Winery vs a Label

A winery, by definition, is an establishment that makes wine. Seems pretty straightforward. Much of the wine you see in grocery stores is what I'd call a wine label. I don't mean the physical paper label on the bottle, but it's a winery name that isn't really a single physical winery. You could call it a wine brand without its own winery and made in a wine "factory."

Gallo's "tank farm" in Dry Creek Valley

 

When most people think of a winery, they are picturing a smallish operation where a single wine brand is made. The grapes come in, are crushed, fermented and further processed then bottled and sold. Most American wine, by volume, does not come from this sort of operation, but comes from a wine factory. 

Many former "real" wineries get gobbled up by large wine companies and turn into wine labels. That is, their wine is now made by a huge operation in a different location that makes wine for many of the company's other wine labels.

How do these wine factories work? Different wine labels will share equipment, winemakers, and maybe even wine. Sometimes specific grapes come in for a specific wine label and are made into wine for that brand. Other times several cabernets, for instance, are made then later it's determined which goes with the more expensive brand, which goes to the cheapest.

Clos du Bois Winery in Sonoma County is a good example. The winery was started decades ago by Frank Woods and was pretty small. He grew it and the winery was sold to a large liquor company. It changed hands to Constellation Brands in '07. Up through this time Clos du Bois remained a "real" winery, though much bigger. Recently, Gallo bought them and many other wine brands from Constellation. They've already closed off production at Clos du Bois and will probably use the building for storage. I don't know Gallo's plans for the brand, but it's likely to wind up at one of their wine factories, maybe the one in Sonoma County, maybe elsewhere. I will predict the wine won't be the same.

So does all this actually matter to you when buying a bottle of wine? How can you even tell if you're buying from a small, actual winery or from something made on an industrial scale? Without doing research on the winery you really can't.