Wine Yield Calculator
Calculate how many bottles of wine you will get from a given weight of grapes.
Includes typical yield ratios for red and white wine production.
Wine yield is the volume of finished wine extracted from a given weight of grapes or must. Understanding yield helps you plan production quantities, purchase the right amount of fruit, and estimate bottle counts before harvest.
The Formula:
Wine yield (liters) = Grape weight (kg) × Yield factor
Typical Yield Factors:
| Wine Type | Liters per kg of grapes |
|---|---|
| White wine (pressed as whole fruit) | 0.65–0.72 |
| Rosé (short skin contact, then pressed) | 0.62–0.68 |
| Red wine (fermented on skins, then pressed) | 0.55–0.65 |
| Free-run juice only, no pressing | 0.45–0.55 |
Red yields less than white, which surprises people. White grapes go straight to the press as whole fruit and give up nearly everything they have. Red ferments on its skins first, and by pressing time the pomace is a sponge holding several litres of finished wine that no basket press will ever fully recover. The commercial rule of thumb runs 150 gallons per ton for red against 165 for white, and the gap is entirely the pomace.
Worked Example:
You buy 100 kg of Chardonnay and press it as white:
Wine yield = 100 kg × 0.70 = 70 litres, which is 93 bottles before losses
After the usual 8% lost to gross lees, racking, topping and the bottling line, you finish with about 64 litres, so 86 bottles. Run the same 100 kg as a red at 0.60 and you get 60 litres, 74 bottles after losses. Same fruit, a dozen bottles apart.
Factors That Affect Yield:
- Press type: A bladder press extracts more cleanly than a basket press
- Grape condition: Botrytis or shriveled grapes yield less juice
- Destemming: Whole-cluster fermentation retains stems, reducing effective juice volume
- Skin contact time: Longer maceration increases extraction but not volume significantly
- Pressing pressure: Higher pressure extracts more but lower-quality juice
Planning Reference (bottles in the crate, after 8% losses):
| Grape Weight | Red at 0.60 | White at 0.70 |
|---|---|---|
| 10 kg | 7 bottles | 9 bottles |
| 25 kg | 18 bottles | 21 bottles |
| 50 kg | 37 bottles | 43 bottles |
| 100 kg | 74 bottles | 86 bottles |
| 1,000 kg (1 tonne) | 736 bottles | 859 bottles |
A useful anchor: a 23-litre carboy, the standard home batch, needs roughly 42 kg of red grapes or 36 kg of white. Work backwards from your vessel, not forwards from the fruit, or you end up with three litres too many and nowhere sealed to put them.
Practical Tips:
- Budget 5 to 10% of losses to lees, topping and racking. This calculator uses 8%.
- Keep a yield log across vintages. Your press and your fruit will settle into a number of their own, and after three years it beats any table.
- Under-filling is the real enemy. A carboy with headspace oxidises, so plan the fruit to slightly overfill the vessel and keep the surplus in a topped-up bottle for later.
How we build and check this calculator
This calculator runs entirely in your browser, so the numbers you enter stay on your device. The math behind it is written by hand and tested against worked examples and standard references before the page goes live.
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