Soda Canyon Road | Remote Wineries

At the Jan 4th 2017 Planning commission hearing for the Mountain Peak Winery, residents presented a critique of the "comparable" wineries proposed by the County and by the Applicant. The Soda Canyon Community has consistently maintained that, given the access constraints, the intensity of winery activities is not appropriately scaled in the the Mountain Peak proposal. In response to the approach of looking at a very small subset of wineries as comparables, we have tried here to take a look at winery development in the watersheds as a whole and see how Mountain Peak might compare.

This is a map and list of "remote" wineries in Napa County, "remote" being those within the hilly areas of the watersheds and more than 1 mile from a major highway. (For comparison, the average distance between Hwy 29 and the Trail is 2 miles). It excludes wineries on the Hwy 12 corridor, outside watershed areas. The map and list of remote wineries have been made using data from the NVV's excellent map here and the County's winery database here. There are, of course many more wineries not shown on the NVV map that become visible when you zoom in close on Google maps. It is probable that the average and median values would fall rather than rise or stay the same as more un-shown wineries are added.

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Remote Wineries List

Wineries in watersehds more than 1 mile from a state highway or the Trail. The list can be sorted by clicking on the column title

	All Remote Wineries (Sort by Name) View only SCR wineries	Pre/ Post WDO	Capacity gal/yr	Visitors/ yr	Emp- loyees	^Trips/ day	dist. from Hwy	dist. on dead-end
1	Hess Collection Winery	1986	1,000,000	34,940	35	225	5.9	1.3
2	William Hill Winery	1987	750,000	13,000	8	71	1.5
3	Antica Napa Valley	1987	450,000	5,200	20	95	6.6	6.6
4	Chappellet++	1969	250,000	38,810	30	201	4.1
5	Schramsberg Vineyards Winery**	1973	180,000	36,674	39	229
6	Chappellet Winery**	1967	150,000	15,145	24	126
7	Ladera WInery	1985	150,000	4,260	13	61	5.0
8	Somerston Winery**	2008	150,000	3,408	12	56
9	Oakville Grade Win (Harlan II)	1981	144,000	36,400	21	159	1.2
10	Newton Vineyards	1979	130,000	2,600	8	38	2.1	1.2
11	Mountain Peak	2017	100,000	14,575	21	113	6.1	6.1
12	Kenzo Winery	2005	85,000	5,450	10	51	1.3
13	Kuleto Estate	1998	75,000	450	3	14	1.7	1.7
14	Burgess Cellars	1972	60,000	0	5	20	2.5
15	Arkenstone Vineyards	2003	60,000	11,628	10	64	5.3	0.3
16	Cain Winery	1981	59,000	0	6	24	6.2	2.6
17	Manville Lake Winery	1998	59,000	11,220	10	63	6.3
18	Buehler Vineyards	1978	50,000	0	3	12	5.3	5.3
19	Lokoya Vineyards	1965	50,000	4,360	10	48	4.5
20	Mayacamus Winery	1944	50,000	0	11	43	10.8	1.2
21	Woolls Ranch	2013	50,000	22,840	10	87	4.0
22	Outpost Winery	1987	50,000	9,685	10	59	8.9	1.2
23	Palmaz Vineyards	2001	35,000	18,330	3	51	2.7	0.5
24	Neal Family Winery	2000	35,000	2,120	2	13	6.0	0.3
25	Vaider Vineyards	1992	32,000	324	4	17	2.9
26	Fantesca Estate	2000	30,000	6,405	8	45	1.5
27	David Arthur Vineyards	1984	30,000	3,197	4	23	2.5	2.5
28	Anthem Winery	1996	30,000	260	0	1	3.5
29	Wallis Family Estate	2010	30,000	5,841	4	28	0.9
30	The Caves at Soda Canyon	2006	30,000	4,960	4	26	4.0	4.0
31	Fontanella Winery	2006	30,000	740	4	17	4.3	2.2
32	Diogenes Ridge Winery	2014	30,000	5,700	10	51	5.8
33	Rogers Winery	2011	30,000	6,450	2	22	2.7	1.5
34	Eagle Eye Winery	2011	30,000	7,276	9	50	7.3
35	Cade Winery	2006	30,000	4,650	6	33	4.6
36	Castlevale Winery	2018	30,000	7,387	4	31	4.2
37	Continuum Winery	2002	28,000	1,178	16	64	2.5	2.5
38	Von Strasser Winery	1979	25,000	1,480	4	19	0.9
39	Caldwell Winery	2004	25,000	2,350	2	13	3.5	1.0
40	V-12 Winery	2009	22,500	2,127	3	16	3.2	3.2
41	Seavey Vineyards	1988	20,000	362	2	9	3.9	3.9
42	White Rock Vineyards	1987	20,000	0	2	8	1.7	1.7
43	Relic Winery	2010	20,000	4,458	4	25	4.2	4.2
44	Volker Eisele Family Estate	1990	20,000	0	0	0	2.8
45	Pope Valley Vineyards	1972	20,000	1,040	4	18	13.8
46	The Vineyardist	2006	20,000	1,340	2	11	1.6	0.4
47	Schweiger Vineyards	1994	20,000	2,621	1	10	5.7	0.4
48	Gardona Winery	2009	20,000	1,061	2	10	0.9	0.9
49	Astrale e Terra	1988	20,000	0	3	12	6.6	6.6
50	La Vallette Winery	1988	20,000	0	2	8	5.5	5.5
51	Merus Wines	2002	20,000	6,630	4	30	2.1
52	Adamvs	2003	20,000	8,321	3	29	6.5
53	Spring Mountain Vineyards	1968	20,000	0	1	4	1.2
54	White Cottage Ranch	2013	20,000	13,257	10	66	6.8
55	Dunn Vineyards	1982	20,000	260	5	20	7.7	0.1
56	3646 SMR Vineyards	2016	20,000	4,950	10	49	4.7	0.5
57	Lodestone Winery	2011	20,000	13,130	10	66	2.5	2.5
58	Black Sears Winery	2017	20,000	6,200	3	25	9.2	2.5
59	Vin Roc Winery	2004	18,000	416	2	9	8.0	8.0
60	Calla Lily Estate	2008	16,000	4,330	3	21	13.2
61	MJA Winery	1988	15,000	4,320	3	21	4.9	3.8
62	Eeden Vineyards	2006	15,000	546	2	9	3.3	3.3
63	Wing Canyon Vineyard	1991	12,500	0	0	0	8.1
64	Amizetta Winery	1984	12,000	0	3	12	6.3	6.3
65	Porter Vineyards	2002	12,000	120	1	4	4.1	4.1
66	Roy Estates	2002	12,000	2,710	2	14	0.9	0.9
67	Kongsgaard WInery	2005	12,000	0	6	23	9.3	9.3
68	Diamond Mountain Winery	1994	10,000	1,520	2	11	3.4
69	Behrens Family Winery	1998	10,000	0	0	0	6.2	0.8
70	Keever Vineyard	2003	10,000	2,084	2	12	0.9	0.9
71	Vineyard 22	2010	10,000	18,200	2	46	3.1
72	Brand Napa Valley	2009	10,000	7,486	6	39	1.8	1.8
73	Reverie Winery	1995	9,200	5,640	5	31	0.9
74	Stony Hill Vineyard	1964	8,700	208	6	23	1.7	1.7
75	Alta Vineyard Cellar	1979	5,000	208	4	16	8.9	8.9
76	Lagier Meredith Vineyard	2004	5,000	1,040	1	6	7.0	0.7
77	Jericho Canyon Winery	2002	2,000	900	2	10	1.1
78	Ripe Winery	2005	1,500	1,856	2	12	9.0	9.0
			Capacity gal/yr	Visitors/ yr	Emp- loyees	Trips/ day	dist. from Hwy	dist. on dead-end
	Average w/o Mountain Peak Average w/o MP, Antica, Hess		66,239 47,408	5,871	7	39	4.4	º 2.9
	Median w/o Mountain Peak		22,500	2,621	4	21	4.0	º 2.5
	Mountain Peak Winery		100,000	14,575	19	105	6.1	6.1

^ Trips/day calculated from County weekday trip generation formulas
º null values excluded

Analysis: Mountain Peak, when compared against these 77 watershed wineries falls in the upper 10% for capacity and visitation. It has:

2 x the average capacity (3 x if the 2 huge pre-WDO wineries are excluded)
5 x the median capacity
Only 6 wineries have larger capacity, all pre-WDO
2.5 x the average yearly visitation
over 7x the median yearly visitation
Only 7 wineries have larger visitation, 4 pre-WDO with public tasting.
2 miles further from a major highway than average, and 3 miles further up a dead end road than average.
3 x the average trips per day generated
9 x the median trips per day

Notes of Interest:

The Hess Winery jumps out as representing the development extent possible, in capacity, visitation and non-agricultural activity in the watersheds. The Antica Winery, built at the same time and the second largest winery in the watersheds, was faced with vigorous neighbor opposition (the descendants of whom are opposing Mountain Peak) and allowed no tours and tastings under its 1987 use permit (in 1995 the t&t was raised to 5200/yr but the winery has blessedly remained uninterested in tourism). Both wineries built shortly before the the discussions leading to the 1990 WDO, they might be seen as examples of the unregulated winery expansion trend that the WDO was meant to address. The 3 post WDO visitation standouts

Woolls Ranch (approved in 2013 and as yet unbuilt) is the visitation leader in post-WDO remote wineries. It was vehemently opposed by the residents of Mt. Veeder Road, and as such is very comparable to Mountain Peak, representing the current discretion of the County in promoting the interests of one good-life entrepreneur over a community of impacted residents in the shift from wineries as production facilities to remote and scenic entertainment venues.

The Palmaz winery is the second highest in post-WDO visitation. Another good life plutocrat (who just can't seem to stop causing grief for his neighbors, the County and the Napa citizenry) also vigorously opposed by the neighborhood when it was proposed.

And Vineyard 22? A 10000 g/y winery with 350 vis/wk visitation? What's with that?