Grape Expectations: What Does It Cost to Make a Bottle of Wine?

From land to vines, harvesting to processing, bottling to selling, we track the journey of a single wine bottle

By Kierstin Gunsberg | Sept. 28, 2024

There’s nothing more relaxing than watching northern Michigan’s shift from summer greens to vibrant reds with a glass of wine in hand. Winemaker Bryan Ulbrich would certainly agree.

After growing up in Illinois and going to college out West, he knew he was “smitten with the Mitten” after family getaways Up North and chose northern Michigan as the home for his urban winery, Left Foot Charley.

While the mitten’s pinky region is celebrated for its wine tourism and production, the same elements that make it special—distinct seasons, sloping landscapes, and rural charm—also create some unique challenges and costs to producing everyone’s favorite fermented beverage.

From weather that can quickly turn sour to the joy of crafting labels that pop, Ulbrich decants the full-bodied truth about what it takes to bottle up a vintage—from vine to cork and, finally, to your glass at the dinner table.

Working the Land

The cost of producing wine starts with the land—think purchase price and taxes—and anyone who’s ever browsed Up North real estate knows that’s an epic number. But it’s only the beginning.

Grape vines typically take three to five years to bear fruit, and some varieties take longer for a viable crop. Even before the first grapes are harvested, a vineyard must undergo months of preparation. While the rest of northern Michigan is cozying up with a glass of chardonnay and the latest Netflix binge, vineyard work begins in chilly February. The winter pruning, brush removal, and trellis repair take about 110 hours per acre to complete.

Then, as the growing season takes off in spring, another 160-200 hours per acre are needed for canopy management, spraying, ground maintenance, and setting up netting to protect grape crops from hungry birds. All in all, it takes up to 310 labor-intensive hours to nurture the vines—no matter the yield.

“Wine is…intrinsically tied to the land and people who work both,” says Ulbrich. “It’s a relationship between vines, dirt, farmer, and winemaker.”

Adding Up Labor and Materials

And, much like a fine vintage, it’s a relationship that becomes more valuable over time—along with its rising costs.

Labor is the biggest need and the biggest expense. Limited worker availability drives prices up, and Ulbrich notes, “We rely on the same people each year and accept that if we want to attract talent, it will be at increased costs.”

The price of everything from farm insurance to corks is also on the rise. (A single cork can run from 25 cents to $1, depending on the style and material.) And although the pandemic-era supply chain issues have evened out, Ulbrich still faces inflated costs for bottles as if there’s still a glass bottle shortage—though in his experience, there isn’t.

“Glass is now easier to source, but the prices are rising so fast you’d assume it’s a rare gem,” he says. “I think a correction of some sort is coming. That or you’ll see more wineries using kegs. When the bottles start getting close to the cost of fruit, there’s an imbalance.”

While waiting for supply costs to stabilize, Ulbrich says northern Michigan’s unpredictable weather remains a “wildcard.” Frost, drought, mildew, and pests can shrink yields, and though crop insurance helps, it doesn’t cover the total loss of an early frost or a dry, languid summer.

And every grape counts because northern Michigan vineyards typically produce only 3 tons of grapes per acre, compared to the 6-12 tons from industrial farms out West. In a good year, a typical acre will yield just 150-250 cases of wine.

Our region’s smaller vineyards and steep slopes also make farming mechanization difficult, and as such, few vineyards rely on it. “The fruit in Michigan is precious and rare,” Ulbrich says. “It requires human involvement and can’t be left to machines.”

A Waiting Game

Beyond the challenges of growing grapes, wine production is a long, patient process. “Some of our wines take five years to create,” Ulbrich notes, pointing to sparkling wines from 2019 still aging in their storage facilities.

This extended production timeline sips away at cash flow and storage costs.

“Equal to the fruit and the labor is the cost of time to hold and age wine,” Ulbrich says, adding that controlled environments for storage increases their overhead. “We have a full dedicated warehouse that keeps the wine safe until it’s ready to share.”

Once the wine is ready to leave the warehouse and hit the shelves, branding and marketing comes in.

“The label is the first thing most people see,” says Ulbrich, who treats each Left Foot Charley vintage as a unique personality, conveyed through distinct artwork and packaging—adding cost but also character to each bottle. “We try to engage all your senses with the bottles we create.”

Sales of the finished product—whether by the bottle or the glass—also have to support overhead like the tasting room, winery staff, and other business operating expenses. According to Ulbrich, Left Foot Charley’s business is 50 percent cider and 50 percent wine by volume. For wine, they sell 60 percent through the tasting room ( 20 percent by the glass and in flights), 30 percent via distribution, and 10 percent direct to accounts. Cider, meanwhile, is 70 percent distribution and 30 percent retail, with 40 percent of the latter figure sold by the glass.

Sharing Costs

All told, a single bottle can take years to get from vine to shelf, and longer still when you consider the work put into the land and the costs sunk into equipment, storage, and materials like glass, corks, and labels.

Diversification has been a key to Left Foot Charley’s strategy for managing risk in the face of high production costs. Besides growing grapes, the winery also grows apples for cider and offers custom winemaking services. As Ulbrich explains, these ventures offer flexibility when crop losses occur and allow the business to hedge against Mother Nature’s affinity for surprising northern Michigan.

Ulbrich has also recently expanded operations with the opening of Caravin Wine Works, a shared production facility located five miles west of Traverse City. Designed to serve smaller vineyards without their own winemaking infrastructure, Caravin Wine Works enables these vineyards to focus on growing high-quality fruit while Ulbrich and his team handle the production side of things.

“This facility is an evolution of what we’ve always done,” says Ulbrich. “We’ve had custom client partners for a long time, but we hit a point where we couldn’t make any more wine [due to space constraints].”

Caravin pressed its first grapes in September and now serves seven wineries, including Bowers Harbor Vineyards and Big Little Wines. By blending resources, these wineries share the most expensive aspects of winemaking—equipment, overhead, and production costs—helping them be competitive while staying in the black.

“Instead of seven wineries having seven presses and seven bottling lines, we all use this one. It’s fundamental in an industry like wine that is so cash and equipment intensive,” explains Ulbrich. “We’re now essentially a 25,000-case winery, which spreads the overhead costs around.”

Ulbrich estimates that the shared facility will save Caravin’s clients at least 50 percent on production, plus the cost of big ticket musts like a wine press, which runs around $100,000.

Even as operations grow and overhead is mitigated, wine prices naturally increase over time, with numbers tending to go up $3-$5 as they age. And, despite the love Ulbrich pours into production, he’s less enthusiastic about increasing the prices of his own bottles (which currently range from $18 for a 2022 white blend to $75 for a cabernet franc).

“I’m not very good at increasing prices based on wise and proven business methods,” he admits. “I want people to drink these wines, and I want all levels of interest and income to be able to experience them.”

Photo by Christine Erlandson