Interviewing the owners of Estate Crush custom crush winery in Lodi.
In Saturday’s paper I had a story about Estate Crush, a new contract crush pad opening in Lodi. The owners are a group of four Lodians who are looking to meet the added winemaking demand from the area’s fast growing wine industry. They seem to have the wine business savvy to make the company a success.
Custom crush wineries essentially do all the winemaking for their clients who turn around and sell the wine under their own label. It essentially enables you to become a winery without the expense of investing in all the “concrete” costs of building a winery. My wife Christine works at such a winery in Napa, a “virtual” winery that doesn’t own a single vineyard or grape press. This enables them to be pretty flexible, if Syrah isn’t selling they can quickly adapt to what is moving in the market without having to rip out vines, plant new ones and then wait for the vines to mature. Such wineries aren’t saddled with the costs and liabilities of owning equipment or vineyards. And consumers supposedly buy marketing, not really the wine or the winemaking. If you’ve got a cool label, you’ll sell the wine no matter where it comes from and who makes it.
However, you do lose control because you have to trust other winemakers and other vineyardists. Some sophisticated types may also sneer at the thought of a winery with no vineyards. You also can take on a tour of your impressive winery and landscaped grounds.
Despite the challenges, I do think we’re going to see more and more wineries that operate out of an office rather than in an estate overlooking an expanse of vineyards.
