New online tool for Northwest grape growers

Editor’s note: This story has been updated from the April 1 print edition to reflect that the launch of the new cost-of-production calculator website has been delayed. 

It costs a lot more to operate a vineyard than it did in 2011. So, the Northwest grape industry is updating an online cost-of-production calculator and wants growers to put it to the test.

Funded with a Specialty Crop Block Grant, the Washington Wine Industry Foundation commissioned improvements to a website that wine and juice grape growers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho can use to estimate how much it costs to establish and operate a vineyard, and how much they stand to profit.

“It’s there, ready to go, but we just need some user involvement to make sure that everything is functioning as it’s supposed to,” Trent Ball, chair of the Yakima Valley College vineyard and winery technology program, said at WineVit, the Washington Winegrowers Association conference in early February in Kennewick.

The two-year project upgrades the website and modernizes costs and pricing information for the first time since 2011, Ball said.

Before using it, growers may want to round up some of their own information. The calculator will prompt users to enter their own facts and figures in the numerical fields. Examples include vineyard spacing, year-by-year volume estimates, capital borrowed, interest rates, labor costs, equipment and even plastic marking ribbon. The tool also offers industry averages for items growers don’t know.

The calculator also saves users’ information, for up to one year, through a digital cookie.

The idea is to remove some of the guesswork involved in figuring out whether a vineyard block will be worth the investment. The tree fruit industry commissions cost-of-production calculators for several varieties of apples, pears and cherries; organic versus conventional production; and mechanization techniques — usually through grants that fund the work of agricultural economists from Washington State University and Oregon State University.

Ball said the grape calculator should help growers determine their break-even costs, compare their operations with industry averages, keep records and communicate with lenders.

Besides a fresh look to the website and updated prices, the new version will offer growers the ability to summarize 10 years of expenses and revenue, see those figures change through time, download spreadsheets and delineate between organic and conventional costs. 

The web designers behind the project also made a calculator for wineries, accessible from the same webpage, that will include many of the same fields but also allow for adjusting expenses and revenue as case production increases over time.

When the new calculator goes fully live, both existing URLs — nwgrapecalculators.org and nwwinerycalculators.org — will take users to a single website that will prompt them to choose between grape production and wine production. Both sides of the site will ask for a name and email address to create an account.

Ball and the web design team want people to try out the new site and provide feedback. In fact, they plan to survey users through email and take constructive criticism through September, Ball said. 

—by Ross Courtney