Most winery startup mistakes are preventable. After working with startup founders and existing owners across the industry, the same ten missteps appear again and again — mistakes that don’t just cost money, but can undermine a winery’s potential before it ever opens its doors. Here is what they are, why they happen, and how an integrated approach prevents them.

MISTAKE 01: STARTING WITH THE WINE

Passion for wine is why most founders enter this business. But a winery is a business first — one built on an integrated consumer experience. Every touchpoint, from your website and label to your price point and location, must work as a cohesive, consistent unit. Wine is one ingredient in that system, not the starting point.

MISTAKE 02: NOT HAVING A CLEAR, WRITTEN VISION

A vision statement is not a formality. It is the foundation for every consequential business decision you will make — your location, customer experience, pricing, and brand identity. Wineries that struggle financially almost always share one thing in common: having no written vision grounding their choices. I’ve written about how to create a vision statement several times in the last 10 years because it is so foundational. A clear vision statement leads to cohesive, consistent business decisions.

MISTAKE 03: CHOOSING A NAME THAT IS PERSONAL, NOT STRATEGIC

Your brand name is a business asset, not a personal memorial. It needs to communicate your story, values, and positioning — while helping consumers find and remember you. Naming sits at the intersection of marketing, customer experience, and exit strategy. It deserves the same rigor as any other strategic decision. If you’re curious about how to choose a name, read my blog post about choosing names for your winery and brands. 

MISTAKE 04: UNDERFUNDING

Wineries are one of the most capital-intensive businesses you can start. Most founders underestimate both the upfront requirements and the time needed before revenue exceeds expenses. Underfunding slows growth. It also forces compromises that erode quality, limit your options, and in many cases, ends the business before it gets started. Know exactly what you need, then plan for a buffer beyond that.

What I do differently: I build full financial models before significant capital is committed — not projections built to look attractive. I create realistic capital plans that account for production, construction, staffing, and DTC ramp-up timelines. Many high cost winery startup mistakes are avoided with a realistic, comprehensive financial model. Read more about creating financial plans.

MISTAKE 05: PURCHASING A PROPERTY BEFORE BUILDING THE BUSINESS MODEL

Almost every founder has a property in mind before they have a plan. That instinct can be expensive. The property must support your business model, your wine style, your hospitality vision, and your budget — in that order. Build the model first. Then find the property that earns its place.

MISTAKE 06: PLANTING A VINEYARD BEFORE DECIDING ON THE SALES STRATEGY

The vineyard exists to produce grapes that make the wine your sales strategy demands. It’s not the other way around. Not all varieties thrive on every site, and the wrong acreage mix — too much of one variety, too little of another — creates long-term sales constraints that are expensive to correct. Planting decisions must follow strategic decisions, not precede them.

MISTAKE 07: “MAKE GOOD WINE AND IT WILL SELL”

This is the most common sales strategy among startup wineries, and one of the most dangerous winery startup mistakes. Great wine is necessary, but it is not sufficient. Wine sells when it is supported by a clear vision, consistent branding, compelling messaging, packaging aligned to the price point, and a DTC strategy built to convert visitors into long-term customers. Wine without a comprehensive, strategic sales plan is long term inventory.

MISTAKE 08: DESIGNING THE WINERY BEFORE DETERMINING WINE MIX AND MARKET POSITIONING

Winery design must be driven by the wines you intend to make — their volume, varieties, production methods, quality level and price point. It must function as both an efficient production facility and a hospitality environment that supports sales. Designing before these decisions are locked in means building for a business you haven’t fully defined yet.

What I do differently: I connect production design and winemaking needs to financial modeling and market positioning from the start — so the facility you build serves the winery you actually intend to run.

MISTAKE 09: THINKING YOUR TARGET MARKET IS “EVERYONE WHO DRINKS WINE”

It isn’t. Your target market is a specific group of people shaped by your vision, your consumer experience, the wines you make, your location, and your price point. Wineries without a precise understanding of their buyer create wines and experiences that appeal to no one in particular — spending resources that don’t translate into profitable sales.

MISTAKE 10: FRAGMENTED CONSULTING

Building a winery requires expertise across finance, viticulture, production, engineering, hospitality, and DTC sales. When those specialists work independently — without a unifying strategy — the founder’s vision gets diluted at every handoff. Critical decisions get made in silos. The result is a winery built from disconnected parts rather than a coherent business.

This is where my work begins. I work with winery owners from initial planning through engineering, vineyard design, operations, and sales — ensuring every consultant, every decision, and every dollar is aligned to one strategic vision. That cohesion is what separates wineries that grow from those that struggle.

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These winery startup mistakes are common. They are also avoidable. When the right decisions are made in the right order, grounded in a clear strategy from the start, costly mistakes can be avoided.

If you are thinking seriously about starting a winery and want to talk through where you are in the process, I am happy to have that conversation. Let’s talk about creating a successful, profitable winery.

If you're thinking of selling your winery, rather than closing, this article is for you. These are the top things to consider when positioning your winery for sale in today's market. 

If you’re in the wine industry, you already know that this is a hard market. There are an increasing number of wineries for sale, and you likely know several others that would sell if they had the opportunity. So what do you need to do if you’re seriously considering selling your winery in the near future and want to maximize the value of that sale?

Here are three areas to focus on: maximizing your cash flow, assessing your salable assets, and being honest with your expectations.

Read on my Substack page.

Maximize Your Cash Flow

The best way to show that your winery is worth the price is to have cash flow. The highest value in a winery is, in fact, cash coming in. At the same time, most wineries consider selling because they don’t have enough of it. That tension is real, and it applies both to wineries that are struggling today and to those that want to sell at the highest possible value.

If you’re trying to improve cash flow in a relatively short period of time, the most effective place to focus—especially for small to mid-size wineries—is sales to your best customers. You want to look at your tasting room and your wine club.

This is where revenue is generated most directly, and where small changes can have an immediate impact. That means consistently asking for the sale, increasing the size of each purchase, and, most importantly, focusing on growing your wine club.

The size of your wine club carries significant weight in a sale because there is a clear and demonstrable relationship between the number of members in your club and reliable future revenue. For a buyer, that translates into short-term cash and long-term value, and it creates something tangible and a value that both parties can agree on. 

If you do nothing else, concentrate on increasing the size of your wine club and increase member sales outside of regular club shipments. This is one of the most direct ways to increase the overall value of your winery.  Check out my previous this post on how wine clubs drive profitability.

Assess Your Salable Assets

The next step is to take an honest look at all of your assets and prioritize them based on what will actually drive value in a sale.

Every winery has a mix of assets—land, buildings, equipment, customer lists, brand, and the wine itself. But not all of these will contribute equally to the final price. The key is to identify which assets matter most for your particular winery in this market and focus your time and effort there.

Two areas consistently stand out:

The first is your wine club. This is one of the clearest differentiators between wineries, and one of the easiest for a buyer to understand on paper. Making sure your wine club data is clean, organized, and clearly reflects its value should be a high priority.

The second is the quality of your wine. After reviewing your listing and financials, a serious buyer will taste your wines. This is where perception becomes reality. Ensuring that your wines are in their best possible form is critical. They should be clean and as close to bottle ready as possible. Keep in mind that many buyers may not understand the lifecycle of quality wine in the winery. It's not your job to educate them as it is to present your wine at its best. 

After that, turn your attention to your hard assets. This may mean addressing deferred maintenance or completing work that has been put off. The goal is not to do everything, but to make sure that what a buyer sees reflects a well-maintained and thoughtfully run operation.

You are likely already working hard, and preparing your winery for sale will substantially increase that workload. That’s why prioritization matters. Focus on the areas that will actually influence the outcome of the sale. If you’re unsure what those are, this is a time to seek out an expert.

Be Honest With Your Expectations

This is the most difficult part of the process.

This is your winery. You’ve invested years of work, and likely a significant amount of money, into building it. It’s natural that your perception of its value is shaped by that experience. You should expect that your estimate of your winery’s value is greater than anyone else's value.

But, your estimate is not what the market sees. What matters is not what your winery is worth to you—it’s what it can sell for in the current market.

That’s why it’s important to take a realistic view of where your winery stands. This may mean speaking with professionals who understand current winery sales, and looking closely at what comparable wineries have actually sold for, not just what their assets might suggest on paper.

Compare your winery to those that have sold. Look at where you exceed that standard and where you fall short. This exercise can be hard and uncomfortable, but it’s necessary.

Having honest expectations allows you to evaluate offers more clearly and determine whether they meet your needs. It also helps you decide whether now is the right time to sell. If the numbers don’t align and you have the ability to wait, that time should be used strategically. Focus in the interim on strengthening your cash flow, growing your wine club, and improving the way your assets are presented.

There are no guarantees that market conditions will improve in the short term. But there is a clear connection between how your winery is positioned and the outcome of a sale.

Positioning your winery for an exit is not a single decision—it’s a process. The work you do now, particularly around cash flow, asset prioritization, and your expectations, will directly influence both your ability to sell and the price you achieve.

If you are considering selling, even if it’s not immediate, this is the time to start that process.

We call it a Tasting Room, when it’s really a Sales Room. Why is that?

After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, wineries re-opened in an environment where the government was highly suspicious of any and all alcohol sales. On-premise consumption was restricted and considered the purview of saloons, which were vilified during the years of Prohibition. So, to comply with laws and distinguish themselves as places of refined moderation, wineries leaned into “tasting,” not drinking. The Tasting Room became the winery’s sales room.

Over the decades, tasting rooms have become places of hospitality, education, and increasingly, dinner (or lunch). Along the way, the primary role of the tasting room—to form a connection with the consumer for the purpose of selling wine—got lost.

Now, I recognize that I’m being hyperbolic here. In the contracting market we’re living in, too many wineries are focusing only on the hospitality aspect. They need to lean into sales, specifically multi-bottle purchases in the tasting room and wine club conversions. I see this not only in wineries I visit as a consumer, but in every winery I work with.

Focus on the Easiest Sales

The wine market is contracting. We know this. We’ve been living it for a while now. Direct-to-consumer shipments are down, tasting room visits are down, and discretionary spending is tightening. Add to that, it’s a crazy time in the world right now. While the economic volatility will stabilize over time, there has also been a demographic shift that is here to stay. These are realities wineries cannot control.

What wineries can control is what happens in their own tasting room with the consumer who chose to be there.

When someone walks into your tasting room, they have already made a choice—and they chose you. They went to your website, looked at the wines you make and your prices. They drove to you and may even have booked a reservation. And now they are in your tasting room, glass in hand. Happy. Sipping your wine. From a sales perspective, there is no warmer lead in the entire business—maybe in any business. They are waiting for you to sell them wine.

Yet many wineries continue to treat the tasting room as a hospitality venue where we also sell some wine—if you want and if you ask. They leave the most valuable, and the easiest, sales opportunities underdeveloped. 

Hospitality Is the Entry Point. Sales Are the Outcome.

Over the last decade, wineries have become very good at hospitality, and it shows. Average order values have more than doubled since 2012 in most regions of the U.S. According to the WISE Tasting Room Benchmark Report, guest satisfaction consistently scores in the “Very Good” range across the industry, reflecting major investment in culture, staff training, and crafting the customer experience.

But that same data shows a persistent gap:

While more wineries are asking for the order, fewer than 40% are effectively selling the wine club during tasting room visits.

This matters. The wine club is not a “nice add-on.” It is the financial backbone of small to midsize wineries. Every time I conduct a business analysis for a winery that is not seeing consistent profits, I find they are well below average in wine club conversions. Every single time. And growing their wine club is often what moves them from operating in the red to generating consistent profits.

Why Wine Club Conversions Are Critical to Winery Profitability

According to the 2026 Direct-to-Consumer Wine Shipping Report, wine club shipments represent 39% of all DTC sales by value. That’s four out of every ten dollars shipped directly to consumers coming from club sales. The percentage increases even more when combined with follow-on orders from wine club members outside of regular shipments.

Why is this so important right now?

When demand softens, the most resilient revenue comes from repeat buyers—read “club members.” It comes from the buyers who already chose you, who know you, and already want your wine. Wine clubs stabilize cash flow, smooth out seasonal drops, and create predictable shipment cycles—exactly what wineries need during contractions.

Failing to actively sell the wine club in the tasting room isn’t just a missed opportunity. It is leaving your most reliable revenue stream on the table.

a missed opportunity. It is leaving your most reliable revenue stream on the table.

So, What Do You Do?

The highest-performing wineries do not choose between hospitality and sales. They integrate them. They make wine club conversions part of the experience.

Selling the wine club should feel like:

• Guiding guests toward what they already enjoy
• Helping them access wines they just said they love
• Offering convenience, priority, and belonging
• Extending the relationship beyond today’s visit

This requires intention, training, and leadership. Not harder selling—earlier, clearer, more confident selling. Selling that sounds more like a conversation. One that begins when the first wine is poured and is woven throughout the tasting experience, culminating in an ask.

It is not a conversation you start at checkout. It is a conversation that begins when they walk through your door and continues after they leave.

The Bottom Line

As the market contracts, wineries cannot afford to rely on hope, traffic, or volume to carry revenue. It can’t be business as usual.

Your tasting room is not just a place to host people. It is your highest-leverage sales environment. It’s where you convert visitors into believers—believers who purchase regularly for years.

When fewer than 40% of wineries consistently sell the wine club—yet wine clubs represent 39% of all DTC sales—the math is clear. You cannot afford to hope consumers will choose you. You have to sell them your benefits.

And these are the easiest sales you will ever make. You are selling to the people who already chose you.

With training and intention, you can turn your tasting room into a sales room that supports a profitable winery.

If your wine club is not generating consistent, predictable revenue, the issue is rarely traffic alone. It is usually found in the mix—how much revenue is coming from one-time purchases versus repeat buyers, how effectively club members are retained, and how your DTC channels are working together. Before changing tactics, it is worth analyzing the composition of your sales. The numbers will tell you where the real opportunity lies. I'm happy to help you.

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PEMDAS Winery Solutions is adding Start to Finish Project Management to our services.  

If you've contemplated starting your own winery, have a winery now, or are in the midst of a new winery project, you know starting a winery can be overwhelming.  Not only are there many pieces to a winery startup, there are also regulatory, budget and timing constraints.  And, you probably have a full time job while managing this extensive project.  That's why PEMDAS is adding Winery Project Management to our group of services.  We can manage your project from start to finish and anywhere in between.  

Check out our new services coming October 2020.

PEMDAS Winery Solutions and Genevieve Rodgers is pleased to join the Wine Industry Network!  For over twenty years I've been helping people reach their wine dreams.  As an engineer, winemaker, winery manager and entrepreneur, I understand what it takes to succeed in the wine business.  My background is vast, allowing me to provide a full range of services to help you start and grow your winery.

Services:

• Winery Startup and Development
• Winemaking Consultation On-site and Remote
• Winery Production Design
• Equipment Specification
• Bulk Wine Selection
• Permitting
• Brand and Vision Development
• Varietal Selection
• and more...