SIUC Country Column

Booklet details costs of grape and wine business

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- With precise figures on everything from expenses for the labor of leaf removal to the cost of a corkscrew, a new booklet put together by researchers from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale predicts for the prospective vintner or vineyard owner just what it takes to get into the business.

"I think that's the real contribution -- the exceptionally detailed enterprise budgets," said Roger J. Beck, an SIUC agribusiness economist who with SIUC forestry expert Andrew D. Carver heads the rural development project, funded by Illinois' Council on Food and Agricultural Research, that published "The Re-Emergence of Grapegrowing and Winemaking in Illinois."

"These budgets will be particularly helpful for someone who doesn't have a lot of experience to see what has to be done and what the expected returns are. And they're very realistic. We didn't just pull numbers off the Internet from other states. This is local information."

Beck's colleague C. Matthew Rendleman, who edited the 23-page booklet, said, "Both these budgets have the advantage of having been vetted by the person who is the state expert in the field -- the viticulturist looked at the grape enterprise budget and the oenologist looked at the winery budget. They also made suggestions, which we incorporated."

In addition to the budgets, this overview also features sections on wine and grape production trends, an outline of the contributions of these sectors to the state's economy, a brief essay on wine tourism and a look at how the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail enhances regional tourism. That diverse scope is what brought about the publication to begin with.

"A lot of us had been working on different aspects of the grape and wine industry, and we thought, 'Why not pull this all together?'" Rendleman said.

"People who normally read about one aspect -- such as budgets -- may not know about the work being done in another, such as tourism. We thought this would be helpful."

Both Beck and Rendleman agree that the state's grape production has grown "phenomenally."

"If you look at the total tons of production, it went from 70 in 1997 to 570 in 2001 -- more than eight times greater in just five years," Beck said.

He also noted that despite the production increase, Illinois winery owners still make about two-thirds of their annual grape purchases from out-of-state growers.

"That says to me that the market isn't close to being saturated," Beck said.

While the economists who produced the brochure were leery of predicting future growth based on only three years of data, they did expect that if grape acreage continues to increase as it has in the past, Illinois vintners could buy all the grapes they need from in-state growers by 2005. And even if those growers stopped planting new acres, existing vines, which become more productive as they age, eventually could yield enough grapes to meet 90 percent of current demand, the economists believe.

Copies of the booklet will be distributed by W. David Shoup, dean of SIUC's College of Agricultural Sciences, who oversees the Illinois Grape and Wine Resources Council; Karen S. Binder, the council's newly appointed executive director/marketing specialist; and officials from SIUC's Office of Economic and Regional Development, which houses the Illinois Farming Alternatives and Rural Revitalization Methods, or I-FARRM, of which Beck's Rural Development Opportunities project is a part. Both the council and the development office assisted the publication with editorial and financial support.

Readers who would like a copy of the booklet can contact the Illinois Grape and Wine Resources Council at 1-866-877-9463. It's also available electronically at the council's Web site, http://www.IllinoisWine.com under the "resources" button.

This work exemplifies SIUC's aspiration of driving economic development in the region through research and scholarship as outlined in the Southern at 150 initiative, a long-range plan that focuses on the University's growth.