After shelling out for acreage, machinery, landscaping, labor costs, bottling and marketing, budding vintners would be lucky to start a standard winery in the Willamette Valley for anything less than several hundred thousand dollars. But in Portland, another business model for wineries is sprouting that’s more like founding Facebook than starting a farm.
BY KARLA STARR
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Winemakers Kevin Ross and Bob Switzer of Seven Bridges Winery prepare for a tasting at the shop’s North Portland location.// Photo by Sierra Breshears |
Portland Wineries
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After shelling out for acreage, machinery, landscaping, labor costs, bottling and marketing, budding vintners would be lucky to start a standard winery in the Willamette Valley for anything less than several hundred thousand dollars.
But in Portland, another business model for wineries is sprouting that’s more like founding Facebook than starting a farm. “We have a standard startup story,” says Bob Switzer, co-owner of Seven Bridges Winery in North Portland. “We started in a garage.”
Call it a natural expansion of Oregon’s fertile wine regions and Portland’s rich microbrewery scene. Today Portland boasts at least 13 commercial wineries within city limits, most of which have opened in the past three years. With such low startup costs (a few thousand dollars of credit card debt seems the norm) and little need for physical space (an empty garage or basement will do), it’s almost surprising that the trend took so long to catch on in the foodie, DIY enclave of Portland.
Urban wineries function like any other winemaking venture, save for one factor: Rather than owning acreage and harvesting their own grapes, they rely on buying grapes from outside vineyards.
“It doesn’t mean that we won’t get screwed in a year if we don’t get all the grapes we want,” says Laurie Lewis, co-founder of Hip Chicks Do Wine in Southeast Portland, one of the oldest vintners in Portland. “But with the lower overhead, it’s a little easier to manage than a traditional winery.”
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Enso Winery owner Ryan Sharp transfers Grenache wine from barrels to tank to prepare for bottling. The so-called “racking” separates the liquid from remaining sediment.// Photos by Sierra Breshears |
Opening a winery in the city does have its drawbacks, including steeper rents. But with comparatively scant startup costs, it’s much easier to grow a metropolitan winery than a typical one, says Jill Ross, who handles all non-winemaking tasks at Seven Bridges Winery in North Portland, which released its first vintage in 2008. Ross says husband Kevin and Switzer, Seven Bridges’ winemakers, are “both engineers, always tinkering with the process. They just wanted to make the best wine, and the business grew from there.”
The urban location also allows for increased interaction with customers. “About 80% of our business is direct to client,” says Lewis, most of which comes from their wine club, in-store sales, release parties and events like their annual “Squishfest.”
Enso Winery in Southeast Portland opened its doors in 2009 and is one of several wineries diversifying by offering tastings and happy hours, and holding joint events with restaurants. “We’re set up like a wine bar,” says owner Ryan Sharp. “We can charge by the glass. So from a business standpoint, we’re dealing with much higher margins than strictly wholesale.”
Until more customers learn that they don’t have to leave the city limits to discover great wine, the Willamette Valley remains the standard location. But when it comes to luring in new hordes, a Portland address may be just the right choice for the startup vintner set. Seven Bridges gets “a lot of people in the tasting room who wouldn’t normally go wine tasting in the valley. “They come in during bike rides,” says Ross. “You don’t have to make a day of a visit.”
