Various people challenging the Wine Empire have described it as an "extractive industry." It uses more than its fair share of limited water and land in industrializing, urbanizing, and commercializing ways. Most of its benefits leave the North Coast into the hands of investors, increasingly from China and elsewhere. Most of the costs are paid by locals, especially those of us who have decided to live in rural areas, often because we love nature. Few young people can buy land here any more to transform it into food farms. It's time to GoLocal!
I've been re-watching the old film "Songcatcher," with Aidan Quinn and Janet McTeer. It is partly about the coal industry buying up land in North Carolina, where I used to live. One of the local boys represents that fossil fuel industry. At risk is the Appalachian culture, rich with beautiful music. There is a rich agrarian culture on the North Coast, which is being threatened by the Wine Empire. Though there are differences, the extractive nature of the coal industry with its strip mining has similarities to the wine industry.
When the Gallo Empire moved to Sonoma County it began cutting down hilltops to enrich itself. Left uncheck here the powerful Wine Empire would continue to get away with breaking all kinds of laws and ethical principles by hoarding resources. When I sent these ideas out to some activists, a local geologist responded as follows: "The coal industry and Gallo have a lot in common — both cut off the hilltops and shoved the rubble into the valleys, to make a more even topography (destroying fish habitat in the process)."
The star of the film is a female professor who is passed over for promotion by a male. So she heads to the hills, as this military veteran and others have, for various reasons. At first she has her doubts about that mountain culture. Then she hears the music and works to preserve it. So much is threatened by mono-cultural Big Wine. We could use some more artistic ways of describing and challenging its threats.
"Songcatcher" is available through the Sonoma County library, as well as in other ways. It is a moving testimony to Appalachian mountain culture. Our struggle is partly to preserve agrarian culture on the North Coast. It is more than just a political struggle, having cultural and even spiritual dimensions.