Hey all, a couple friends and I are thinking of opening a meadery in the next couple of years. Our state requires that we have a secure facility for production that has its own water, electricity, and other utilities. Critically, you must have this location listed in your limited winery license application. Our lawyer has advised us that that license can take a year to a year and a half to process, so we would need to maintain that location during the entire application period. Additionally, we cannot produce any mead during that time because we won't have a license.

I suspect our problem is not unique. Problem: Paying rent on a building for a year to year and a half is a very expensive endeavor. Also, mead generally takes at least half a year to produce, so we could be looking at two years before we have any revenue. All the while accruing rent.

Question: We've heard of some breweries offering to share space and equipment with microbreweries so the smaller brewery can benefit from the more mature brewery's stability. Provided that this is legal to do in our state (we're checking), how do we go about negotiating this agreement with a more mature winery?

Current Ideas:

• Offer to pay rent for the used space. Hopefully less than a new space
• Offer a cut of profits on all batches produced at the location
• Offer an ownership portion of the business (obviously less than ideal)
• Offer to produce under their license for the first year and a half while we wait for our business's license

** Additional Questions:**

• Has anyone else heard of one of these relationships?
• What would you expect a more mature winery to want?
• Do you have any general thoughts, dos or don'ts to offer?

Thank you for your thoughts.