Bill Hocker | Jul 17, 2015

While pursuing the July 14th video BOS meeting on the Melka appeal I came across the public comment made by Harvest Duhig at the beginning of the meeting. At the May 20th joint BOS-Planning Commission meeting I first heard Harvest Duhig speak on the desirability of allowing the small family "dream" winery in a push not to increase the 10 acre minimum parcel size for a winery. My take is here. From my standpoint her argument was compelling as long as the wineries were built to process wine and not to process tourists. As we know there are many small wineries in the county that somehow survive on very modest visitation to the winery. Some (like Screaming Eagle) allow no visitation at all. These wineries are preserving Napa agriculture and enhancing Napa's status as a world class wine region without creating the damage to the community that surrounds them or to the nature of the county that ever-increasing tourism is bringing.

Harvest Duhig is an alternate APAC member representing the Napa business community. At each subsequent APAC Planning Commission and at Planning Commission meetings she and others have spoken to represent the winery dreamers. But the concept of the small winery as a platform for increased tourism is now more apparent in their presentations and increasingly the purity of their intentions is suspect. Ms. Duhig speaks at the July 14th BOS meeting here, beginning at 00:38:38 into the video.

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