Many wine enthusiasts have dreamed of producing their own wine. They dream of walking among the vines, of family weekends at the vineyard, of the pride of serving one’s own label wine to friends, of winning show medals and accolades from the press.

Tell them they’re dreaming.

I’ve done it. I’ve had some success, and a couple of failures. Like when a cork supplier sold me expensive, tainted corks. I used these for a bottling of red destined for the US market. Two bottles in twelve showed cork taint. Problem was that we didn’t know which ones. Ditched the lot. Haven’t used cork since. Long live the screwcap!

But the path from dreams to reality is long and hard.

For those starting from scratch, select a site, preferably in a recognised wine region, and  a region which is highly regarded for the varieties and styles you like. If you’re a Pinot Noir nut, choose a region suited to Pinot Noir. If you live in Sydney and want to enjoy weekends at your Hunter hideaway, Pinot Noir is not your grape.

When selecting a site, do the homework. Talk to experts, talk to the locals, look at neighbouring vineyards and try their wines. Check how many good and bad vintages there have been. Get your irrigation right. Select the right clones to plant….

And so it goes on.

After 3 years, if the vineyard has been run properly, comes the first crop. Make the wine yourself, or use a reliable contract winery? For us it was a no brainer. We didn’t have the capital, the expertise or the desire to own a winery, so we used a contract maker.

You are starting to get some wine. Get it packaged. Have a professional design the labels, even if your wife and daughter protest. That fight you have to win, notwithstanding the tears.

Now comes the hard part, no, the hardest part – if you haven’t already gone broke and thrown in the towel. You have to market and sell it. To build a brand. When you’ve run out of friends and neighbours who hesitatingly agree to buy a case – what next? Getting a good capital city distributor is almost impossible. They all want brands with runs on the board, not start-ups. Enter the wine in shows and compete with hundreds of other wines? For most of the time that’s a lucky dip. Send samples to journalists? Occasionally a wine they receive gets a mention. Sell to direct marketers? If it’s not a known brand you’ll get bugger all for it – often less than cost of production.

Then do the same again, year after year as the dream fades into the sunset.

The words above are a simplistic account of some of the issues facing a start up wine producer. They don’t mention the ups and downs of the export market, exchange rate fluctuations and political interference within Australia and overseas. Then there are changing tastes and trends.

Go into a supermarket and survey the product range. There will most likely be two brands of baked beans, three or four toothpaste, a couple of different flysprays. As well as the supermarket’s home brand in all of the above.

Next, go into any decent bottleshop. How many Chardonnays are there? Shiraz? Cabernet? That’s what you’re up against. Plus all the sugary New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc which is actually subsidised by the Australian Government (read taxpayer). Can you believe that!!!

I don’t know the answers. As I near retirement I’m thankful that I’m not setting out on the journey now.  Along the way we had many issues and problems to contend with – rain ruining an entire vintage, wine spoiled in the winery, the cork issue described above, a huge fight with an indescribably vindictive bank, being dumped by a large customer, bad debts when a distributor went broke, and many more. My best luck has been having an excellent business partner and a beautiful, supporting, long suffering wife.

This first article has been a bit gloomy. I’m not always like that. In coming months I’ll look at interesting and topical parts of the wine industry, tell you some individual success stories. I’ll also tell you about some good wines, and some of the better ways to obtain good wines and good value wines. I don’t just drink wine. There some very good beers around. Some very ordinary ones too, but this beer snob will only talk about the good ones.