WA State Winery Data

Have you ever wondered how much wine is produced by WA wineries? Or how each winery would breakout into categories of gallon production? Well, the FWWS board received WA state winery production data in April 2008 as part of its efforts in the Winery Tax Reporting Relief Act effort. Since we had the data handy, we decided to analyze the numbers and produce some graphs for your viewing pleasure. Keep in mind the data is 1 year old. There are more wineries now and the production numbers would be larger. But the general trends would probably be reinforced. Also keep in the mind the graphs we are going to show you are representative of annual gallons production. Here we go...

Distribution of Wineries by Gallons Sold
What we did was break down production into 6 different categories. Each category is basically a range of annual gallons produced. We then figured out how many wineries fall into each category.



Distribution of Wineries by "Craft" Designation
We have been using the term "craft winery" to identify wineries that produce less than 25,000 gallons per year. This is also a requirement to be eligible as a full regular member of the FWWS. Here's how wineries in WA state break down by whether or not they are a "craft" winery.



Actual Gallons Sold by "Craft" Winery Threshold
OK, so now we know how many wineries in WA state would be considered a "craft" winery. The following data and graph show you how many actual gallons of wine are produced annually by craft wineries versus non-craft wineries.


Summary
So there you have it: 94% of the wineries in WA state would be considered a "craft" winery. Our organization is striving to represent that 94% so that we can all succeed at the business we love. It's interesting to note 2 things. First, the other 6% of the wineries (non-craft wineries) produce about 94% of the actual gallons per year. Secondly, 1 winery tops the scale at producing almost 12 million gals. annually. The next biggest winery only produces approximately 2 millions gals. annually.
The board will try obtain updated data this year and perform the same kind of analysis. Thanks!