Bill Hocker | Jun 4, 2015

The agenda letter for APAC meeting #5 is here
The agenda with documents is here
The agenda letter represents again an incredible amount of work on the part of the staff based on somewhat nebulous suggestions made at the last APAC meeting.

The revised meeting schedule

The revised meeting schedule is here
I don't know if I am mis-remembering but somehow the visitation topic that I thought was in previous schedules seems to be missing here. Drastically limiting or eliminating visitation is, of course, the only significant way curb the desire to convert vines to buildings and hence to protect agriculture, the nominal reason this committee exists.

The capacity question

Staff and members of the committee have spent mountains of time trying to analyize the amount of pre and post-WDO capacity to see if there currently exists enough capacity to process the whole of the Napa grape crop. It is a question the county has struggled with for years complicated by the unknown quantity of Napa grapes used by pre-WDO wineries and the difference between permitted capacity and actual production. The concept is: If enough capacity mandated under the 75% rule exists then no more wineries are needed to process Napa grapes, a moratorium on wineries can be enacted. And the APAC can pack up and go home.

Director Morrison's parsing of 25 years of numbers indicates that only 18 mil gals of the 28 mil gal grape crop are required to be processed in Napa county. The conclusion is that 13 (10 x 1.3) mil gals of new capacity must be created to require the entire crop to be processed in county.

The numbers do not acknowledge that exempt wineries are users of Napa grapes. Exempt wineries want it both ways. They will never give up using Napa grapes to put in their Napa labeled high-end wines but they want the right to expand their businesses by shifting that capacity to new 75% facilities, and bringing cheaper imported grapes to fill their old tanks in the AP/AW zones. We need to know what portion of the Napa grape crop is processed by exempt wineries and that capacity should be accounted for under the 75% rule. Building new wineries to process grapes the owners will not be able to obtain, or will have to poach from other wineries, makes no sense (other than to the hospitality industry).

Accrording to staff numbers, the permitted capacity of all wineries in the AP/AW zones + cities is 78 mil gallons. The current Napa grape crop (+33% imported grapes) is 37 mil gallons. The capacity of those wineries is at least 2 times the amount needed to process the entire current Napa crop and at least 1.7 times that required to process the projected 2030 crop. There is no need for more capacity. Rather than building new wineries, the excess capacity in existing wineries should be utilized. Winery expansions done solely to be able to import cheaper grapes into the AP zone should end. Wineries with excess capacity can offer custom crush arrangements. Good for them, cheaper than new buildings for the startups, good for the protection of agricultural lands. A permanent moratorium on new wineries in the AP/AW zones should be declared.

Proposal C

In the absence of a complete moratorium on wineries in the AP/AW zones Proposal C should be implemented.

It eliminates tourism from the vineyards which is by far the largest impetus for the proposal of unnecessary wineries, and by far the most corrosive impact on communities and the character and resources of the county. It makes the decision between one's own winery or a more efficient custom crush facility a realistic choice. It encourages people committed to the craft of winemaking rather than the business of wine entertainment.

A 75% estate grape requirement would give some flexibility to winemaking decisions.

One failing in this proposal is the 40% development area. The current standard is 25% for the winery development area. Tourist parking now becomes a non issue. Does a house and a 15000 gal winery really need more than 2.5 acres? Keep the size at 2.5 acres for a 10 acre parcel plus 1 acre for every 10 acres above that.

The other failing is that it applies only to parcels between 10 and 40 acres. It should apply to all parcels above 10 acres. Short of a complete moratorium, this needs to be the standard for the development of any winery or winery expansion in the AW/AP zones going forward.

Visitation must remain at 20 per week regardless the size of the winery. New buildings on ag lands must be entirely about processing grapes, not processing tourists. The creation of new tourist venues done solely for the expansion of the tourism industry needs to end.

Proposal F

In the absence of a moratorium or of the conditions proposed in Proposal C, we must choose from the laundry list of Proposal F

1. Yes, an immediate one year moratorium so that these discussions are not taking place against the contentious hearings and appeals on specific winery proposals, and so that staff isn't being driven crazy with the demands of 3 different masters and the necessity prepping for continuous continuances. Staff needs to be able to focus right now on planning for the next 35 years with as few distractions as possible.

2-12. Yes to everything with one modification. Substitute "tours and tastings" for the words "visitation" and "marketing". As I have gone into elsewhere on this site, food service is the hard core of the conversion of a winery into an event center and the transfer of an agricultural to a tourism economy. It is food service that makes a winery a profitable endeavor independent of the wine sold, essentially creating wine-themed restaurants, banqueting halls and party venues. The 2010 changes to the WDO were only about the expansion of food service in wineries. If nothing else changes in the WDO, the simple prohibition of food service at all wineries will do more than anything else to protect agriculture against the corrosive influx of tourism development.

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