A winery business plan sets out the wines you'll make and where you'll sell them, what a bottle costs and sells for, the cellar, the tasting room, the permits and the tax, and the first year month by month. A winery's money moves on a slow clock: grapes are bought at harvest, the wine spends a year or more in tank and barrel, and only then does it pay. So a plan has two cash problems, opening the tasting room and paying for next year's grapes before this year's wine has sold. The tasting room and wine club are what make a small winery work, because a bottle poured or shipped to a member leaves far more than one sold to a shop. In the example below, a winery in Hermann, Missouri, sells bottles, tasting flights, club shipments and cases to restaurants, makes a profit from month 6, and ends the year about $36,000 ahead on $239,100 of sales. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, permits and tax, the projection, the startup budget, and a free template.
The short version
- Describe the business in a paragraph: the wines, the tasting room, the club, the goals.
- Cost a bottle from the grapes: about 720 bottles a ton, plus dry goods, cellar work and tax.
- The tasting room and the wine club carry the margin; wholesale cases build the name.
- Small producers pay little federal wine tax after the credit; state taxes and licenses vary.
- A federal basic permit and bonded winery come before the first crush.
- Plan the cash for the first vintage and the next one: grapes are paid for a year before they sell.
- TaroStack keeps grapes, dry goods and every lot of wine costed and traceable. It doesn't file TTB reports. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Gasconade Hills Winery, a made-up winery in Hermann, Missouri, I use in these examples, writes:
Gasconade Hills Winery makes dry and semi-dry wines from Missouri grapes, with a tasting room open Thursday to Sunday, a wine club shipping three bottles a quarter, and cases to restaurants and shops in the region. In our first year we plan to sign up 100 club members.
Part 2: what a bottle costs
| Per unit | Bottle, direct | Tasting flight | Club shipment, 3 bottles | Case to restaurants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grapes at $1,800 a ton, 720 bottles a ton | $2.50 | $0.83 | $7.50 | $30.00 |
| Yeast, additives and barrel share | $0.60 | $0.20 | $1.80 | $7.20 |
| Bottle, cork, capsule and label | $1.86 | $5.58 | $22.32 | |
| Cellar work and bottling, at $20 an hour | $2.00 | $0.67 | $6.00 | $24.00 |
| Federal excise tax after the small producer credit | $0.01 | $0.03 | $0.12 | |
| Glass washing, shipping or delivery | $0.10 | $8.00 | $5.00 | |
| Card fees, 3% | $0.84 | $0.45 | $2.25 | |
| Variable cost | $7.81 | $2.25 | $31.16 | $88.64 |
A ton of grapes makes about 60 cases, 720 bottles, so $1,800 grapes are $2.50 a bottle; the bottle, cork, capsule and label together cost almost as much. A tasting flight is four 2-ounce pours, about a third of a bottle. Club shipments average $8 for the box and shipping, with some members picking up at the winery. How to keep each lot's record, from vineyard to bottle, is in lot tracking spreadsheet.
Part 3: customers and prices
| Product | Price | Variable cost | Contribution | Margin | A month at full speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bottle of wine, tasting room and online | $28.00 | $7.81 | $20.19 | 72.1% | 450 |
| Tasting flight in the tasting room | $15.00 | $2.25 | $12.75 | 85.0% | 700 |
| Wine club shipment, 3 bottles | $75.00 | $31.16 | $43.84 | 58.5% | 100 |
| Case to restaurants and shops | $180.00 | $88.64 | $91.36 | 50.8% | 25 |
A bottle sold to a restaurant at $15 leaves $7.61; the same bottle sold in the tasting room leaves $20.19. The club is the steady part: 100 members at a shipment a quarter is about 100 shipments a month across the year, paid by card on a schedule. How a business plans production a year ahead is in how to prepare a production plan.
Part 4: permits and tax
Anyone producing or blending wine needs a federal basic permit under the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (27 CFR 24.106) and a bonded winery approved by TTB, and the state licenses the winery and sets what the tasting room may sell and ship. Federal excise tax on still wine up to 16% alcohol is $1.07 a wine gallon, and a producer gets a credit of $1 a gallon on its first 30,000 gallons a year (26 U.S.C. 5041), so a small winery pays about 7 cents a gallon, a penny or two a bottle. State excise taxes come on top, and direct shipping to members in other states follows each state's rules. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.
Part 5: the first year, month by month
Fixed costs are $11,000 a month: winery and tasting room rent ($4,000), tasting room staff ($5,000), utilities ($800), insurance ($350), licenses and bond ($100), marketing and events ($500), wine club and point of sale software ($150), and lab analysis ($100). The projection starts when the first vintage is ready to pour; the grapes and the year in barrel before that are in the startup budget. Sales start at 15% of full speed and reach it by month 11:
| Month | Bottles | Flights | Club shipments | Cases | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 68 | 105 | 15 | 4 | $5,324 | −$7,265 | −$7,265 |
| 2 | 90 | 140 | 20 | 5 | $7,020 | −$6,064 | −$13,330 |
| 3 | 113 | 175 | 25 | 6 | $8,744 | −$4,843 | −$18,173 |
| 4 | 135 | 210 | 30 | 8 | $10,620 | −$3,551 | −$21,723 |
| 5 | 180 | 280 | 40 | 10 | $14,040 | −$1,129 | −$22,852 |
| 6 | 225 | 350 | 50 | 13 | $17,640 | $1,385 | −$21,467 |
| 7 | 270 | 420 | 60 | 15 | $21,060 | $3,807 | −$17,660 |
| 8 | 315 | 490 | 70 | 18 | $24,660 | $6,321 | −$11,339 |
| 9 | 360 | 560 | 80 | 20 | $28,080 | $8,743 | −$2,597 |
| 10 | 405 | 630 | 90 | 23 | $31,680 | $11,256 | $8,660 |
| 11 | 450 | 700 | 100 | 25 | $35,100 | $13,678 | $22,338 |
| 12 | 450 | 700 | 100 | 25 | $35,100 | $13,678 | $36,017 |
The year's sales are $239,068 and the profit $36,017, after paying tasting room staff and cellar hours. Cash falls to −$22,852 by month 5, inside the $30,000 of working cash. The projection counts each bottle's grapes when it sells, but next year's grapes are bought at this year's harvest: about 21 tons, some $38,000, paid months before that wine is poured, which is the year's profit spoken for. Loan payments aren't included. How many bottles a month cover the fixed costs is in break-even point for a food business.
Part 6: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Destemmer, crusher and press | $25,000 |
| Tanks and fermenters | $30,000 |
| Barrels | $30,000 |
| Pumps, hoses and cellar tools | $5,000 |
| Tasting room build-out | $35,000 |
| Licenses, permits and legal | $8,000 |
| First vintage: grapes, dry goods and a year in barrel | $60,000 |
| Working cash | $30,000 |
| Total to start | $223,000 |
Get the template
Download the winery business plan workbook. Four sheets: your bottles, flights, club and cases with price, variable cost and monthly volume at full speed; the year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Six wines from three vineyards' grapes, each lot in its own tank or barrels, bottling runs with their own dates, dry goods by the pallet, 100 club members, and a tasting room. A notebook can't say which barrels hold which lot, what a bottle of the 2026 Chambourcin really cost, or which club members got bottles from a lot with a cork problem.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps grapes, dry goods and every lot of wine costed and traceable. Plainly: it doesn't produce TTB reports or excise returns, and it isn't built around tank and barrel transfers.
Grapes and dry goods by lot. Grapes are received by vineyard lot, and bottles, corks, capsules and labels by supplier lot, at what you paid, with units that convert: grapes bought by the ton, used by the pound; corks by the bag of 1,000.
Bottling runs as batches. Each wine is a recipe, and recording a bottling run takes the wine and dry goods from their lots at their cost and divides by the bottles that came out, so each lot of bottles has its real cost. One report walks a lot to every club member, restaurant and shop that got it.
And the club and the accounts. Club shipments and restaurant orders are sales orders, and margins are reported by product and by customer, so the tasting room, the club and wholesale can be compared.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What a bottle of the 2026 cost | A guess | The bottling run, at what it used |
| Which members got the cork-problem lot? | Read the shipping list | One report, lot to customer |
| Dry goods for the next bottling | Count the pallets | Stock by item, the reorder list in days |
| TTB report and excise return | Filed from your records | Filed from your records |
Recipes, batches, lots, recalls and margins by product and customer are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.