To reopen or not to reopen?
For wineries in some counties, like Sonoma, that is the question. As of last weekend, Sonoma is the only Bay Area county where wineries have gotten the greenlight to introduce outdoor wine tastings since shelter-in-place orders went into effect March 17. Other parts of the state with major wine industries, like Santa Barbara County, are slowly seeing some wineries resume tastings too.
In other words, for now it’s a patchwork, with some wineries allowed to open and others still prohibited. Why? Because winery tasting rooms aren’t included in California’s Stage 2 plans — part of the state’s phased-in process of reopening the economy after shelter-in-place — unless they serve full meals. Which turns out to be a thornier issue than many wine drinkers might expect.
Napa County, for example, forbids wineries from serving full meals. This might confuse you if you’ve ever enjoyed a cheese plate overlooking the Silverado Trail, but the key for Napa’s zoning codes is that the wine-food pairing has to be an accessory to the winery’s main purpose, which is agriculture. The food can be added on only as an afterthought to the wine; the food must be, as David Morrison of the Napa County Planning Department reminded vintners in a letter this week, “clearly incidental, related and subordinate to the primary use of the winery.”
Other counties, like San Joaquin, which includes the Lodi wine region, allow wineries to serve food as part of a special event. That may incentivize lots of wineries to hire food trucks or caterers to provide meals, once San Joaquin County moves further into Stage 2. One Lodi winery, Michael David, has a full restaurant and tells me it plans to reopen this weekend.
But as everyone tries to figure out the convoluted rules of each individual county under each stage of reopening, one question keeps coming up. Why are tasting room reopenings tied to food service? Will handling food actually make wineries safer?
Many wine industry leaders say no. On Tuesday, the heads of 31 California regional wine associations — groups like the Napa Valley Vintners, the Lodi Winegrape Commission and Monterey County Vintners — sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom asking him to reconsider the food-service condition. “It strikes us as illogical that a winery must offer a ‘sit-down, dine-in meal’ as a condition to reopen,” the letter reads. “If a winery can safely reopen with food service, a winery can certainly reopen safely without food service.” (Newsom, incidentally, co-owns three Napa wineries, Cade, Odette and PlumpJack, which he put in a blind trust while in office.)
Indeed, wouldn’t food service just introduce more potential contamination for visitors and winery employees? The fear of adding another point of contact has led some wineries to choose not to open, even if they could. “The need to serve food is daunting and we are not willing to put our employees at risk,” said Kenneth Wayne Blair, sales director at Preston Winery in Healdsburg. Instead of opening now, Preston is trying to focus on building up business through its farm store, which sells meat and produce.
I can see two reasonable arguments for the food requirement. One is that it will limit the overall number of wineries that can reopen, which is in the public interest right now, as we’re still seeing new coronavirus cases and want to encourage people to stay home. The other argument is that food is essential, while wine is not, and so the only way to justify wineries reopening is to have them function as restaurants.
But are restaurants essential? I’d argue no. That’s not to say restaurants shouldn’t be reopening right now, but if the goal is limiting all nonessential activities, then I don’t see how wineries are different from sit-down restaurants. And in Napa and Sonoma counties, restaurants like the French Laundry, the Restaurant at Meadowood and SingleThread are as potent a draw for tourists as wineries are. (Though none of those restaurants are currently open.)
Moreover, winery tasting rooms are uniquely suited to become relatively coronavirus-safe environments. They usually have outdoor space and often already take reservations. Many wineries, in Napa especially, will see only a few groups of people a day under normal circumstances. Their primary products — wine bottles — are pre-packaged, which strikes me as a lot safer than food products that require lots of handling.
My position, in other words, is that our state government’s logic is inconsistent. California’s small wineries are struggling, desperate to reinstate the crucial revenue channel that tasting rooms provide. And Californians are going stir crazy — and this tantalizingly beautiful weather we’ve had lately in the Bay Area is practically begging for a Wine Country road trip.
Still, I admit I have my misgivings about wineries reopening right now. The idea of crowds of people swarming a tasting room, even under these ultra-cautious protocols, still makes me worry whether we’re moving too fast, too impatiently, as we try to combat this pandemic together.
It’s just one little example of the endless moral dilemmas presented by the coronavirus crisis, which seems to make every decision harder. I appreciated what health expert Chunhuei Chi told Deborah Netburn in the LA Times: “The idea of safe or not safe is not black and white.”
What I’m drinking
Smith Story “The Boonies” Pinot Noir Anderson Valley 2017 ($58, 13.5%): I realize I’ve been writing only about white wine and rosé lately, but I promise I’ve been drinking red wine too. Here’s a great example of why Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley does Pinot Noir so well. This wine, from husband-wife team Eric Story and Ali Smith Story, comes from the so-called “deep end” of Anderson Valley — the valley’s northwestern stretches that are surrounded by redwood trees and get a lot of cool air from the Pacific Ocean. It’s a wine of simultaneous lightness and depth. Translucent and delicate, it nevertheless has a strong, firm frame, with intense notes of black cherry, wet earth and orange peel.
What I’m reading
• Ashley Fetters examines the trope of the “wine mom” in the Atlantic. “The wine mom has become a shape-shifting, multifaceted idea; she seems like a threat to some, a victim of circumstance to others, and to still others, she just seems like a good time,” Fetters writes.
• Another COVID-19 business casualty: The great gay leather bar the Stud, in SoMa, has permanently closed after 54 years. My colleague Ryan Kost has a great remembrance of this special place.
• But wait — it’s not all bad news! Check out this uplifting piece from The Chronicle’s Janelle Bitker about restaurants that are unexpectedly thriving during the shutdown.
Drinking with Esther is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicle’s wine critic. Follow along on Twitter: @Esther_Mobley and Instagram: @esthermob
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