[jmheflin]

Hi!

These are great questions. Thanks for your interest.

At the low end of the winemaking market ($5/bottle), grapes are a commodity that provide sugars for alcoholic fermentation. At the high end of the market ($100+/bottle), each vine is individually managed to maximize grape quality. Our grapes will be priced comparable to other grapes at the high end of the market. Right now, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon grapes sell for about $8000/ton. However, annual yields fluctuate wildly, so our greenhouse grown product may be used by some winemakers as hedge against the risk of down years. Growing indoors also allows us to produce grapes at any time of year, potentially allowing winemakers to ferment two or more batches per year. Growing the grapes takes about 6 months from budbreak to harvest.

Grape vines take up water and simple nutrients like nitrogen, potassium and calcium from the soil. The grapes make all of their more complex biomolecules, including the flavor molecules in-house. Water stress and nutrient deficiencies can have positive impacts on the flavor compounds that accumulate inside the berries. Growing hydroponically gives us the ability to better control these elements, leading to increased accumulation of important flavor molecules. Sun exposure and temperature will also be optimized to maximize biosynthesis of flavor compounds.

It is hard to say if these grapes will taste as good or better than their soil grown counterparts. Grape quality is usually based on three measurements: Brix, pH, and TA. If these three ripeness indicators fall in a specified range, the winemaker will come into the vineyard and taste the grapes. Each winemaker has different flavor preferences, but as long as we can hit the marks for the three quantitative quality indicators, we should have a good start.

Growing the grapes indoors will hopefully provide winemakers with peace of mind. These crops will not be susceptible to pest or disease pressures that often influence harvest decisions. I know right now in CA, a lot of growers are harvesting before the grapes have fully matured to try and avoid smoke taint. In general, the longer the grapes can hang on the vine, the more interesting the flavor profile becomes. Growing in a controlled environment allows for unlimited hang time as we do not have many of the usual pressures like bunch rot, birds, heat waves, heavy rains etc.

The last thing I will say is that climate change is negatively effecting wine growing regions around the world, impacting their ability to grow high quality grapes. The most immediate negative effect in my opinion will be the early breakdown of malic acid in the berries. This acid is important in malolactic fermentation. Growing grapes in a greenhouse with climate control would help to mitigate the impacts of climate change on wine quality. For more on climate change and wine, here is an interesting article I read recently. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/climate-change...

Cheers!

[metanoia]

This sounds really great, and I think that this will open up a new frontier in winemaking.

One question I have is how you plan to replicate terroir. TA, Brix & pH are great indications of when to harvest but drainage, soil composition, sun direction, duration, diurnal temperature swings, seasonal temperature patterns, wild microbes, etc. all have a significant effect on the outcome of the wine.

For those who aren't into winemaking: the most enduring, famous wines such are not just famous because of winemaking technique but because of the specific place - even down to the rows of vines - the grapes are sourced from.

Assuming consistent winemaking technique from a cellarmaster, when you get to the point where you can control all those variables and get to the outcome you want at the individual vine level, then comes blending, which takes flavor profiles from wines made from various plots and/or vineyards and selects for specific flavor profiles to make up the final wine.

So, you'd have to achieve what you're proposing at scale as well as with variation across different "lots" so that you can "replace the vineyard" for a given winemaker.

Just food for thought, I like the idea but I think there's more thought that needs to go into your product development and target market.

They say that wines are made in the vineyard, and that has been true for a long time, but with modern techniques, it's hard to tell if a wine was made in the vineyard, the cellar, or in the lab.

[jmheflin]

Thanks for your thoughts!

Indoor growing would allow us to replicate certain conditions that vineyard managers want. Vine nutrient stresses, water stresses, direct light exposure, swings in temp, all doable using hydroponics in a greenhouse. We might even set up different greenhouses for different varieties, or for different levels of berry maturity. As I understand it, most of the different flavors between wines of the same variety come from decisions made during the winemaking process. You can make two very different tasting wines from the exact same grapes (they did this experiment at UC Davis). Choice of yeast, fermentation temperature, maceration time etc. all contribute as you mentioned. My goal is not to replace the vineyard, as I need a source for the cuttings :). This would just augment what they already have for now.

[ConsiderCrying]

Would you say you're aiming for the high end market or is that too risky of a venture, relying on reaching the appropriate and steep quality level, when the lower end would be easier? It seems like you've put substantial effort into this so I'm presuming you're shooting for the stars.

[scrumbledober]

Growing them indoors you are never going to have anything near the margins required to make it economical if you're trying to undercut commodity level grapes. If you're going through the effort of growing in a controlled indoor environment like this I would imagine it only makes sense to target the highest quality product possible.

[smogcutter]

I expect that’s true for a pilot, but it seems plausible that if it’s successful you could eventually become more economical than traditional growers. You’re not limited by access to high-value grape-growing acreage, for one thing. If this eventually does scale I’d expect it to swing the opposite way, producing commodity “grown to order” grapes for the low end (by price, if not quality), while the high end of the market continues to differentiate by terroir and traditional production methods.

[jmheflin]

Thanks for your question!

Grapes used for making bulk wine wholesale for about $2000/ton. I am not yet able to produce them at that price point. For now, I am hoping to partner with a vineyard that wants to make the highest quality wine possible, and is willing to pay for grapes that enable them to do so.

[zaphod12]

I mean the argument is you're going to lose any sense of Terroir...and that is a huge amount of the cost at the high end of the market. Sure, you pay for taste, but you also pay enormously for origin and provenance.

[jmheflin]

Absolutely agree. I am not going to convince people that wine origin doesn’t matter. But I believe that 15% of grapes from a ‘Napa Valley Cab Sauv’ labeled wine can be grown outside of Napa. 25% if the wine is labeled as a ‘North Coast Cab Sauv'. So maybe the project is good for these types of situations.

[jfengel]

Rather than a vineyard, perhaps you'd want to seek out a "custom crush" facility? You could locate an experienced hobbyist who wants to make a small amount of high-end wine, but doesn't have a full set of facilities. And you could locate several different makers, giving you multiple chances per year of finding a set of growing parameters to show progress towards an exceptional wine.

Making a ton of wine at a custom crush house could cost around $5,000, so you're talking about people with multi-thousand-dollar hobbies. You might be able to talk them into taking a flyer on expensive, experimental grapes. It would be a lot of work to handle a lot of sales one ton at a time, but perhaps easier than finding a high-end winemaker willing to take a risk on unproven growing techniques.

[jmheflin]

This is a great idea. I will reach out to some. Thanks!

[sweettea]

> two or more crops per year

As a greenhouse (soil) grower of vegetables myself, is this actually feasible? Many plants produce based on chilling cycles or day length; do you envision swapping out plants midway through the season? I know for greenhouse blueberries and possibly raspberries it can be plausible to grow in pots and bring into greenhouse in stages just for the fruiting cycle but I don't know if grapes are daylength or cold sensitive.

[jmheflin]

Great question!

You can keep dormant canes in the refrigerator for about a year before they start to degrade. After 2+ weeks in refrigeration, the canes can be rooted. It takes about 6 months from budbreak to harvest. This time is the same in the greenhouse as it is in the vineyard. If the vines are grown in a greenhouse where day-length and temperature are controlled, it is possible to harvest 2 crops a year @ ~6 months apiece. We just take the canes out of the refrigerator when we start a new batch.

[hevelvarik]

4$ a pound, how do you intend to scale, assuming that a winery would only be interested in large allotments. I would suspect that greenhouse based operation in wine country would be far more expensive to main than the standard vineyard. Have you written anything about the economics of the enterprise?

[jmheflin]

Hi! Thanks for the question.

I haven’t written anything, or really thought this far ahead yet. But $4/pound is close to what they sell greenhouse grown tomatoes for, and their yield/sqft is likely similar to what I could get. I do not suspect that the greenhouse will be located in wine country, as land is too expensive there.

[quercusa]

Would the AVA rules allow grapes from a basement in Napa to count as 'Napa' grapes?

[jmheflin]

I am not sure! I think so, although I am not in Napa. The good news is that you can build greenhouses on land that is not suitable for vineyards, like in abandoned parking lots.