Mountain Peak: Winery Comparisons
on the web at: https://sodacanyonroad.org/forum.php?p=1381
Glenn Schreuder | Jan 5, 2017

[Presentation given to the Planning Commission on Jan 4th, 2017 at hearing for Mountain Peak Use Permit P13-00320

Honorable Commissioners,

My name is Glenn Schreuder and my family has lived in upper Soda Canyon continuously since 1956. I would like to present some comparisons to the Proposed Mountain Peak Project that have been made which give some context to the appropriateness of the size and visitation requested for the project.

Comparison 1: from applicant
I wish to respectfully draw your attention to the “Comparative Analysis of Daily Visitation” contained on page 14 of the 18 page applicant’s Project Statement, as revised on March 15th, 2016. Five Wineries are listed in “Comparative Analysis of Daily Visitation”: Chappellet, Ladera,Oakville Grade, Schramsberg and Somerston.

Purportedly selected for their location on “Hillside Roads”, well sort of hillside roads, but I’ll get to that shortly. The analysis also represents that the daily visitation for MPW is 58% of the norm when compared to these five wineries of similar Gallons per Year.

Winery
Mountain Peak		Production
100000 g/y		Visitation
14575/yr		Pre WDO
No		Road Configuration
6.1 miles, Dead End Road



As shown in the above chart, the analysis clearly cherry picks 100K Gallons per Year (GPY) “hillside” wineries with material visitation entitlements that are not located on dead-end, one way in and one way out rural, residential roads:
  1. Chappellet: Located on CA Hwy 128 (aka Sage Canyon Road, NOT on a dead end road and NOT in the heart of a rural neighborhood, it’s actually a driveway on a state highway toward Winters, CA.
  2. Ladera: Located on two-way in/out White Cottage Road a short distance from Angwin (a census-designated place with a population of ~3,000)
  3. Oakville Grade: Located on the two-way in/out Oakville Grade, not a dead-end.
  4. Schramsberg: Located up private Schramsberg Road off of CA Hwy 29 (not a neighborhood, a private road to the winery).
  5. Somerston: Located again on CA Hwy 128 (Sage Canyon Road) NOT a dead-end road and NOT in the heart of a rural neighborhood).
As a result this analysis is, in essence, comparing five apples to one orange which is misleading.

Comparison 2 from County:

Further, in regard to the County-created Exhibit F “Updated Winery Comparison, 100,000 GPY”, of the 18 wineries listed in the comparison, 14 are indicated to be on the “valley floor” and only 4 are indicated to be “hillside” wineries.

Winery
Mountain Peak		Production
100000 g/y		Visitation
14575/yr		Pre WDO
No		Road Configuration
6.1 miles, Dead End Road



According to Google Maps:
  1. Kent Rasmussen Winery has its tasting room in the Napa Valley Corporate Park.
  2. Pahlmeyer Winery has its tasting room at 811 St Helena Hwy #202, St Helena,CA
  3. Trinchero Napa Valley also its tasting room at 100 Main St, St Helena, CA, and
  4. Moss Creek Winery is located at Moskowite Corners, at the corner of Hwy 128 and Steele Canyon Rd

None of these four wineries appear to really be ‘hillside’ wineries at all, like the MPW project is. While some of their vineyards may potentially be somewhere in the hills, three have tasting rooms on the valley floor and Moss Creek, while remote to the valley floor, is right off CA Hwy 128 on the way to Winters and Davis, CA.

While all 18 wineries appear have use permits for 100,000 GPY, and varying levels of annual visitations, none of these 18 wineries are substantially similar to the MPV project in terms of (a) being in a very remote dead-end box canyon location and (b) having very limited access in terms of a safe, properly maintained roadway to serve it. I’m really unclear what conclusion can be drawn from this exhibit other than if MPV were on this list it would be a non-homogenous member by way of its inherently out-sized proportions in comparison to roadway access.

Comparison 3: Atlas Peak

A more appropriate comparison would be to compare wineries up the one other long, dead-end road in the county, Atlas Peak Road:

Winery
Mountain Peak		Production
100000 g/y		Visitation
14575/yr		Pre WDO
No		Road Configuration
6.1 miles, Dead End Road


  1. Kongsgaard 9.4 miles up Atlas Peak road, 12,000 GPY, no visitation allowed.
  2. Alta 9.0 miles up Atlas Peak road, 5,000 GPY, 208 visitors allowed per year.
  3. Ripe Peak 8.8 miles up Atlas Peak road, 1,500 GPY, 1,456 visitors allowed per year.
  4. Vin Roc 8.1 miles up Atlas Peak road, 18,000 GPY, 416 visitors allowed per year.
  5. William Hill 1.4 miles up Atlas Peak road, 720,000 GPY, 13,000 visitors allowed per year.
(Note that William Hill Winery is almost on the valley floor, adjacent to the Silverado Countyr Club, and even then only has only 13K/year visitors allowed. It is almost certainly not by accident that a winery of this scope and scale is not 6+ miles up a dead-end road like Atlas Peak or Soda Canyon).

Comparison 4: Soda Canyon Rd

And another more “apples to apples” comparison would be to compare MPW to other wineries on the dead-end Soda Canyon Road itself:

Winery
Mountain Peak		Production
100000 g/y		Visitation
14575/yr		Pre WDO
No		Road Configuration
6.1 miles, Dead End Road



With the exception of Antica Napa Valley, which owns approximately 1,200 acres of contiguous land at the very end of Soda Canyon Road and therefore can only be compared in terms of its parcel size to production and visitation ratios, all of the wineries on Soda Canyon Road have production levels of between 12,000 and 30,000 gallons. And all, including Antica, have visitation levels from none to about a third of the Applicant's request.


In summation

It is clear from this comparison that the wineries selected for comparative analysis in the applicants project statement are only comparable to the extent that they have the same GPY and varying degrees if visitation, otherwise their locations are far away in terms of distance from Upper Soda Canyon and are not remotely comparable in terms of the traffic impacts that Soda Canyon road (as a dead-end road) and its residents would suffer.
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