In support of small wineries

[Shepherd]

The California law that permits wineries to have tasting rooms off-site (AB 1470) was authored by Noreen Evans in 2009. The purpose of the law was twofold: Allow smaller wineries to have tasting rooms so they can market direct to consumer and 2) ease the pressure on our rural areas by encouraging wine tasting activities to be located in urban centers. Now we have tasting rooms on the square in Healdsburg and Sonoma and a few others scattered about. This can address the wine industry's assertion that it needs to develop direct-to-consumer relationships. Marketing is indeed a challenge for smaller wineries.

Europe solved their problems with wineries as event centers in rural areas by concentrating wine tasting and other events in town centers. The wine industry could benefit by building a facility next to Luther Burbank Center, for example. It already has the beautiful Bruce Johnson sculpture park and other art on the grounds. Tourism and wine can work, but the wine industry uses a business model that not only does NOT work but causes collateral damage in many ways, including friction, pollution, environmental degradation, and angry neighbors. A center there would be easy to get to, put people in the center of Sonoma County and allow the true small guys to compete fairly against the global corporations.

Unfortunately, a tasting room in downtown SR is not as glamorous as a tasting room among the rolling hills of West County. But it can be a small piece of the solution.

AB 1470 also legalized the practice of allowing visitors to wineries to drink wine on winery picnic grounds. The local wine industry is not monolithic. The smaller wineries have different interests than the grape growers and large industrial-scale wineries.

For more information: Wine and Water Watch (www.winewaterwatch.org) (https://www.winewaterwatch.org)/)

[gypsey]

Shepherd, thanks for speaking up on behalf of small wineries. Although I appreciate and approve of the concept of tasting activities clustered in town centers, part of the charm and attraction for visitors going to smaller wineries is "discovering" these out of the way often family run wineries which each have their own unique beauty and style as well as wine. I've directed visitors to some of them and on their road trips they have also enjoyed many other attractions of our rural life, including farm tours, the river, the Sonoma coast, the many small and charming towns.

Providing visitors with a fully dimensional experience (not just a shopping center with a tasting room) actually encourages them to learn about and respect sustainable values---and they spend more money, which helps our economy and jobs. Many small winery associations ---not just the big guys--also raise money for charity with "passport" events --like the Wine Road. While these visitor opportunities may create pressures for rural areas, it's all about balance. Directing traffic to town centers with an overburdened infrastructure like Santa Rosa--sculpture garden or not---is not a complete solution. Many visitors are trying to get away from that kind of experience--parking, freeways--when they take the off roads to the small wineries.