The only way to talk about pricing vineyard land and not go crazy is to make some broad assumptions about the price per acre for established vineyard and plantable raw land. However, it is a very rare parcel that has only vineyard. Most parcels have houses or house sites or other improvements that complicate the process of coming up with a price.
Prices for vineyard land vary greatly depending on the location and quality of the site. Specific appellations like Napa Valley or Russian River demand premiums, areas without reputations don’t.
In Sonoma County unplanted vineyard land goes for $50,000 up to $100,000 per acre for exceptional sites, depending the quality of the area. Established vineyard goes for $80,000 to $100,000 per acre. For parcels that are entirely plantable land or established vineyard we are all done. But for the rest of the world, things get more complicated. We have some rough numbers we use to put a price on unplantable land and various other improvements:
About $7,500 per acre for unplantable land
About $250,000-$500,000 for basic house site
About $500,000-$1M for a fabulous house site
About $200 per sq ft for existing houses
About $100 per sq ft for existing outbuildings
Plus any other improvements like wells and roads.
If is important to note that although these machinations will give you useful reference points, we’ve never seen a parcel’s price match our computed value. Ever
