Maybe there needs to be a correction. People who bought land and wineries during the bubble are going to get burned, but how could they not realize this was a risky investment? Those who tarted up average Napa fruit to sell for $100 per bottle are in trouble, too. Again, bad investment.

I honestly do not see why Napa is entitled to continue as it has. Maybe Napa could learn to make good wine for under $40 like every other quality-conscious region. Get out of the bubble and learn to be competitive now that obscene profits from unsound financial instruments aren’t being funneled into the valley via status seekers and point chasers. This is a wake up call! Put your profits back into the wine instead of gaudy tasting rooms, flashy cars, expensive events and so on. I bet if you go out to Santa Cruz or the Sierra Foothills not every vintners drives a Mercedes and started out as a millionaire.

All I’m saying is Napa should go back to the basics. Maybe now that everyone has gotten accustomed to a life of luxury, that’s not possible. Well, hedonic adaptation is a b—-, I suppose.

While you may be tempted to believe that you’ve seen it all before and things will be bouncing back soon, you probably haven’t and they probably won’t. Lack of demand for expensive wines drives wineries to lower prices and quality, and increase production. This drives grape prices lower, which in turns drives farming intensity down, yields way up and quality way down (Remember Merlot in the mid-90s?). So now you’ve got a growing association between Napa and thin, green Cabs loaded up with oak chips and selling for $12. Watch land prices and tourism shrivel, and the Napa brand lose its sheen. Who wins then? Certainly not grape growers whose personal wealth always comes back to that retail bottle price.

Let ‘em have a few weddings and sell a bit more wine from the tasting room. And if somehow the economic sky doesn’t fall, then go back several years from now and then tighten down the screws.

It would be helpful to get some proof of that kind of claim.

Thank you for your comments – it has certainly generated some heated comments. As someone who was there at the beginning of the WDO and will be speaking tomorrow maybe I can give your readers an insider’s view of the issues. Trying to avoid the Magnum Opus, this is the shorthand version of a very complicated issue.

First, the WDO was originally championed by the various farm groups to protect the value of their grapes – pure protectionism, not altruism. The vintners (I was on the board at the beginning of this) were hesitant about the main limitation which was requiring at least 75% of Napa Valley grapes be used by new wineries. The problem was how to enforce new wineries to use 75% Napa grapes while not forcing those older and larger wineries into a business plan that was retroactive and totally illegal. How do you tell Sutter Home that they now have to use 75% Napa grapes for the White Zinfandel? My view was that I would prefer to have Sutter Home Winery (a better neighbor cannot be found) be located in Napa Valley than driven out of our county. The Supes created a two tier system, those wineries in existence before the County required a Use Permit for a winery would be exempt from the WDO (a simplified version of the WDO). All wineries that came into existence after early 1974 and required a Use Permit and would, with the WDO, be required to use at least 75% Napa Valley grapes. This is undoubtedly illegal (unequal treatment under the law), but we all thought (and think) it is a good compromise (and is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room).

The second main area of concern was tchotchkes, tee-shirts, etc. that could be sold at wineries. Wineries are a necessary incursion on ag land and most of us realized that a winery needs to sell its product, thus being open to the public in order to sell its product. Every effort to was made to allow a legitimate winery to produce and sell its product, but without allowing a faux winery to capitalize and exploit its location and have a Vera Wang corner or maybe the Waterford crystal and flatware section. Tchotchkes etc. had to be imprinted with the winery name or logo to qualify as bona fide “winery related” products allowable for sale at a winery. Prohibitions on weddings, corporate, social and cultural events were not part of the original idea and came into prohibition at a later date.

Why should BV, Robert Mondavi, Trefethen and others be able to be open to the public whenever they want and I am forced to tell a potential customer of mine that they have to make an appointment? Maybe I like the “appointment only” arrangement, but shouldn’t that be my choice? Why can I legally have a marketing event where women can be informally dressed or a marketing event where women can be formally attired, yet if I have a marketing event where a women is dressed in white I’ve broken the law? Shouldn’t I decide how I want to use the few marketing events that I’m allowed under my Use Permit? Why should the County dictate to me how to market my wines? No other county in America restricts their wineries to the extent that Napa County does. And the corollary to that is that a U.C. Davis study revealed that mountain grape growers are the most regulated farmers in America – thus the world.

I have been riling against the WDO yoke for years and reject the argument that the WDO should be changed because of this terrible economic environment. It should be changed because it is a poorly crafted ordinance and an embarrassment to the Napa Valley. No other County in America burdens its wineries this way. The WDO should be changed because it is the right thing to do; we need to allow wineries to market with 21st century ideas and not be hamstring by 20th century falsehoods. If the opponents truly believe that changing the WDO will destroy the Ag Preserve then let those wineries not in the Ag Preserve (maybe half of all Napa wineries) try the two year experiment.

My overarching desire/dream/goal is to keep the Napa Valley wine industry economically viable because it is the last and best firewall against the urbanization of our farmlands. Those of you who don’t live and operate here don’t understand the anti-competitive forces that exist here and I wish you wouldn’t be so quick to criticize that which you don’t really understand. No other wine growing county in America has hamstrung its industry as the Napa County Supervisors have – show me another county that has passed a WDO that is as restrictive as our WDO. No other county has passed a Conservation Ordinance that is as restrictive to mountain viticulture as Napa County has. Right or wrong, purity or perfection, compromises must be made and this change to the WDO is very minor and well within the margins of our General Plan.

If you want more detail see my letters to the Napa Register, September 27, 2009 – http://www.napavalleyregister.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_10784990-a06f-5dad-bd03-4d37f07da7d0.html – and to the St. Helena Star December 17,2009 – http://www.sthelenastar.com/articles/2009/12/17/opinion/commentary/doc4b298b763a5a6360724122.txt.

Stu Smith
Smith-Madrone