Diners, Drive-Ins and. . . Wine?

Not everyone is smiling in Flavortown.

It seems that Flavortown’s CEO, president and emperor for life—Guy Fieri—has run into some serious local opposition to his plans to build a fancy Italian-esque winery, barrel storage facility and outdoor patio on seven acres of vineyard land he recently purchased west of Santa Rosa in Sonoma County.

Fieri, the boisterous, spiky-haired host of Food Network’s megahit “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” applied for permits to build Hunt-Ryd Winery (named for his sons, Hunter and Ryder) earlier this year but hearings on the proposal were stalled when neighbors demanded that county planning officials give more study to potential noise and traffic problems in the quiet rural residential area. Hearings slated for early December were cancelled due to the ferocious rain storm that slammed Northern California.

Current plans call for a “small, boutique” winery on the Willowside Road site, which is planted with Pinot Noir grapes that Fieri sells to Jackson Family Wines and Williams-Seylem. Reports indicate that the winery would produce approximately 10,000 cases of wine a year, host more than dozen special events, and be open by appointment on weekdays and without appointment on weekends.

More than 100 of Fieri’s potential neighbors have signed a petition opposing the project, which is said to have been repeatedly revised downward and will next be taken up by the county in January. The celebrity chef is no stranger to the area. He lives in Sonoma County and owns two restaurants in Santa Rosa, Johnny Garlic’s and Tex Wasabi’s.


California Droughts Expected to Lengthen, Worsen

Scientists researching the potential effects of climate change have bad news for California wine producers and other agricultural interests. Future droughts are likely to be worse and last longer than the current dry spell gripping the state, and ameliorating those droughts will be more difficult than ever.

The research findings prepared by some of California’s top climate experts at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and the U.S. Geological Survey suggest than by 2050 the state’s mountain snowpack, which provides the bulk of California’s fresh water, will be substantially less than at present. By 2100 it’s expected to be even worse, with the potential of making severe drought a year-round occurrence.

To cope with that possibility, the state Department of Water Resources has produced (and just released) a revised edition of its California Water Plan with an emphasis on managing the effects of climate change on the state’s water supply.

Among the plan’s 350 proposals to do that, according to the Sacramento Bee, are to breach levees and change land uses to allow rivers to reconnect with their historic floodplains, which would make it possible to hold floodwaters and renew groundwater wells. Other proposal involve changing reservoir rules to allow them to hold more water, plus increase conservation measures and water recycling.

The bill for all this won’t be cheap, the plan estimates. Some $200 billion will be necessary over the next 10 years just to maintain the same level of service, while in the future another $500 billion will be required from local, state and federal sources to make needed improvements.


Domestic Wine Market Just Keeps on Growing

Recession or no, the American wine market just keeps on growing. In fact, 2014 is projected to be the 21st consecutive year of expansion, according to the latest edition of The U.S. Wine Market: Impact Databank Review and Forecast.

True, the global financial crunch has trimmed a couple percentage points off pre-recessionary growth, from an annual average of 3.1 percent from 2003 to 2008 to 1.2 percent from 2008 to 2013. This year, the growth rate is forecast to be a relatively anemic 0.3 percent, which may not seem impressive by past rates but still figures into an almost 80 percent increase in domestic wine consumption over the last 20 years, an increase that last year saw the U.S. leapfrog France to become the world’s top wine-consuming nation.

Chardonnay retains its position as the country’s best-selling varietal, according to the report, with Cabernet Sauvignon in second place, and Pinot Noir, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc and Moscato posting enviable gains.

The star of the show, however, is sparkling wine, whose consumption has grown faster than any other varietal and the market as a whole for five straight years, a streak expected to continue in 2014. Much of the bubbly boom is driven by the increasing popularity of prosecco and consumers’ perception of sparklers as more than just occasional celebration wines. Though sparkling wines constitute just five percent of the domestic wine market, over the past several years production has increased by 25 percent. But while we may be making and drinking more bubbles than ever, we still lag behind to top five sparkling wine producers: France, Italy, Germany, Spain and (believe it or not), Russia.

Must be those frigid Russian winters.


Mid-Atlantic States Establish New Wine Region

 

More than 50 wineries in New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware are part of the newly formed Atlantic Vintage Wine Region. Hoping the replicate the marketing success of the nearby Finger Lakes Wine Region, the wineries in South Jersey are working with their local tourism board to convince potential visitors that the state has more to attract vacation dollars than its proximity to New York, clogged bridges and Tony Soprano memorabilia.

Among those attractions are a trio of South Jersey wine trails that link up with 20 wineries, many of them less than a dozen years old and striving to put their region’s name on American wine drinkers’ maps. Among the varietals common to the area are Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Vidal Blanc, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, and Sangiovese, which are said to be closer to California in style than the more austere wines of Europe.

Climactically, the Atlantic Vintage region falls somewhere between the short, chilly growing season of Finger Lakes and the long, balmy season of California. And a French wine magazine even compared the region’s terroir to that of Bordeaux, with gravel and loam layered with clay and sand, and a climate mellowed by the maritime influence of rivers.


Napa Wineries Get Rolling After Earthquake

With the damage estimate to the Napa Valley wine industry from August’s 6.0 magnitude earthquake pegged at $80 million and expected to keep growing, vintners and other industry players are banding together to minimize the fallout.

Though some estimates suggest that 60 percent of Napa’s wineries sustained damage ranging from $50,000 to several million dollars from the quake, which struck at 3 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 24, supporting businesses like shipping and warehousing reportedly were a good deal more fortunate, sustaining less damage than might be expected. And some vintners have already revised their damage estimates downward as they continued to assess the effects of the quake.

Many vintners whose wineries escaped relatively unscathed have offered help to their not-so-lucky colleagues, everything from free storage space for barrels to use of winemaking equipment to donations of services. And the Napa Valley Vintners association has founded the Napa Valley Community Disaster Relief Fund, pledging $10 million to get it up and running, as well as creating an online database of relief organizations.

As if to add insult to injury, a freak rain and hailstorm in late September slammed the county, though it was mostly confined to the Brown’s Valley area near the world-famous Carneros region. Luckily, most grapes had already been picked, and though some Cabernet Sauvignon grapes remained on the vine, it’s a hardy varietal that held up well under Mother Nature’s onslaught.

Now if war, famine and pestilence will just take a vacation, everything should be okay.


Wine Industry Execs Ponder the Future

The rise of craft beer and artisan cocktails, California’s ongoing drought, increased foreign and domestic competition, and human vs. mechanized grape harvesting are all issues on the minds of California wine industry executives as they try to set a course for the future, according to a survey conducted by Robert Smiley of the UC-Davis Graduate School of Management.

More than two dozen executives were sampled in the survey, which was presented at the recent 2014 Wine Industry Financial Symposium. Though some survey participants expressed concern that millennials’ affection for craft beers and cocktails may translate into a drop in wine sales, especially in restaurants, others saw that affection as potentially increasing the market for wineries’ products.

As one put it (all participants were quoted anonymously in the survey), “I’m thinking craft beer actually expands the market for us and offers an opportunity for millennial exploration and entry into the market, which will then progress up to wine.”

The drought is a big concern for everyone in the wine industry, with several executives noting the steps they’ve already taken to conserve water, among them adjusting the procedure for washing wine barrels, increased water recycling, changing the size of hoses used to wash tanks and barrels, and installing automated systems to control the cleaning process.

There also seemed universal agreement that the U.S. wine market will only become more competitive, with California vintners under pressure from wineries in other parts of the country and from those abroad, especially since domestic wine consumption continues to increase while European wine consumption is trending down.

Still, no one seems particularly worried. “California wines will continue to be

a very relevant, large, and important segment for the future at all of the different price points,” said one executive. “Because California wines’ value. . . and taste. . . are on par, if not better, than a lot of wines that come from other countries.”