Why do winemakers make way more $ than brewers?

Just curious why pro brewing pays peanuts compared to winemaking. I live in CA wine country and most winemakers I know are making between 75k and 150k. Brewers on the other hand have to move all over the country and maybe make 50k if they are lucky. And this is with education and years experience being equal. Please discuss.

Are you speaking in terms of profitability for the winery/owner, or just an employee working there?

A couple thoughts:

Assuming the former, I'd think it has to do with available supply. I've never made my own wine (I don't really like wine anyway) but from what I understand an average wine needs to age much longer than an average beer. Assuming equal demand for beer and wine, less supply means higher price.

Couple that with the fact that, at least in my experience, I run into far more wine snobs than beer snobs who are not only willing to but insist upon paying top dollar for wine, thus a winemaker can charge above and beyond to make up for the decreased sales from supply.

On the other end, I think the BMC domination of the market makes it ridiculously hard for a craft brewer, lacking the lower operating cost of BMC-esque economy of scale, to stay profitable. The big macros are profitable as f**k.

Owner of brewery or winery makes more money, more ability to shell out to the employees.

No data, just my own thoughts. I may well be wrong.

Qhrumphf said:

far more wine snobs than beer snobs who are not only willing to but insist upon paying top dollar for wine, thus a winemaker can charge above and beyond to make up for the decreased sales from supply.

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My thoughts exactly.

I for one am glad that a premium 750ml bottle of beer is only $11 (for say a St. Bernardus Abt 12 which is easy to get anytime and A+ in my opinion) instead of some insane original amount, or even worse increased 2-4x's that original amount due to speculation and hording.

FWIW I like wine, if you know what you are doing you can get great wine for $30/bottle sometimes a little less, and very acceptable wine for half that. I suspect wine making may have a bit more overhead too since grapes seem like they are harder to tend and more sensitive to environment than barley.

My original post was referring to employees and not owners.

I doubt the field workers picking the grapes are making $100,000 a year.

Also keep in mind that in California the cost of living sucks (as you probably know being in CA yourself).

Lastly, wait for a 'bad year' in terms of grape harvest/vintage. One bad year of weather can close a winery forever...which doesn't happen with beer.

Plus most breweries aren't growing and processing all the raw goods, unlike a winery, so their materials cost is lower, and it regrows itself annually so its actually an investment unlike grain and hops.

Wine snobs with deep pockets...even the royal wedding had wine but no beer.

The funny thing is, 2 Buck Chuck beats out just about every wine, every year but a snobby wine connoisseur would NEVER be caught drinking it...

I think it really boils down to howmuch of an impact the winemaker has on the final product vs. The brewwer. Brewing is about crafting fantastic recipes and QC, while winemaking is much more about making gut choices about which wines to blend and how much. Unlike beer, there is not really any scientific basis for how a certain wine should taste, just the personal opinion of the winemaster.

Just the humble opinion of a homebrewer/vineyard employee

Zamial said:

The funny thing is, 2 Buck Chuck beats out just about every wine, every year ...

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This isn't remotely true.

Rolly said:

My original post was referring to employees and not owners.

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I know one wine maker/owner (I live in northern california, mendocino county), another wine maker employee, and I know the ex-head brewer for Ukiah Brewing Co, our towns awesome organic brewpub.

My friend Danielle who owns his operation is a millionaire, but I don't think that's what were talking about. The wine maker (Cesar Toxui label) im guessing makes about 40 grand a year maybe 50 but not more. Now the brewer, he was getting d!cked. Straight up. He was making amazing delicious beers that they sell anywhere from $5 a pint to $8 for a 12pz pour. $12 bucks an hour is what his boss grudgingly paid him. I think there's a perception that wine is "fancy" and so it attracts people with cash who aren't concerned with how much of it they spend.
Beer drinkers on the other hand, tend to be less wealthy and more down to earth. And if we can't find any good beer then dammit we'll make our own. I sure wouldn't want to do it for a living though

I'm one of them "wine snobs". I have a glass just about every night before I go to bed. My choice is the cheapest 1.5 liter Merlot I can find at Sam's Club. LOL

Winemaking on any serious level is not really something many can just 'get into' like you can with beer. It has to do with the available ingredients. The best wines in the world come from grapes from the best vineyard real estate in the world. The best beers in the world come from all the same grains and hops that we all use at home (except maybe for proprietary yeasts,cultures,etc.). Hobby wine making is with pasteurized bulk grape juice. Really, there's no 'Can You Vint It' radio show.

Just makes for a much larger base of beer workers to figure out who to not pay.

Rolly said:

Just curious why pro brewing pays peanuts compared to winemaking. I live in CA wine country and most winemakers I know are making between 75k and 150k. Brewers on the other hand have to move all over the country and maybe make 50k if they are lucky. And this is with education and years experience being equal. Please discuss.

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My opinion without supporting facts, the most i have ever seen a beer sell for is about 24 bucks, that is actually CHEAP for a bottle of wine, when you can get bottles of wine that literally run into thousands of dollars each. That would be my guess, but some brew masters do make WAY more than 50k. I think the highest paid brew master on record makes like 300+K per year.

Grapes and their juice rely greatly on the quality of soil and care taken to harvest at the right time. Most wine connoisseurs are also very particular on the region where the grapes and juice come from. If a resource is limited, it will be valued at a higher price. Then, you take into consideration that the winery has to develop good wine. There will be some that are better and some that are average. This distills the amount of quality wine to an even finer number. After years of building a name for the company, they can charge a premium for that as well. Then there's limited distribution, which increases the value, as well as the age of the wine. A quality vintage that has come and gone will only increase in value. Most people don't hold on to beers for very long. The list goes on and on...

1. supply and demand -

a) if many people want to be brewers, there is a lot of competition, and this drives down wages. So I can hire the great brewer for a lower wage

b) Wine is "more exclusive and expensive". The wine buying customers have more money, and are less price sensitive to a price increase than beer drinkers, especially the guy who buys the case of cheap beer. Since the customers are wealthier, it may be beneficial to have more upscale sales people.

2 - product knowledge -
In general, there is greater wine variation than beer variation at a store. The beer customer doesnt know much, just goes and picks up something, anything. Maybe they will try a Stout. Maybe Porter. The grain bill isnt on the can. But for wine, the customer feels lost. They come in and ask "what goes with raw Kangaroo meat Sushi?" or "whats a nice dry Tan wine?". The higher end customer wants a sales person who can answer that.

Also, since wine costs more, and the owner must sink a greater cost into the inventory, they will tend to be more keen on turning over that inventory.

Or, as I was informed by a wine connoisseur, we beer drinkers are "plebeians".

I think the metaphor here would be comparing the salaries of the chef at a 5-star, $50 per plate restaurant and a line cook at McDonald's.

When I was young, stupid and had money to burn I used to buy real expensive wines to impress dates, usually at snobby restaurants. Now if I want wine it's the crap stuff for me and the wife. They make the cash cause dummies like me are/were willing to pay it.

brewmcq said:

Or, as I was informed by a wine connoisseur, we beer drinkers are "plebeians".

I think the metaphor here would be comparing the salaries of the chef at a 5-star, $50 per plate restaurant and a line cook at McDonald's.

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Maybe a line cook at In-N-Out, those guys are talented.

In Ohio its $4,000 a year to open a brewery and another $4,000 to be able to sell it by the glass. I think to open a winery its $75 a year and your ready to start selling wine. My dream is to open a bbq brewhouse somewhere in NW Ohio but before you even open the doors your down $8000.

Vance71975 said:

My opinion without supporting facts, the most i have ever seen a beer sell for is about 24 bucks, that is actually CHEAP for a bottle of wine, when you can get bottles of wine that literally run into thousands of dollars each. That would be my guess, but some brew masters do make WAY more than 50k. I think the highest paid brew master on record makes like 300+K per year.

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Try getting Sam Adams Utopias - $160.00 for a 24oz bottle. I buy 2 bottles each batch!

$160 for a 24 oz bottle of beer is absolutely insane and unbelievably rare for a beer. I've seen wine bottles well into the thousands. $100 bottles of wine are COMMON.

I've always heard that wine making is an art and that beer brewing is a science. As a fan of both, I can see this. Wine making is more subtle; minor changes in ingredients yield very big flavor differences. Even the weather and soil will yield different flavors for identical grapes. For beer, grain is grain, hops are hops, and us amateurs have access to the same stuff ingredients pros do.

Second, I imagine the profit margins are much higher for wine, especially for well established vineyards in places like Napa. It's just more economically readable to pay winemakers more.

Third, 50k in most of the country has MUCH more spending power than 75k and even maybe 125k in parts of California due to cost of living. a brewer making 50k in a place like Indianapolis, Houston, Charlotte, or other midwestern or southern cities is going to be very comfortable.

One thing I didn't see mentioned is that winemakers are not just completing a fermentation process and bottling, there is a lot of blending that goes into making each year's production. The ability to blend wine requires a good palate and skill (also true of sour beer producers who also blend). Most beers just require precision to reproduce a nearly identical product out of an organic process time and time again.

ReverseApacheMaster - My thoughts exactly, I said something similar on Page 1 but it seems to have been lost in a pissing contest of wine vs. beer. IMO winemasters make much more of a difference in the final product than brewmasters.