In one scene of the 2004 movie Sideways, actor Paul Giamatti’s character Miles Raymond, a writer, takes a trip to the picturesque Santa Barbara County for wine tasting with friends. While at one winery, Raymond receives a call that a publisher dropped his book deal.
Upset at the news, Raymond angrily proceeds to the tasting room where he begins knocking back samples of red wine. He then asks for a full glass.
“Sir, this is a winery, not a bar,” the server tells Raymond.
The frustrated Raymond insists on a pour and slaps money on the counter.
Then Raymond grabs the bottle and pours himself a glass, and after unsuccessfully trying to wrestle the glass from the server, and spilling wine everywhere, the distraught would-be book author sloppily begins guzzling straight from the spit bucket.
This scene from the movie is what’s conjured in the mind of Bob Field, a 71-year-old former Silicon Valley tech industry worker who retired to the Santa Ynez Valley. Field said he believes that tasting rooms have essentially become bars that have the potential to host unruly guests and events.
Field is one of a group of residents speaking out against updates to a county ordinance that he thinks could cause a proliferation of winery tasting rooms in the valley, and most particularly the possibility that they’ll be used for events beyond the scope for which the tasting room was originally intended.
“It’s not just about tasting anymore,” he told the Sun.
Of course, that’s not how winemakers in the county see it. They see wine tasting rooms as a way to teach visitors about wine.
“We believe that where you grow your grapes and make your wine, if they are together, you should be able to have people who want to learn about the wine and make the wine come together,” said Morgen McLaughlin, executive director of the Santa Barbara County Vintners Association (SBCVA), which represents hundreds of winemakers in the county.
“Tasting rooms are not bars,” McLaughlin said. “They are places to educate people and that’s why tasting rooms need to be where grapes are grown.
“Unfortunately, the county has pushed tasting rooms to these urban areas,” she added. “Los Olivos is a direct result of land-use restrictions.”
In order to expand the industry and reach more people who want to learn about wine, vintners are also pushing for more inclusivity in the industry. Not only do they want to grant greater access to new entrepreneurs (including those whose pockets aren’t as deep as the big guys), but they also want to be able to sell wine from grapes grown on the property directly to the consumers via their tasting rooms.
On Sept. 19, the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission will discuss and consider changes to its ordinance that regulates winery operations, an ordinance that hasn’t been updated in more than a decade.
Aside from residents objecting to more tasting rooms, vintners fear that the Planning Commission will recommend an ordinance that will not only squeeze out the little guy, but will be a one-size-fits-all plan.
The country life
At 58 years old, Santa Ynez Valley resident Mary Beth Kerr lives a quiet life with her 80-something-year-old father at her house along North Refugio Road. She’s lived in the area for more than 30 years, and she works at the nearby Chumash Casino.
She’s flanked by three wineries: Roblar, Brand, and Vincent—with Roblar being the closest to her property—each possessing tasting rooms. She’s unhappy with the occasional event held at those tasting rooms because she believes that the concept of hosting wine events strays from the original purpose of having a tasting room, which is to hang out and drink a little wine, or have a picnic.
Unlike Santa Barbara County vintners, Kerr believes the Planning Commission may pave the way for a proliferation of wine tasting rooms and an increase of onsite events.
The idea that the county may allow more tasting rooms—and events—comes from an Aug. 3 Planning Commission meeting, in which the commissioners directed the planners to research the feasibility of having smaller plots of agriculturally zoned land, namely 10 acres or less, to accommodate tasting rooms. More tasting rooms would be disastrous to the quiet life Kerr is trying to preserve, she believes.
“They have yoga, art classes, concerts—they’re adding groups of people on vineyard property all times per day,” she said, noting that a precedent could be set for other potential industries, such as marijuana. “Where do you draw the line?”
Sixty-year-old Alan Davenport, another Santa Ynez Valley resident who’s originally from the Washington, D.C., area, moved to the valley in 1999 after living up and down the West Coast. He came here for the country life.
“What we’re concerned about is that the rural character of the valley is going to be threatened if these wineries proliferate unchecked,” Davenport said. “We’re just trying to stop any more traffic on the road. Traffic is growing [even] without having any wineries.”
Most particularly, it’s the traffic on Ballard Canyon Road—a typical country road by rural standards, but its narrow lanes and blind turns could pose a danger to drivers not familiar with it.
During the last few years, several motorists have been killed while commuting along the road.
In response to all of the accidents in the area, Kerr started the SYV Lives Matter! Project 1 = 4 Way Stop 154/ROBLAR Facebook group to advocate safety and bring awareness to the traffic accidents.
Complete with narrow shoulders, tight corners, and steep cliffs, Ballard Canyon Road is not a road designed for heavy traffic, Santa Ynez resident Field said. As charming as it is, he said, the road is just not safe.
“The issue is wine tasting events, and that’s only an issue in places that we feel are inappropriate,” he said. “They’re just running event calendars.”
He argued that such events are illegal under the Williamson Act, a California law passed in 1965 to encourage the preservation of agricultural land and that Field argues also restricts visitation on agricultural land for purposes that benefit and are inherently related to the use of the property.
McLaughlin counters that agricultural land is, by definition, commercial and therefore doesn’t violate the act.
As an example of misuse of ag land, Field cited Addamo Estate Vineyards, which hosted a cage-fighting event in 2010. Field said if you add drinking to the mix, the situation only becomes worse.
“We just think public drinking and visitation should be done somewhere else,” he said.
But if that were the case, according to vintner Michael Larner, who owns a family-run vineyard on Ballard Canyon, there would be no tasting rooms whatsoever.
More inclusivity
For the last six years, Larner has been trying to get a tasting room on his 130-acre vineyard. Currently, his production facility is located in Buellton and he has a retail space in Los Olivos. Objections from his neighbors have kept him from having both facilities on his vineyard.
He hopes changes to the ordinance will help him in his battle to consolidate his facilities on his property. It’s called estate growing, meaning the vintner not only grows his own grapes, but also processes them into wine and markets it from the same property.
As it stands, according to SBCVA’s McLaughlin, at least 50 percent of the grapes grown in Santa Barbara County are shipped out of the county to be processed elsewhere. Keeping those grapes produced in the county by allowing tasting rooms and production facilities on a wider variety of land could aid in the county’s marketing efforts.
“We are marketing authenticity, tasting on site, which means you need a tasting room and visitation, no matter what size,” Larner said.
There are benefits to the small-lot wine producer as well. Currently, because smaller vineyards can’t have a tasting room in which to sell their wine, vintners are forced to distribute wine.
A smaller plot of land doesn’t produce as many grapes, and distribution is cost prohibitive to the grower unless the grower is able to sell enough bottles of wine.
By allowing smaller wineries to have tasting rooms, Larner said vintners could sell retail directly to the consumer thereby paying off loans faster.
For Marshall Miller, Bien Nacido Winery’s vice president for finance and operations and tasting room manager, permitting more wineries would increase economic and environmental benefits.
Locally grown and processed grapes reduce the carbon footprint of having to truck the grapes outside of the county, he said. He added that it’s similar to the local food movement.
It also produces local tourism jobs at hotels, marketing, and in retail, Miller said.
“That all makes for a really nice ecosystem,” he said.
However, it’s no small investment to start a winery in Santa Barbara County. It costs anywhere from $1 million to $2 million for a small plot of land the size of around 5 acres, according to Larner. With a house, he said it’s closer to $2 million. Then tack on another cool million for a tasting room facility.
If the ordinance changes exclude smaller vintners, Miller fears it could turn into a game that only people with mega-bucks can play—such as millionaires, billionaires, and foreign investors.
But Field said that’s already happening. He said that he wants to support mom-and-pop wineries and young entrepreneurs, but there hasn’t been such in years.
Field cites wineries such Jonata, which has the backing of billionaire Stan Kroenke, owner of several professional sports teams, including the Los Angeles Rams, Denver Nuggets, and the Colorado Avalanche.
A tiered approach
The debate actually began more than 15 years ago. The first ordinance came in 2001, then was updated in 2004 to create a tiered approach to regulating wineries. That approach basically regulated what a winery can or can’t do based on its size.
Since that was adopted, according to Santa Barbara County Senior Planner David Lackie, there were noticeable gray areas that were open to interpretation. Projects that came through were approved on a case-by-case basis.
“It was becoming evident that some projects were inappropriate to use as far as vineyards to events,” he told the Sun.
In 2011, the Planning Commission began the process of revamping the ordinance. The result is what McLaughlin considers a more restrictive ordinance that limits what wineries can and can’t do based on parcel size. Smaller parcels have many more limitations in terms of event size and number of visitors, and whether owners can place a tasting room on the premises.
McLaughlin and vintners would like to see the ordinance provide for more relaxed restrictions on smaller vineyard operations.
The biggest concern is selling direct to consumers.
“We’re just advocating for farming operations in Santa Barbara County,” McLaughlin said. “It’s about bringing people to your land to sell your product.”
Working together
Larner’s biggest concern is that the county will adopt an ordinance for the entire county based on concerns coming from a small group of people.
“I feel like the county is misguided and misdirected and unfortunately has created a bigger monster than they are aware of,” he said. “There isn’t the ability to be a one-size-fits-all, and they’re trying to make it that.”
He calls it “pure classic NIMBYism,” which derives from the term NIMBY—or not in my backyard. Field rejects this notion.
“We discussed where waste disposal sites are, where the hotels are, but why should tasting rooms be excluded?” he asked.
The best way to approach new changes and resolve conflict, Larner thinks, is to work together.
“I think at some point, the county really ought to consider working with a task force, something that gets the community together.”
If there’s one thing all could agree on, it’s that Santa Barbara County is an ideal place to live, tasting room opponent Davenport said.
“We’re here because we love this place,” Davenport said. “Hopefully there’s a way we can coexist together.”
Staff Writer David Minsky can be reached at dminsky@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 15-22, 2016.
