Space requirements for the small winery.
I’ve learned the hard-way, but it could have been a lot harder. I looked at a number of spaces to put the winery in before I ended-up where I did. I didn’t really know what I was looking for - I had good advice from my consultant, John Worontschak, but of course he wasn’t on the ground looking at each one in detail. So I saw some that looked like they’d have great passing footfall, others that seemed practical, a few had great character etc. But here is the distillation of what I learned - may it help you in your quest to build a micro winery.
Space. You can’t have too much space. I have ended-up with around 150 square metres in one flat-floor space, and that just about serves my micro-production of 13 tonnes / 9000L / 12,000 bottles. In theory all the constituent elements could fit into a much smaller space, but the reality of moving equipment around, storing kit and consumables including bottles - both full and empty - and providing something of a space for visitors and tastings means that I doubled my on-paper minimum of 75 sqm. The flip side is that I could expand production quite easily in this space by having taller tanks, stacking barrels, and having multi-level storage (needing a forklift) so there is something of a flattening curve of space requirements. Even the smallest winery needs quite a bit of floor area, but after a point you don’t need to double your area to double your production. I have also allowed the space to be flexible - the filtering and bottling takes place in the same area that destemming and pressing does earlier in the cycle.
Drainage: it gets wet cleaning all the kit. Very few places I looked at had suitable drainage, and understandably many landlords were reticent to volunteer to dig-up a nice concrete floor to put in a slot drain (or any drain at all) for a small-scale tenant who might go bust in a year. Everybody who knows anything about wineries raised eyebrows and said ‘but you need a drain’. It would have made life easier, but on the other hand we became careful about water and liquid waste management. We try to clean efficiently, we don’t carelessly open valves or leave hoses dripping (paint trays are great drip trays). We use a liquid vacuum-cleaner, and a squeegee to mop water to the outside. We choose cleaning products that are able to be disposed of in soak-aways. We needed to pay more attention to how and where water pools on the floor, and create ways to stop and direct its flow, particularly at times of heavy cleaning such as post harvest. All water based cleaning is done in the large doorway of the winery and the water pools off to soak -ways. On the water supply side you need taps of filtered (non-chlorinated) water in accessible places where hose runs don’t cross other traffic or service routes. I don’t have hot water, other than a small under-sink heater - something I wish I had.
Access and lifting. I had not originally appreciated how much ease of access and availability of lifting and moving equipment was going to be important. Initially during set-up you will be unloading extremely heavy / bulky kit from trucks that don’t have tail-lifts or forklifts (whatever they promised you) - we had to install a 3 tonne concrete egg - a horrible experience. Then there’s the grape arrival and basket handling, bottles in pallets of 1000 a time, shifting containers of full bottles etc. Moving stuff is critical. I got very lucky with my final venue; the landowner has a loader / forklift which he has always been willing to drive for us when necessary, so all I’ve needed to have myself is a pallet truck for moving things round the winery. Even a small warehouse forklift would not have been able to unload some of my kit, and I wouldn’t have had the skill anyway. Our large roller access door open directly on to the loading / truck parking area. When grapes come the trailer backs right up to the destemmer platform, so the 15kg baskets can be sorted / inspected and passed straight to the destemmer. A bonus.
Power. My press, destemmer and main pump are all 3 phase, everything else (chiller, bottler etc) is single. - it is perfectly possible to get everything single phase. I’ve been lucky being supplied with 3 phase 60amp, and I’ve had no power pinch-points (except running the kettle and a heater in the kitchen / sink area which I fed with only 13amp ring). Overall my power use, and therefore bill has been quite low, I think I’ll use around £200 a year. But the sacrifice is that I don’t generally heat any area for my own comfort (too much volume), so the winter is uncomfortable.
Temp control and insulation I’ll cover this more in the ‘kit’ blog, but the more insulated the space the better, and certainly the facility to insulate a section of it to keep barrels stable - or build a barrel room is ideal. I actually have 2 areas that I insulated so it is possible to keep red wines warm for fermentation in winter, and whites cooler. Also, it gets cold - I’m learning this the hard way, my core hasn’t been at normal body temp for 4 months - so creating a shed / office that you can heat for yourself would be perfect. I haven’t - wish I had!
Customer foot-fall. This is something I’ve yet to really appreciate. The original plan was in a high foot fall location but with lousy space, drainage, power and access! I now have a wholly practical space, but in a potentially low footfall area (albeit in the Cotswolds). The winery is a way down a farm road that doesn’t have a footpath through it - it is quite remote despite being in a lovely part of the country. My marketing plan will have to be wholly different for the original urban winery in Oxford.
Food production requirements. There are some basic requirements of a food / beverage production space that I didn’t know when I started (2 doors on then wc for example) they are quite easily met - though of course at a cost - but much easier to do when you’re moving it rather than in situ, or post-hoc. It was hard to find specifics in advance, and only the visit of the food standards people pointed me in the right direction. Check with the local food standards office.
Soul! I’ve put in very long hours in hard conditions, and tried to tempt visitors to come and buy my wines. Without the premises having ‘soul' - some kind of intangible spirit that suits the project of wine making and drinking - I think it would be a tough journey. Where I am now is peaceful, with the most beautiful meadow in front (hares through summer) with a view to die for, nestling just above a quintessential Cotswold village - it is the very quintessence of bucolic. It may not be the artisan / hipster soul of an urban winery that I first had in mind - but it suit my project and personality down to the ground.
I’ll follow this up with a check list of the licensing and legal requirements, and a break down of my kit decisions in a later post.