barrier of entry for new wine brands to enter into the market, and ultimately become a virtual winery. I thought it was super cool. Super new. Well, I was wrong. At least on the new part.
The concept isn't anything new -- in fact it was written about in the New York Times back in 2007 with the article, "Wine Made the Coop Way"-- found here. New York Times notes, "Today’s wine start-ups are often “virtual” wineries... supplied by one of the state’s “custom crush” operations." Basically, custom crush is a way to build a brand before you make the large capital investment in your own winery. Ok, so maybe not such a new idea. I wondered, is this a good business? Well, we all know where the answer lies. Yep. Google.
Basically, if you can stand the risks of a bad crop, yes. In this article titled "Business Booms for custom crush wineries in Sonoma County", an interesting portrait was painted. One custom-crush owner, Brian Kobler, noted "'It wasn’t the gold miners who got rich, it was Levi Strauss and the people who provided the service; the people who didn’t mind taking a back seat to the more glamorous job'". The risk in the business is a bad crop of grapes which decreases the number of winemakers at your door trying to bring to market the latest Pinot. The hedge? Barrell storage. Yes, the article is light on hard data and heavy on anecdotes, but as long as the custom-crush operators don't screw up those grapes, it seems pretty interesting.
Especially thinking about the desire for customers wanting to see more local, artisanal, small batch, grass fed... ok, you get the point. Customers want wine with a story, and that comes from those new upstarts with a dream. Maybe, just maybe, we can get a urban winery in our backyard in DTPA. And maybe those new urban wineries won't take my first-born child for a glass of Cab like The Wine Room.
Danny! I was in Oregon this weekend too (but in the Willamette Valley). It's so interesting that you had this run in with custom crush because one of my big takeaways from being in the Willamette Valley was the lack of custom crush! I visited six relatively small wineries (most under 10,000 cases) and was shocked to find that all of them had their own production facilities. In Napa many wineries don't immediately have their own production facility because it is expensive to build out and Napa has very strict regulations for how you can use your land in Napa (e.g. only X% can be non-ag usage including tasting room and production). I wonder if the reason so many Oregon wineries are able to have their own production is because land is cheaper and regulation is more relaxed!
ReplyDeleteCheck out Inwood Estates Vineyards in Texas. They plant on several large tracts across the state (incl. hill country), but also grow grapes just off Inwood Road, in the middle of one of the richest residential neighborhoods in the middle of the city. I think it's more of a gimmick than anything else (not only do we make wine in Texas, we do it in the middle of a metropolitan area with 7M+ inhabitants!), but the winemaker told me it was also a proof of concept -- namely that you can make good wine almost anywhere.
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